Our NH Hotel is in the suburbs of Leipzig. Across the street is a Globus Store - a real nice department store with good prices. It would remind you of a Walmart or Target - but cleaner. They also sell discount gasoline.
You can see from the sign that diesel fuel is about 16% cheaper than regular gasoline with 10% alcohol. You can also buy gasoline without alcohol for a few pennies more. Premium gasoline is just another 6 cents above gasoline at only $1.19 - let me do the conversions.
Now before you go thinking that gasoline is $1.20 a gallon. The above prices are per liter! A liter is a little bigger than a quart. Also the price is per euro and a euro is worth $1.10. To keep it simple - multiply the price by 4 (quarts to gallons) and then add 10% for the dollar thingy.
One euro per liter ends up being about $5.30 per gallon. That is the cheapest I have seen it over here.
You can see why at least half of the cars are burning diesel here. I am also guessing that 70% are standard transmission. Many of them are just plain tiny. All three things add up to paying less to drive. The price is kept high by the government taxing fuel - they want to keep the people using less.
Americans love driving their big cars. Now that gasoline is back to $2.00 a gallon in America - big SUV's and vans are flying out of the auto showrooms. Electric and hybrid cars are gathering spider webs. We love burning cheap gasoline. Due to new processes - like fracking - tar sands - and shale oil - America has become a major oil producer. People love driving their SUVs and vans to anti-fracking rallies.
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