This calls for policy/regulation changes. Diesel pricing is complex. We may argue that diesel engine is more efficient than petrol and hence shouldn't be discouraged. You can't have same fuel with differential pricing. It's not practical, esp. in India. Cheaper subsidized diesel meant for essential goods carrier would ultimately find its way to cars via grey market. Hence putting additional tax on diesel cars upfront is a better idea.

But more importantly than the above, govt. should seriously consider reducing taxes and levies heavily on hybrids and electric vehicles and completely do away tax on mass transport/public transport coaches/vehicles.

-- navshot

Fuel prices are on the rise and the fuel expenditure is increasing like anything. It will just continue that way. I just wanted to check how much money is spent on fuel per month mostly.

vasanth made the title shorter. hope it is ok. very good poll. that is an important statistic. it will be a slightly biased value, because we are using internet but still quite useful. would also love to get this in relative terms. that is what percentage of the total family income is spent on fuel? do you think factoring in vehicle maintenance costs will be useful?

TS, I share your thoughts. And I feel alternate fuels, more likely than not, would have alternate side effects. Take the example of bio-fuel. Just about 3 years back everyone were pushing for it saying its the best near term alternative... but now we realize that its responsible for pushing millions into hunger.

I think we've come a full cycle... from localization to globalization and next, back to localization?. I'm sure people world over would start talking about the importance of localization, which may drastically reduce the amount of fuel needed to transport commodities across the globe. In some areas it maybe bad thing for India, but overall it would be better for the environment.

-- navshot

I posted it, later on I felt 0 should have been an option for those who just use BMTC+Auto combination or electric cars or bicycles and wanted to have more granular in the range of 1,000 rupees. Couldn't edit though.

Percentage factor of family income is also a good poll. I do see many people spending just for car fuel for highly fuel consuming cars as well as to maintain and enhance them more than the amount they spend on their family needs (showkie problem).

Next poll we can have the amount spent on maintenance plus usage.

whoever voted sorry folks cleared some votes. please vote again.

Hi All, it is the recession time. Market is doing badly, shares and mutual funds are under loss and inflation is on the higher side  due to increase in fuel expenses. Today it has hit $142. This has compounding effect. Salaries in the IT field are also not increasing due to recession in the US. Personal finance needs to be managed effeciently and sensibly for which managing the fuel expenses is a key factor. Wasting fuel thereby wasting money by driving a huge car/SUV for luxurious feeling doesn't make  sense during this time. This scenario will continue and global oil prices will not come down.

Government needs to improve the Public Transport at this point of time with alternative fuels like fuel cell buses or Electricity. This will improve the traffic scenario. Delhi BRTS was the right step with CNG+Electric propelled buses, but people are not perceiving it in the right direction. Ofcourse it could have been done better.

Railways needs to electrify most of the routes urgently needed are Bangalore-Mysore and Bangalore-Arsikere routes to keep the fares checked.

I agree with you, Pricing is the key. But instead of pricing Cars at source, i say price the fuel higher. From My understanding, Diesel Cars give a greater mileage than Petrol. This would mean less consumption. Now instead of pricing Diesel Cars Higher at Source, I would prefer to price Diesel and Petrol at the same Price. For essential supplies, Busses, Trucks, Trains...and other public utility vehicles/services Diesel can be subsidised. Why should fancy SUVs and Cars have subsidised fuel costs? Increasing the source cost of a Diesel Car, would only restrict people from buying it or maybe even cringing and spending more. But taxing the fuel would be more effective as the existing Diesel Car Owners will also be require to conform to the new ideology. At the same time, there has to be a norm on Fuel Guzzling Luxury Sedans/SUVs. And at the same time Tax Benefits for Hybrids and Electric Cars. If we dont take drastic measures, enforce and take action soon we will land up in such deep pit that climbing out is not going to be an option! The period of "educating" car owners is long gone, now it has to be ENFORCED!

Well fuel bills with 4,000+ should be reconsidered. Lot of families total earning will be in this range. Spending that much on fuel is just waste like anything. Please reconsider your travelling modes and your requirements. A marketive executive cannot do much on his fuel bill so is the contractor of a building. But, normal office goers with fuel bills in excess of 4,000+ need to reconsider their mode of transport, their vehicle etc.

Please do not consider your spending ability, mean to say if 10,000 for fuel bill is peanuts for you and that's why you spend that way, don't ever think in that direction. Consider oil as an important resource which is scarcely available. Chennai is facing fuel shortage and Bangalore may soon. Currently scenario is OK in Bangalore. I saw people in Chennai standing in queue for 2 hours to refuel their cars on NDTV yesterday.

May be in future we may get ration cards for fuelling.It is sensible to use smaller cars if not avoidable, use  public transport wherever possible and use 2 wheeler for single travel within smaller distances. Please come out of personal ego barrier of travelling only in cars. Avoid intercity travel in cars as much as possible both for safety as well as fuel reasons. Lot of my friends who are basically from Mysore travel alone in car during weekends fuelling for nearly 1,000 rupees for to and fro travel for alone. They just don't want to goto bus stand or railwaystation. Isn't it a pure waste?

It's a scary thought to run dry! Its like being paralysed! It shows how dependent we have become on fuel. I hope we take notice of this and start investing our time, energy and money in the development of alternative feuls. For a start the govt can reduce the 104% tax on the hybrid cars! Which takes me back to my earlier point - elevated roads and flyover only increase the consumption of Fuel. Lets face it the price is never going to come down! What we need is a really good Metro Rail (electric) instead of these fuel guzzling SUVs!

With the Metro, Mono and Buses serving all, I would like to see more vote towards no fuel expenses and less than 2,000. The freeway concept proposed by Government increases the fuel expenses rather. For instance, there are lot of shortcut 'gullies'  in Bangalore which are most used by 2 wheelers. Lot of them have cars, but, still feel it is faster as well as fuel economical to go through these short cut narrower roads which in Kannada is called 'gullies'. They will in turn bring their cars if these freeways are started. This american concept is a fuel guzzling thing which should not be encouraged.

The peaks are with two bands, can we categorize it as: 

Between 1,000 - 2,000 Rs - mostly two wheeler, sometime car ?

Between 4,000 - 5,000 Rs - mostly car, sometimes two wheeler ?

After the fuel hikes and in anticipation of further hikes..this band might shift one level up for the second catgory(4000-5000 -> 3000-4000) listed above...I am trying for that myself!

Saw a couple of empty Bunks on OMR and tommorrow is a Bharath Bundh which could be state sponsored.Situation already looks scary in just 10 hours after lorry strike has begun.

Vasanth makes an important point.  Oil is a finite resource.  The proven reserves globally are about 850-1000 GB (billion barrels).  The world consumes about 30GB/year of which the US consumes about 7GB/year. 

Discoveries of oil peaked in the 1960s (the world used to find 3 barrels for every barrel used). That shifted to a 1:1 in the 80s and in the last 10 years we have been using 5 barrels for every barrel we find.  Many of the big producing countries are now in decline - the US(1970), Mexico, North Sea, Indonesia, Norway.   Many of the giant fields in Saudi (Ghawar), Kuwait have been producing oil for about 50 years now and flow rates are kept up by water injection.  Russia's production has hit a peak and may now be flat. 

India consumes about 1 Billion barrels of crude oil annualy and imports about 70-75% of its crude oil requirements.  Our oil import bill is in the range of $90Billion at today's rates.  Oil prices are not going south in a hurry.  But people don't care till it hits their wallets.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted "tight" supplies till 2013.  This same agency till 6 months back was giving a rosy forecast.  Oil production has remained stagnant from 2005 at about 86 million bpd.  Oil demand has been growing.  Exports (which really matter) have been declining as oil producers, flush with cash, are on a consuming spree.  All this does not bode well for the Indian economy,

Our government needs to have a strategic plan to ensure that oil is not wasted hauling 1200 kgs of metal with one human in it.  We need to price petrol in a way that forces conservation.  Diesel cars need to be taxed at source.  Else we face the prospect of oil companies going broke and petrol rationing.  And we face fiscal deficits that will push inflation even higher and the poor will suffer even more.

Money being spent on these fancy flyovers needs to go towards mass transit and bus infrastructure.  Else we will pay heavily for it in the next 5 years.

Srivathsa

current stats of Prius and Civic Hybrids are 48 miles per gallon..

this is about 20 kms per Lt of petrol..small cars in india like the alto and i10 come close to this number..and the diesels are even better..

so unless they fit a hybrid on small cars like alto or an i10..its really a bloated idea that hybrids as a panacea..

Honda is trying to bring out a fit/jazz(their small car) with hybrid..that would be interesting..we still need to wait till 2010 for that!

increasing the consumption from 15 kms/litre to 20-or even 30 kmpl to me sounds not drastic enought to make a change/difference. What we need to explore is alternative fuel technology.

Cars such as Honda's FCX. Renewable energy must be researched more. Such initiatives needs trong support from the govt in setting up fuel supply. To me this whole petroleum issue seems to be a world wide lobby!

No govt. is interested in solving the issue - they are merely postponing the worst - which gets worse and worse! They all seem to be "pitying" the car manafactrures, wooing the investment and dont care two hoots about the bigger problem. Have a look at Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth - its more of a Horror Film than a documentary!

If I were the govt these are some of the steps I would like to take:

• Set a minimum mileage per vehicle for each segement.
• Not subisides Fuel but instead use the money to build an alternative fuel public transport system. the Govt plays something like 20,000 crores as compensation to the oil companies. Image the no. of Metro rails possible with that money!
• Encourage Electric Vehicles, Hybrids, Alternative Fuel Cells....etc. Give them subisidy, tax exemption and maybe land to set up units.
• Set a research institute dedicated to studying areas of alternative fuels.

W've let this place burn for too long, its about time we did some serious fire fighting - thats if we want the next generation to live on earth!

SB,

I think your data points to the importance of car pooling and shared autos (e.g.)

A key point you miss is that buses turnover passengers; cars dont.  While at any point there may only be 30-40 passengers in a bus (BMTC normal buses do better for sure), people get on and off.  If there are 10 stops and just 4 people get on and off at each stop - you have doubled the total number of passengers hauled.  Good route planning with stops every 500m can get better utilization.

The other problem is that if everyone used this logic, the roads would get so crowded that the new diesel car would give only 12 km/litre (Shastri's picture tells a million words).  Autos give closer to 20-22 km/l based on my conversations with drivers.

In Bangalore, A/C buses are not that critical - 10months/12 the weather borders on blissful.  If roads are less crowded, normal buses can get upto 4.75-5 km/l.  If effectively 100 people use a bus in peak hour, we get close to 500 passenger-km/l.   

Srivathsa

I recently read Mr Saminathan's wise words that stuck. He argued that by subsidizing oil prices in India, we are actually funding the Middle East nations. His logic was - low prices mean increased consumption. Our nation anyway pays up the true price of oil to the Gulf nations. so by encouraging consumption by keeping consumer prices low, our nation is actually putting more money in OPEC nations pockets.

Sort of similar to what Srivatsa said above. Mere talking doesn't lead to conservation of any resource. Its like the chants of "let us conserve water, its very precious" - water is so cheap, that type of rhetoric just doesn't and can't work. Anyway.

• I was talking to some BMTC Volvo drivers, and they said their buses give 2 - 2.5 kmpl of diesel. Lower numbers on heavier load and vice versa. Assuming 30 people in the bus, you are looking at 60 person-kilometer per liter of diesel.
• A good new diesel car gives you 16-18 kmpl. Assuming 4 people in it, you are looking at a similar number - 70 person-kilometer per liter of diesel.
• An autorickshaw gives you 30-32 kmpl of petrol. Assuming the driver plus two people in it, we are talking 90 person-kilometer per liter of petrol.
• And we know the numbers of new age 4-stroke bikes,70-80 kmpl. Assuming rider and a pillion, we are talking 140 person-kilometer per liter of petrol.

So, as I see it, smaller the vehicle, better the effective or possible efficiency. Lesson? What matters is the way the vehicles get used or loaded.

may all attempts at alternative fuels fail. there is a radical thinker and yet arrogant doode who once seeded a question in my mind. even if fuel was 1c per gallon and non 'polluting' does it solve any real problem? you cant fix terra. you've really got to see some of the excesses that cheap oil facilitates. and i am not talking pollution and traffic jams. it hurts my bottom line, but i for one am narcissist-ly enjoying 4$ gallon.

Nano is expected to give 24+ kmpl and also it is the world's cheapest car. Cost of Honda Civic Hybrid is 21 lakhs which gives 14 kmpl whereas Nano is 24. Hybrid is great only for western countries who wants to go for big cars. Indian small cars mileage will make any hybrid shyaway.