The price of fuel

The price of fuel for my little Toyota Yaris (rental car) - which is classified on www.fueleconomy.gov as the most efficient subcompact car - shocked me each time I filled the tank. I wondered my entire trip whether the price difference was between the United States and Europe, or whether fuel was actually more expensive in the little island nation of Iceland.

Today I satisfied my curiosity.

AA Ireland shows a chart of petrol prices from July 2010 showing the price in Ireland as well of a table of prices elsewhere in Europe. The prices I was paying in Iceland were actually less than those in most European countries in July. It's possible that's because of a decrease in the price of fuel since then; at this point I suspect that what I was seeing was a more general United States vs. Europe price difference. Based on what I saw, I'd say we're pretty lucky here.

The price? I was paying 192.6 krona per liter. There are 3.78541178 liters in one US gallon, so the price per gallon of fuel was 729 ISK. That converts to 6.17 USD. Yup, that's expensive.

If you want to play with numbers, the currency converter that I use is at www.xe.com.