The Price of a Gallon of Gas

With gas prices in the US hovering around $3.50 per gallon (and over $4.00 a gallon just a few months ago) everyone in the US has been complaining about the price of a gallon of gas. I keep telling everyone that $4.00 per gallon is relatively inexpensive compare to what gas cost in other parts of the world. Not remote parts of the world, but industrialized nations with good infrastructure and no supply problems.

For example, I was in Helsinki, Finland this past week and gas stations there are charging 1.48 Euro for regular unleaded.


This number looks like a good deal. However, the Euro to US Dollars conversion is 1 = 1.449 (as of today). That means the price is 2.14. Still not bad. But then you realized that Europe uses the metric system. Therefore, this is NOT the price per gallon – this is the price for one liter. The conversion of gallons to liters is 3.7836. That means that the price for a gallon of gas in Helsinki, Finland is $8.11.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, stop complaining about US gas prices.

Also notice that the price for diesel is cheaper than the price for unleaded. This is different than in the US right now. In Europe many cars, even very small cars, run on diesel.

The price of gas is one of the main reasons that the roads in Europe are dominated by small cars. (notice all the small cars in the picture below). SUVs are very rare. So while the downturn in SUVs is a recent trend in the US, sales of SUVs in most parts of Europe are minuscule.