Irish motorists now spending more than €2,000 a year to fuel car

Aviva survey shows the impact from prices surging even more in recent months, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The average monthly spend by Irish motorists on petrol or diesel stands at €180, according to a new survey, with a third of people spending over €200 a month.

The findings of the survey of 1,000 people by iReach for insurers Aviva suggest that Irish consumers are spending more than €2,000 a year to fill their car, reflecting the surging fuel costs in the past year.

Different age groups were spending more on petrol or diesel, with half of people aged 25-34 spending more than €200 a month on fuel, compared to 39% of those aged 35-44.

These latest findings follow research from the AA which reflected the huge spike in fuel costs in recent times. In 2020, the average cost of filling the car for a year stood at €1,554, the AA said. In 2021, this rose to €1,833.

The Aviva survey shows the impact from prices surging even more in recent months, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Aviva’s managing director of personal lines Billy Shannon said: “€180 a month is not an insignificant amount of money — and more than a third of people are spending well above this.

“The petrol pumps are one of the hardest hit areas in terms of inflation, having seen significant increases in the last 12 months. 

Where once people might take the car out on the weekend for trips and travel, or use it for shorter journeys around their locality, many are now having to think about how they can economise and find alternative modes of transport where possible.

Elsewhere in the survey, 57% of motorists said they would change the way they used their car to cut back on costs while three in 10 said they would only use the car for essential journeys.

On the other hand, 32% of women and 22% of men said they were unable to make any changes to their driving habits and therefore had “no choice” but to spend their current amount of time on the roads.

The proportion of people who can’t change their car use differs by region, with 14% of people in Dublin unable to reduce their usage compared to 41% in Connacht and Ulster.

Those in urban areas, meanwhile, fare much better in terms of how much they spend on fuel, with people in the capital less likely to spend more than €200 a month on fuel.