Swedes ditch cars as petrol prices remain high

This is the conclusion reached by the Swedish Petroleum Institute (SPI) after petrol sales dropped by seven percent in the month of June this year.

Speaking to the TT news agency, the SPI’s CEO Ulf Svahn said that the new car models on the market do not burn as much petrol as the old cars.

“However, the fact that petrol consumption has gone down cannot only be due to diesel or ethanol fueled cars, but is also caused by people actually driving less.”

Svahn was surprised by the extent of the drop in sales; he had expected a drop of around four to five percent.

“A four to five percent drop would not have surprised me so much in June. A high petrol price usually precedes a drop in sales. Historically, we have dropped a couple of percent, but now it is seven percent and this is more than I expected”, Svahn said.

Concurrently, sales of diesel fuel have risen by three percent this June, compared to sales figures a year ago. And sales of diesel fuel rose by 4.4 percent during the year’s first half, whilst sales of ethanol fuel E85 have more than doubled this year.