Gasoline price is constantly changing: it is becoming increasingly difficult to recharge your batteries

In just a few hours, the gasoline price for Super-E10 falls by 19 cents per liter. Was a conflict in the Middle East? No. Perhaps the oil sheikhs of the Opec have disputed? Neither. It is a normal day in Germany. At a normal petrol station.

In this case we picked up a total petrol station in Duisburg. She changed the price 22 times that day, April 30th. That is average in Germany.

A Shell petrol station in Munich changed the price 32 times that day. A Bavaria Petrol branch and an ESSO station, also in Munich, even 36 times. The Shell branch, for example, has changed the Super E10 price every 15 minutes in the one and a half hours after eight o’clock. The price fluctuated a total of 13 on this day, at the Bavaria-Petrol at 14, at Esso by 16 cents per liter.

Day after day, the petrol stations in Germany perform a price dance that looks like competition, but is more of a confusion for consumers. The prices at the petrol stations have been transparent for eleven and a half years. All petrol stations must report your data to the cartel office, which releases the data for tankapp providers. At the beginning, the petrol stations changed the price on average four to five times a day. In principle, it was enough to look at the boards on the way home, and you were in the picture.

When asked about the reasons for the frequent change, many mineral oil companies react smelly. Some like HEM and Aral said that antitrust law prohibits them an answer (which is not so general). Shell didn’t react at all. At least Jet replied staralbeit vague: the high number of price changes is “expression of an intensive competition”.

The Federal Association of Free Petrol States (BFT) reacted much more openly. “In principle, we could live with fewer price changes and have tried some of our member companies to decouple themselves from the daily price fluctuations by making no or only a few price changes,” said a BFT spokeswoman star. “It has been shown that the customer only rewardes this behavior if the displayed price is below the price of competitors.” The fact that free petrol stations do not change the price as often as the large brands of the oil companies is also the impression of the cartel office.

The cases described above are only a sample. In the metropolitan areas, it is no longer unusual that petrol stations change the price more than 35 times a day. The cartel office has already observed this year that individual petrol stations turned the petrol clock 57 times. “This makes orientation more difficult for consumers,” complains Cartel Office President Andreas Mundt. Motorists often complain to the cartel office because they discover low prices in a tanker, but they will not find them a few minutes later on arrival at the petrol station.

In a small survey, the cartel office had examined the times at which time drivers actually refuel: According to this, only 43 percent managed to get a price in the lower quarter of the price scale in 2023. In 2015, almost 60 percent did that.

The price transparency should actually help consumers. Now, however, it turns out that the petrol stations themselves can use the transparency in order to have to lower their prices as far as necessary. Right synchronous price courses have turned out. And it is striking that there is a quiet agreement to cupping consumers who have to refuel in the morning. In any case, this suggests the average price course, which the following graphic shows. And in our samples we saw it in a similar way to the petrol stations examined.

Now it is only logical that people in the morning do not have the time to switch to a gas station that is not on the direct path to work. While you could be pretty safe a few years ago, then at least to refuel at least in the evening after work, most petrol stations now allow themselves a few more priced phases.

Important: Drivers should not miss their frustration with the distortion of price. “The petrol station tenant only sees the window and sees that his prices are changed-and do not know why or when,” explains Herbert Rabl, spokesman for the Tiv petrol station interest association, which represents the concerns of the tenant. They only get a commission of “one to three cents per liter” – no matter what price is at the petrol pump.

Because the large brands often use software -based price systems that automatically react to the environment of a petrol station and adapt the prices.

It is not enough to look for a cheap petrol station. You also have to choose the right time to refuel. It is worth using a tankapp from the ADAC, for example. The graphic that the website of Clever-tanken.de forms for each petrol station is very interesting: it can be seen in the evening the time at which time the petrol station requested what prize.

Anyone who chooses the petrol station and the time optimally pays around 30 cents less for Super E10 in large cities such as Berlin, Frankfurt and Stuttgart than if they tap at the most expensive petrol station in the morning. With diesel it is around 28 cents less. In other words: On any day, prices differ more in absolute numbers than the world’s oil markets have been able to move the oil price in the past twelve months.