Other countries pay 7 dollars a gallon for fuel, the US pays 4 a gallon. How do other countries function with such high fuel prices? How do things get transported? How does the economy run?
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Where do they have 7 $ a Liter ?! 😱
Prices in the UK at the moment are about £1.80/L, so about 8.5 dollars per US gallon.
We generally operate smaller, more fuel efficient cars. We drive shorter distances – our towns and cities are more compact, and distances between things are often smaller.
And while fuel is more expensive we have other areas where our costs are much lower. Yes, I might have to spend a couple of thousand more in fuel per year than an American, but I don’t have to worry about crippling healthcare bills, our cost of living in terms of rent is on average lower, etc. A large part of that higher fuel cost is tax, which in theory buys us a range of other benefits such as transport infrastructure work, public transport subsidisation, etc.
Can’t talk about other regions, but for Europe:
* People drive more efficient cars (pickups are nearly non-existent in Europe).
* The distances are generally shorter than in the US and more of the continent is accessible by sea or train (important for freight transport)
* It’s really not that big of a difference. Yeah we pay nore for fuel, but it doesn’t mean the whole economy will stop functioning if one part of transport costs more.
I see others have all noted better fuel efficiency. Let me put that into context. I drive a Range Rover Velar in the U.K. On motorways at 70mph I get well over 50mpg. I looked up the figures for the USA and the official highway MPG is 26
Even accounting for our gallon being a bit bigger than yours, that’s a huge difference.
The vehicles are more fuel efficient because we are used to the prices, but also we are used to the price, it is a jump in price that people find difficult not the price itself.
“In the US 100 years is a long time, in Europe 100 miles is a long way.”
More compact, more public transit by a significant margin, more rail transit for shipping, generally more fuel efficient smaller cars, and balanced out with other costs.
People use less fuel
That’s it, that’s how.
Now how do they do that? Well first off the US has some of the most fuel-inefficient cars on average. In the US personal vehicles average about 25 mpg, in Europe, it’s about 38 mpg. So even when they do drive it’s using less gas.
Secondly, they need to drive less. US cities are just…built wrong so everyone needs to or at least feels like they need to drive *everywhere.* There is very little if any public transportation within anything but the largest cities, and even those networks are terrible compared to most of Europe. And forget about potentially cycling or walking anywhere. And no, it’s not because the US is “a bigger country” the cities are just built to make you need a car in the US and aren’t in Europe (for the most part)
Thanks. Answer was so simple I should have realized it.
I live in Vienna, Austria and I don’t even own a car because I don’t need it and I hate driving.
Public transport in Vienna is 365 Euro a year and commuting to work with the subway is faster than with a car. I pay extra when I go outside of Vienna (e.g. for vacations), but train tickets aren’t expensive in Austria.
*This isn’t an anti-car statement, it’s just a fact:*
*The US is more reliant on cars than other countries are.*
The US has a larger driving population than other countries also without much public transport. The design of many US cities is also to blame for this.
It’s all supply and demand. Average wages for the average consumer buying the fuel also plays a large role.
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