[Ragavsr]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The entire thesis that fuel prices have a major inflationary effect is not borne out by facts. But for most upper middle class car buyers

Voted YES.
The country is staring at stagflation due to extremely high fuel prices and prices of food commodities and you are saying it does not have inflationary effect ?

Counting the cost of car and dividing it by kilometres doesn't make sense. It's a fixed cost whether you drive 40k kms in 15 years or 7 lakh kms in 15 years. If people (the rich, not even counting upper middle class ) thought the same way as you say, diesel German cars wouldn't be outselling petrols in a ratio of 10:1. Fuel price is a daily recurring expense and it pinches the most. I drive my scooter for short distances to save fuel costs despite having a 15 lakh car at home and I know people who even own Ford Endeavours down south in Bangalore and Chennai but who commute by bike to office to save fuel and time spent in traffic. That also has to do with the more egalitarian nature of society here compared to up North where image conveyed by a big car is everything.

I would have no problem paying 100 rupees per litre if the real cost of fuel is that and oil is selling for 150$. But the reality is the government is looting the people and sucking blood out of us to build vanity projects like central vista and new home for the PM. Back in 2014, petrol was already taxed at high rates, now it's atrociously high. And before someone tells that petrol prices are higher in Europe, their per capita incomes are 20-30 times higher.

100% of mine and my family's income is from salaries on which taxes are deducted before they even reach me. I have no intention to donate any more than needed in the form of extortionary fuel taxes. Paying 100 rupees for a litre of petrol means the indirect cost is over 140 rupees as that 100 rupees is already obtained by earning 140 rupees.

And no,I would not skip a fancy dinner to pay more donations to the government. Next time I travel to my native , I will take a train. The reality is most of Indian families evolved from being poor to doing well. Most will track every rupee being spent whether it hurts or not.

[ShivWason17]

Not driving less due to fuel prices, although the choice of the car picked depends on it. I have an Octavia 1.8 and a Swift (both petrol). Earlier I was using Octavia extensively everywhere, now I keep the fuel costs and consumption in mind while picking up the car.

Regardless of the fuel prices, my driving had come down to a mere 15k km per year now from 35k km per year earlier and due to which I was comfortable to switch to both petrol cars. With the roaring fuel prices, I wonder if I made the right decision.

[pkk077]

More than fuel price, I think people should worry about amortizing the car cost itself. I just checked on Revv that the cost of renting a Baleno for whole of July is about 64,000 Rs with a limit of 3600 Kms. Assuming a hefty 50% margins here, the cost of owning a Baleno still comes to 32,000 per month. And if one drives say 2000 Kms in a month, the cost at even 8 Rs per km is only half of what you are paying for the car.

[amol4184]

Voted no.
Shock value of number 100 is strong, just like it was for when petrol hit 50. After a few days the feeling resides and that number just becomes a matter of fact and I pay up nonchalantly.

I do not know anyone who stopped or reduced driving because of the fuel costs. I do know people buying a used car to offset sky-high gas prices.

[ManasN95]

Voted YES.

I have bought a pre-owned Honda City AT last June,
and I for one, cannot digest the bloody petrol prices and it's not coming down at all.

I'm thinking of, and almost decided on converting to CNG once I can afford it. I need to haul a lot of cargo in and around Mumbai, the petrol rates just aren't affordable anymore.

Lower middle classes simply cannot afford it.

[Sarinkrc]

I certainly don't understand the pricing of fuel in India. The Central govt when they changed the pricing of fuel to daily pricing they had mentioned that ALLL CONSUMERS ARE GOING TO BENIFIT WITH THIS pricing mechanism. Every day is certainly not ACHE DIN. i agree to one thing when international crude oil prices increase our fuel prices increase. But when international crude oil prices decreases there is still no change in prices or even a reduction. How long can the govt turn a blind eye and keep taxing the people? Half the fuel costs is being charged as taxes. Due to the lockdowns people aren't going out much, so it doesn't pinch much. Once everyone starts moving travelling its definitely going to drain everyone's pockets & Budget.

[Totoro11]

Voted 'No' ... as GTO said earlier, i would find ways of compensating fuel cost with other discretionary expenses that i have. Nothing substitutes the fun of driving. We have to take this price hike as a new normal and move on. Don't we accept OEMs increasing car prices every 2nd month. Govt is in the business of managing income vs expenditure and last 1.5 years haven't been good for anyone.

Taking a slightly contrary view here, i personally believe Tax on consumption is always better than tax on income (we are a country with minuscule percentage of tax payers to total population, so many exemptions and so much tax theft)... fuel and other indirect taxes have no way of being avoided. Whether you pay income tax or hide your income with creative accounting, you still have to pay GST when you buy luxury goods or a pack of biscuits. So this leads to a much more egalitarian tax regime.

I would any day take fuel price going from 90 to 100 or 100 to 125 instead of the income tax getting raised from 30% to 50%. At least then i have a choice to control my consumption if i dont want to pay the tax (i know there are people who dont have a choice due to their profession but how is it any different from any other commodity or raw material price going up... it is just the cost of doing business and earning a livelihood)

Of course, being indians we find ways of avoiding indirect taxes by under invoicing, cash sales etc but i believe such practices are only going to decline with time.

Disclaimer: as an honest taxpayer i do have grave concerns on how the tax money is being used by govt but that's subject for a different thread perhaps. However, my bigger concerns is people not paying the right amount of tax or no tax at all.

[anand.shankar]

Voted No, Never cared about fuel prices, not that I'm loaded with cash or anything. However, last year or so my vehicles have run so less that for the first time the fuel expenses was negligible The only plus side of the pandemic is that its extended my Punto's life by a year.

Understand the GoI is going to be under a lot of financial stress and they are probably going to use this as a source of income until things stabilize, which is fair though. This might indirectly drive up the adoption of EVs. Hopefully, we see cars with better range and charging time and quickly ramp up the charging infrastructure as well.

[kpkeerthi]

A resounding YES! I wouldn't take a trip unless absolutely necessary though I love driving. Problem is not money but being sane. I'd rather take a walk for a fine dinner.

[Gansan]

I drive only when I have to, so fuel prices don't bother me. And during these pandemic times even if they bother me I have no other go. I regularly used public transport too whenever I conveniently could, before the pandemic. I used to have one day every week as "no personal vehicle" day. I don't know when I will be able to do that again.

[Mango]

While I would not be driving any lesser, the extra fuel bills do hurt the pockets, even more so for us because while many people have not been driving during lockdown, my dad being a frontline worker was driving more than usual as i have noticed. Let me put everything in terms of how our costs have increased from the lockdown and various other factors :

Preface

We were driving a 2013 Ecosport Diesel till last year and in the recent years our running was near to 10000 kms a year and were supposed to replace it with a Petrol Car since our running was comparatively low and we live in NCR which highly influenced this decision. After the first lockdown in August we bought a Hyundai Grand i10 Nios Petrol because my dad desperately needed an Automatic and we weren't in the mood to shell big money for a car more expensive than 10-12 lakhs as we didn't feel the need and had to keep our finances in order considering the effects of the pandemic.

Now instead of 1 car we had two cars to fill up but in general only one car was used at a time and i'll be taking all the prices of Delhi. There may be some inaccuracies and dilemmas since i'll be comparing the fuel cost of a diesel with petrol but i'll try to create an accurate representation and fill in the information comparing both the cars. Now this will not be a Petrol vs Diesel debate but i'll compare both anyway to see the differences. I'll take the average mileage of both the cars and use them as follows :

Ford Ecosport Fuel Tank Capacity : 52L
Average Mileage Used : 14kms/L = 7.1L/100km
Hyundai Grand i10 Nios Fuel Tank Capacity : 37L
Average Milage Used : 11.9kms/L = 8.4L/100km
Average commute to my Dad's office : 22kms (one side)
Total distance travelled for commuting to office in a month : 22x2x22 working days = 968 kms ~ *1000kms

*For everyones sanity and making calculations easier to have a better understanding, i'll take the monthly commute to be a 1000 kms in which we can include the necessary stints for Groceries.

The following data was obtained from the website mentioned and i found them to be fairly accurate and near to real life prices : https://www.bankbazaar.com/fuel-price-india.html

This is the overall view of the costs involved and how they changed over the past year:



Conclusions from the above data:

The overall increase in monthly cost for the Ecosport was ₹1498.1 (+32.79%) and for the i10 was ₹1915.2(+31.77%) in just over a year from the initial fuel prices in March 2020.

Now as mentioned above, only one car was driven at a time so theres about an average of ₹1706.65 increase in our monthly cost. However this doesn't paint the whole picture. We initially just had the Ecosport and the i10 arrived in the first week of August. So let me dive deeper into my thought process.

During the first phase of lockdown, the Ecosport was barely driven and didn't even need to be filled up. However as the lockdown was lifted for essential workers our Ecosport saw a few hundred kms of commute.

June-20 - Unlock 1.0
With Unlock 1.0 my Dad's daily commute increased because not only was he driving to his office but also to other governments offices and ministries because of his work.The traffic was nearly non-existent and the car was not used for anything other than daily commute to work.

July-20 - Unlock 2.0
Now, as we entered the unlock of the nation, somehow the whole nation seemed to be on the road, and the government hiked the prices of Diesel by a whopping ₹10 and for the first time I saw Diesel being more expensive than Petrol. This meant not only there was a lot of traffic as people were using their private vehicles over public transport but the mileage and commute time increased significantly. The situation with traffic in Delhi-NCR was so bad that my Dad started generating knee-pain and there was a desperate call for an automatic car. We researched and landed on the i10 NIOS AMT petrol (Diesel was more Expensive anyway) and we reasoned that we can trade the petrol's less mileage for convenience and hoped to get anywhere around 14-15km/L, but hope we did.

August-20 - More Chaos
We received our i10 on August 5, and then on August 9, a nation wide protest happened as farmers marched to the capital and blocked the roads. Since we live right at the Border of Delhi-NCR, just crossing the border took several hours. It nearly took my Dad 4hrs to commute the same 20 odd kms due to the Jam and chaos that unfolded. The i10 happily gulped the fuel instead of sipping it and it took half a tank to reach the office and the other half to come back home. Nearly ₹3000 worth of fuel to travel 50 kms that day. I found myself filling the car thrice that week.

June-21 - Lockdown
The Ecosport has been hibernating and has been driven only few thousand kms since we bought the i10. My dad got Covid in April and the i10 was used to run around for supplies by me, the short stints didn't help the mileage and I realised recently that we were paying the same amount to fill a tiny i10 that we used to fill the Ecosport for. The borders are still blocked and things are do not seem to improve even for the next couple of months in terms of fuel prices or easing of the traffic in Delhi NCR. My dad regretfully said "should have bought a Diesel Auto".

Final Conclusions
While we are incredibly lucky and somewhat privileged to be in a position to be financially stable in these tough times, many aren't and it stings to see our monthly cost rise by even a thousand bucks. The increased price will definitely increase the price of other goods as well and would probably be the nail in the head of an already suffering population in this crisis.

[parambyte]

It’s a huge cost to fill your car and anyone who says aren’t much affected must be very very well off and hence lucky.
Cars and driving are a huge part of me, and now it pinches every time I pull into a fuel station.
Add to that the exorbitant cost of highway tolls, every 65-70km.
It’s all taking a, well, toll.

When buying a car, you pay exorbitant taxes. Including road tax.
When driving you pay exorbitant taxes on fuel.
When driving and using half good roads you pay exorbitant tolls.
And what income is left after paying all this is also taxed very heavily.

Well yes it does pinch into your driving pleasure.

[Sanjunair5]

Voted yes. I drive a fair bit. And I drive to everywhere, hate taking public transport. About 5-6 years back when my car was new there were several months when I did three tank full a month (~200 liters of diesel). But over the last 3-4 years or so, ever since the fuel price escalation has become the norm, I have cut down on some travel and avoided some travels, and visits to the gas station has come down as well. That said, I still drive a fair bit and I will continue to drive that fair bit. But I am now more cognizant and conscious of the cost of travel than I was before.

[surajspai]

I am not eligible to vote, but my answer would be no.

I commute 30km daily with the occasional grocery runs on my primary vehicle- Activa 125 bs3. I purchased it primarily for the utility that a scooter provides, (along with the fact that I don't possess a licence for geared two wheelers) though I would really have preferred a fuel efficient bike for the cost savings and comfort factor.

I've never really bothered to keep track of the fuel economy of my scooter, except during a couple of highway runs, or after a service to make sure everything is working fine. Logic being that no matter the running cost of fuel, I have to make the trip anyway, so why worry?

On the bright side, since prices crossed 92, I strictly drive within the economy range on my scooter! I never exceed 50km/h onward and drive at 40 km/h during the return journey. It makes commute safer, my scooter is happy as I'm not bashing it into potholes and I'm less stressed at the end of the journey.

[kozhissery]

I've voted No.
I don't take out my car except when whole family is out, if it is just me or me/wife combination it is the activa (unless it is raining)
Bike is taken out for enjoying, so fuel does not count.
As my office is nearby, petrol charges does not hurt. I even don't know how much mileage my Activa gives.