Evening edition · Monday, 9 November 2026
Ordinary Ledger: 24.5 cents between two pumps, and a fuel that forgot it is cheaper
Petrol has fallen 14 cents in a month. Diesel has not moved. If your car runs on the second, the oil news of the week has mostly passed you by.
The ledger. - Super E10, ADAC national daily average for Sunday: €1.996 a litre, 7.6 cents below a week earlier1. - Diesel, same day: €2.241 a litre, down only 4.1 cents1. - E10 on 8 October: €2.140. Diesel on 8 October: €2.2421. - Desk arithmetic: in a month E10 fell 14.4 cents; diesel fell 0.1 cents.
Line chart of German national average pump prices on three dates. Super E10 falls from €2.140 a litre on 8 October to about €2.072 on 1 November and €1.996 on Sunday 8 November 2026, the latest value. Diesel goes from €2.242 to about €2.282 and back to €2.241 on 8 November, leaving a gap of 24.5 cents a litre.
Source dpa via t-online, 'Spritpreise sinken: E10 im Tagesschnitt unter 2 Euro, Diesel weiter teuer', ADAC national daily averages, 9 Nov 2026, 11:51 CET; 1 November values are desk arithmetic from the reported week-on-week falls (7.6 cents for E10, 4.1 cents for diesel); retrieved 9 Nov 2026 · reported figures. Three dates only, lines join them.. Figures as reported by the named organisations; facts cited with attribution.
Data (CSV) · SVG · PNG
Latest values as a table
| Date | Super E10 | Diesel |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-08 | 2.14 | 2.242 |
| 2026-11-01 | 2.072 | 2.282 |
| 2026-11-08 | 1.996 | 2.241 |
The headline is that petrol is below €2 again, the cheapest daily average in more than four months, according to dpa1. The more useful line is further down. Diesel is now 24.5 cents a litre dearer than E10, which dpa calls one of the largest gaps ever recorded; only in April and during the first fuel-tax rebate of 2022 was it temporarily wider1.
That is upside down. Diesel is taxed less than petrol, so in normal times it is the cheaper fuel, often by around 15 cents, dpa notes1. The reason it is not now is plain supply: diesel is more vulnerable in crises, partly because Germany imports more finished diesel than petrol1. The current tax rebate cuts both fuels by roughly 17 cents a litre, so it does not explain the gap1.
Desk arithmetic: on a 50-litre tank, Sunday’s averages mean about €99.80 for E10 and €112.05 for diesel, a difference of about €12.25 per fill.
What you can do is unglamorous. Prices vary widely by region and time of day, and since the noon rule was introduced the cheapest window is the later morning1. On Monday morning many regions had offers just above €1.80 a litre, some even below, dpa reported1. That is nearly 20 cents under the national average for E10. You will not change the diesel market. You can change the hour you visit it.
What to watch
An average is a rumour about your street. The pump in front of you is the fact.
Sources
- Spritpreise sinken: E10 im Tagesschnitt unter 2 Euro, Diesel weiter teuer — dpa via t-online, 09 Nov 2026, 11:51 CET.
Every figure in this piece traces to a source above or to the desk’s own arithmetic on those sources, marked as such. Quotations are short and attributed. Spot an error? Write to the desk; corrections are logged on the method page.
Commentary for information only. Not investment, legal, tax, medical or political advice. Not an offer or solicitation. Analysis may be incomplete or wrong. Charts show published public data, not a trading feed; binding numbers live with the institutions that publish them.