Fuel discount: relief effect melts due to rising fuel prices

The fuel discount costs the state billions and is intended to relieve the burden on drivers. However, increased prices at the pumps mean that ultimately less savings are made than hoped. In the case of fuel, the price increase is also difficult to understand.

A few days after the start of the fuel discount, fuel prices leveled off slightly above the starting level. According to the ADAC, a liter of Super E10 cost 2.137 euros on a nationwide daily average on Sunday. That was 2.3 cents more than on Thursday. For diesel it was 2.253 euros per liter - 0.9 cents more.

“This means that part of the initial relief effect has been partially offset within just a few days,” says the traffic club. "The energy tax cut has led to a significant drop in fuel prices, but the relief is already disappearing again."

There is currently no obvious explanation for the development of Super E10, as the oil price and the euro-dollar exchange rate have changed little. “From a consumer perspective, this renewed price increase is therefore difficult to understand.”

The fact that prices have increased compared to Thursday was also evident at the usual daily low directly before the midday jump. A few hours after the start of the tax reduction, E10 was temporarily available for less than two euros at many gas stations, but on Monday morning people searched for it in vain in many places.

Shortly before midday, the ADAC app did not show any such offers for Berlin, Hamburg or Stuttgart. In Leipzig or Cologne there were isolated prices below 2 euros - in Munich, which has often been particularly cheap recently, at least more than one in three gas stations offered E10 for under 2 euros, at least for a short period of time. On Thursday, this was still the case for more than one in two people there.

It is difficult to assess how well the tax cut of 16.7 cents per liter will be passed on. There are several reasons for this. Among other things, fuel prices fluctuate due to various influencing factors. In addition, they had already given in in the days before the discount started. Depending on whether you compare the Sunday prices with the daily averages from September 30th, 29th or 28th, they are, for example, 10.5 to 13.9 cents lower at E10. For diesel it is 13.7 to 17.2 cents.

This discussion had already taken place with previous fuel discounts. The industry association en2x had always emphasized then and now in advance that the discount would be passed on in full; consumer advocates and economic researchers had come to the opposite conclusions.