Shock at the gas station: This is how drivers defy the high gasoline prices

It is happening in rapid succession: the prices for crude oil and gasoline have once again reached new long-term highs at the end of the week.

The North Sea oil variety Brent was on Friday at a good 85 dollars per barrel, more expensive than it has been for more than three years.

And the price for premium gasoline rose on Thursday to a nationwide average of 1.653 euros per liter, the highest level for nine years - in some places the prices have long been higher.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in business.

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There is no lack of proposals from politicians as to how the heavy burden on consumers due to the rise in energy prices could be alleviated.

After EU politician Katarina Barley had received a real shit storm for the idea that consumers should simply heat less and put on a warm sweater, an energy price cap was discussed, as was the proposal to reduce taxes and duties on petrol.

Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch and Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer have spoken out in favor of this.

But you cannot get out of a dilemma: If politicians want to reduce CO2 emissions for climate protection, they have to make petrol more expensive - and at the same time cannot make it cheaper for reasons of consumer protection.

Choose the right time of day to refuel

Motorists themselves have only limited options to react to high gasoline prices. If you are about to buy a new car, you can calculate whether you can afford an electric car or at least buy one with a lower fuel consumption. In the short term, unnecessary journeys can perhaps be avoided. But the question of whether to commute to work by car or train is a long-term decision for many. According to studies, the price elasticity of demand, which depicts such reactions to high prices, is rather low in the short term. In the longer term, it is around minus 0.4, says Manuel Frondel, energy specialist at the RWI research institute: "If fuel increases by 10 percent, consumption is reduced by 4 percent."

In its current "Petrol Price Mirror", which the FAZ has exclusively in advance, the RWI deals with how consumers can save by using the price cycles at the petrol stations during the course of the day (see graphic below). Petrol is particularly expensive in the morning in rush hour traffic, the best times are between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. and between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. "In 2015 there was only one price cycle per day - gasoline prices fell from their peak in the early morning to early evening, and rose again later in the evening," the study says. "In the meantime, the prices are rising and falling at a faster rate - this has made it more difficult to find a good time to refuel."

Over the years, the most expensive time to refuel has also shifted, reports the RWI: Until 2018 it was still at night - since then in the early morning.

ADAC: Shell and Aral are often the most expensive

It can be worthwhile not only to refuel at the right time, but also at the right petrol station.

Aral and Shell are often the most expensive, the ADAC recently reported in an evaluation.

The Federal Cartel Office has raised that choosing the right petrol station in a city and at the right time could save an average of 20 cents per liter.

Gasoline price apps should help with the search.

In 2012, when gasoline was as expensive as it is now, Germany decided on this path.

The petrol stations report their prices to a market transparency point; petrol price apps for smartphones are based on this. 56 such apps are offered on the website of the Market Transparency Unit, from the ADAC app to Clever-Tanken and PetrolPreis24. In 2018, the Federal Ministry of Economics evaluated what the whole thing had achieved: It came to the conclusion that millions of motorists had downloaded the apps - it is not known whether this has made petrol cheaper. The RWI now writes in its study that the number of price changes at petrol stations has probably increased due to the apps.

There are other ideas as to what could be done. The “Austrian model” is the name of a concept from the neighboring Alpine country that was recently extended to the end of 2022. It stipulates that petrol stations are only allowed to raise prices once a day, always at noon at noon. The inventors' hope was, as it were, that fewer opportunities for price increases would also dampen the price level. At the time, however, economists working with Justus Haucap from Düsseldorf demonstrated in simulations: Exactly the opposite is the case. Petrol stations and oil companies prefer to raise prices a little more if they know that no further price increases are allowed on that day.

Another procedure is called the “Luxembourg model”, in which the petrol stations are given an upper limit for each individual price increase.

However, there is a risk that petrol stations will then use this upper limit more often than they would have done without the upper limit.

In any case, in experiments by the Düsseldorf competition researchers, the average price tended to be higher.

A third variant is called the “Western Australian model”.

In Western Australia, petrol stations must report their prices for the next day to the Department of Commerce at 2 p.m.

That should bring more reliability for the motorist.

In simulations, it resulted in neither higher nor lower prices.