ROME – Among the most debated topics in the automotive sector in recent times, the controversy over the increase in fuel costs and the failure to renew the cut in excise duties by the Government stands out. Beyond the causes that triggered the perverse mechanism of continuous price increases, the Study Center of AutoScout24, the large European online vehicle market, has carried out a study to investigate the consequences of high costs on users.
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In short, it is clear that the cost of fuel has begun to have evident repercussions on the daily habits of using the car, as confirmed by 42% of the sample of interviewees. Furthermore, even the future certainly does not look rosy, so much so that the percentage could increase sharply (69%) if the cost of fuel were to rise further. It is definitely a significant impact on daily habits considering the central role that the car has now reached in people’s lives.
In fact, the data from the study show that most of the panel use the car more than 5 days a week (73%), many travel more than ten thousand kilometers a year (69%), and almost six users out of ten spend average between 100 and 300 euros per month for fuel and for 15% the expenditure exceeds 300 euros.
A luxury called automobile
by Valerio Berruti
At this point the analysts focused on the change in motorists’ habits and considering the sample who declared that they had changed their way of using the car, the real change concerns the adoption of “virtuous” behaviour. Hence, to refuel, the search for the distributor based on the cheapest price was triggered, which went from 27% in July 2022 to as much as 61%, while the tendency to resort exclusively to the cheapest self-service mode rose from 29% to the current 58%.
The percentage of those who have adopted a gentler driving style to reduce fuel consumption has also increased (37%) and 27% said they only resort to using the car if strictly necessary. In a context of increasingly stringent restrictions, there is no shortage of consumers who have started using dedicated apps for smartphones or websites to find the cheapest stations (16%). Finally, it should be noted that, according to the study, if the price increase has had a direct impact on the habits of Italians, currently, especially in used cars, it does not seem to influence the choice of power supply, confirming the interest in internal combustion engines, with diesel remaining the predominant choice.