Which car to buy? Petrol or Diesel? For daily use

Petrol price is increasing like a pollution today. Both have no limit. Petrol car are cheap to buy but maintaining daily usage is costly. On one hand, honda only manufactures petrol cars, as they are more refined and more powerful, they don’t have any diesel cars in india, People are getting more attracted towards the diesel cars concerning the increasing price of petrol and cng fuels.

which car to buy? Diesel or Petrol?!

I would talk about few scenarios here.

As the petrol price is on top, people are thinking about the alternatives. Diesel is the most common one! But to your great surprise, cars take less then 10 percent of total consumption of diesel fuel (at the time of this writing!). Rest of the diesel is consumed by transporters (trucks, buses, tractors), machines used in farms and other machines used in rural areas. Government is planning tax on diesel cars to reduce numbers. Diesel cars are getting costlier and petrol prices are already high, i don’t think it is good time to buy car in near future.

I conducted an interesting study, hope you like it!

Sample calculation [All prices assumed!]

9th may 2012.
Petrol : 78 rupees per litre.
Diesel : 46 rupees per litre.

A Hyundai i20 Asta Abs CRDi [diesel] costs 7.8 lakh on road.
The same variant in petrol would cost you around 6.5 lakh. [1 to 1.5 lakh dearer than the diesel car, before the proposed tax]

We assume, Your daily travel is 20 kmpl.

Petrol i20 would give you mileage of 14 kmpl approx in city, that is without ac! A monthly cost would be 600 km / 14 kmpl = 42.8 litre petrol. That is 42.8 * 78 = 3342 rupees a month. Rupees 40,114 for a year! For five year it would cost 2,00,500 rupees.

If you plan to drive a petrol car for five year, it would cost 6.5 lakh car price + 2 lakh of petrol = 8.5 lakh [cost of petrol car for 5 year].

For a diesel car, i20 would give you mileage of 18 kmpl in city, of course without ac. A monthly run would be 600 km / 18 kmpl = 33.3 litre diesel. That is 33.3 * 46 = 1600 rupees a month. And 19,200 a year! 96,000 for five year.

If you plan to drive a diesel car for five year, cost would be 7.8 lakh car price + 1 lakh of petrol = 8.8 lakh [cost of diesel car for 5 year]

PLEASE NOTE : I haven’t included hikes in fuel prices in future. Of course, Petrol tends to get costlier over the time then the diesel. Also i haven’t mentioned proposed tax on diesel car which government is planning post petrol price hike!