Car costs: Diesel hardly cheaper than great – diesel diesel is less worthwhile

Diesel drivers at the petrol station are far from saving as much as a few years ago. Finally, the fuel was only 5 cents cheaper than super gasoline in the E10 variety, as numbers of the ADAC show. This is much less than the long -term average values for this distance – and currently makes diesel vehicles less economical compared to petrol engines. A look at the numbers.

The state raises fewer taxes and levies on diesel than on gasoline. The difference is around 20 cents per liter, as the fuel market expert of the ADAC, Christian Laberer says. “But we haven’t seen this difference at the petrol stations for a long time.” But what is a normal distance? If you take the ten years before the outbreak of the Ukraine war – i.e. 2012 to 2021 – diesel was 15.4 cents cheaper than E10. At the moment it is not even a third, on the average of the first half of the year, which is 8.8 cents, just a little more than half.

Why the distance shrinks

“The diesel is much more prone to crisis because we import a lot more of it,” says Laberer. Among other things, there is that crude oil “pi times thumb is about the same amount of petrol as diesel”, as the expert says, but is used to use a lot more diesel in Germany. According to statistics from the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA), a good 32 million tons were in 2024 at Diesel, 13 million of which were imported. In the case of gasoline, however, consumption was only almost 18 million tons – a good two million of which were imported.

For a long time, an essential part of German diesel imports came directly from Russia, which was one of the drivers why the 2022 diesel price even overtook petrol. In 2023 and 2024, the difference in prices was also much lower than in previous years. Replacement deliveries now come mainly from the USA, Western Europe and the Arab world. But diesel from Russia is still “via detours”, that is, from third countries such as India or Turkey to Germany, says Laberer – just more expensive.

The shift not only has its consequences directly at the petrol station, but also when buying a car. Because if the price distance decreases, the boundaries that diesel purchase is worthwhile move.

“In the past, the rule of thumb has often been used that a diesel is financially worthwhile from around 15,000 kilometers per year,” says an ADAC spokesman. The lower fuel costs then equalized the higher purchase price and the higher tax. In the meantime, however, the market has changed and it is more dependent on the manufacturer and vehicle model whether a diesel is worthwhile. In the tendency, the mobility club sees “that large annual driving performances are increasingly necessary – sometimes beyond 20,000 kilometers – to drive a diesel cheaper than a petrol engine.”

However, this cannot be generalized. There are still manufacturers today where the diesel -powered vehicle is already cheaper from 10,000 kilometers. On the other hand, the diesel no longer pays off on other models. “After ADAC experiences, these individual cases are becoming more and more common,” says the spokesman.

The ADAC has been determining the cost per kilometer for various car models for years and compares for annual driving performance of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 and 30,000 kilometers, whether a diesel or a comparable petrol engine is cheaper. For five widespread models, he compared the situation in 2019 with the current one. In 2019 the diesel was cheaper in 13 out of 20 cases, in seven of the petrol engines. In 2025, the diesel was only cheaper in seven cases, in one in one it was on the same way and in twelve cases it was more expensive.