Yesterday's announcement that the federal government will halve the fuel excise for three months has no doubt come as good news to many drivers around the country in light of ever-climbing petrol prices.
Starting 1 April, the tax will be cut from 56.2 cents a litre to 26.3c/L, meaning the average price of unleaded 91 should decrease from about $2.53/L – which it hit on 29 March – to roughly $2.27/L. But what does that mean for your hip pocket?
How much could the fuel-excise cut save you?
Well, first, retailers would need to pass the saving onto customers, something they are not obligated to do.
Presuming they do, though, how much you could save depends on the type of car you have. To test this, we've chosen four cars with different petrol-tank capacities and fuel efficiency.
The number of weeks a full tank will get you in each car is based on an analysis of data from the federal government's Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics 2025 Yearbook. It showed a typical Aussie drives 228km each week.
| Example car | Tank capacity litres | Fuel economy L/100km | Km per tank | Weeks per tank |
| Kia Picanto | 35 | 5.4 | 648 | 3 |
| RAV 4 Hybrid | 55 | 4.8 | 1146 | 5 |
| Toyota Kluger 3.5 V6 | 68 | 8.8 | 773 | 3 |
| Nissan Patrol 5.6 V8 | 140 | 14.4 | 972 | 4 |
As of Sunday, 29 March, it would cost about $89 to fill a Kia Picanto, but after the excise is halved, that should drop to roughly $79. If the owner drives the average national weekly distance, that would save them a bit more than $3 a week.
It's certainly better than what they're paying now, but when you consider the average pump price of unleaded 91 a little less than a month ago – $1.81/L – it's a far cry from where prices were.
The Picanto owner would pay just over $63 for a tank and about $22 a week if prices dropped to the 1 March weekly average. That's a difference of $26 less per tank and $9 less a week – almost two small coffees – at current prices.
It's also $15 less per tank and $6 less per week than what prices will come to once the excise is halved.
An owner of the most expensive car to run on our example list, the Nissan Patrol, would save about $37 a tank and $9 a week – so they get their two piccolo lattes with the excise cut.
But, if we wound back the clock to the start of March, the Patrol owner would be paying a sizeable $101 less than current average prices and $64 less than excise discount prices for a tank. That equates to about $24 and $15 a week, respectively.
The more you are currently paying for a tank, obviously the more the excise cut will benefit you. However, with prices seeing an almost 40 per cent increase in the past month, a discount of 10 per cent – which is what the excise cut of 26 cents roughly equates to – is not going to make much of a dent for many.
Jemimah is Drive's Consumer Editor. She has more than a decade of editorial experience and has previously worked in property and lifestyle journalism for Domain, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and REA Group, among many other publications.
