You might have heard of synthetic fuel. It’s a way to power regular combustion engine cars in a less polluting way.
If we’re learning one thing, the planet does need to clean up its act. Burning fossil fuels to get around isn’t great for anyone’s future. But neither is it possible to immediately change all our cars to zero emissions electric vehicles (EV). And that’s where synthetic fuel comes in.
We regularly fill our cars with petrol but how much do we actually know about the golden liquid that keeps them going? If you’re anything like us (when we compiled this quiz), probably not very much! Even so, petrol is a truly global phenomenon with plenty of history. Take our quiz to find out how much you know about it.
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The fuel shortage is causing queues and chaos all over the country. Right now, we’re encouraging all drivers to make sure they only hit the road if they’re certain they have enough fuel to make the trip.
If you are heading out, you’ll probably want to use as little fuel as possible. Well, just follow these steps and you’ll get the most out of the fuel you’ve already got.
A new fuel, called E10, is now the standard petrol available in the UK. However, this new petrol may not be suitable for all vehicles. Read on to find out if you’re going to be affected.
While COVID-19 vaccinations are generally very welcome, one of the less pleasing side-effects is likely to be an increase in the price of fuel.
But if the price at the pumps does go up, you can offset some of it by watching how you drive, how you look after your car and where you fill up. Here we look at six simple steps that will save fuel and therefore money.
Filling up the car with fuel is (sadly) one of the most frequent things we do when driving. But what is the correct fuel station etiquette? We look at some popular dos and don’ts around refilling with petrol or diesel.
We get a lot of queries from car owners about fuel quality. But the one that keeps on coming back is whether cheap supermarket fuel is as good as big-brand petrol and diesel. It’s an important question because there can be a significant difference in what it costs to fill up at a supermarket compared with at a fuel brand’s station.
We all want to save money where we can. Whether that’s with petrol or diesel that costs less, or apparently more expensive fuel that’s cheaper because it improves economy. But most importantly, we don’t want to do our cars any damage, so how good is supermarket fuel?
Running out of fuel at the roadside is a bad idea for many reasons. For a start it can put you in unnecessary danger, stranded beside speeding vehicles. And depending on the kind of car you drive and its age, it could cause mechanical complications when you do get fuel.
But that doesn’t stop hundreds of thousands running out of fuel every year. I read a survey a little while ago which said that 70,000 drivers a month run dry on the road. The problem seems to be that owners overestimate how far their car can travel when its tank is nearly empty. Here’s what you need to know.
The government’s announcement that diesel and petrol cars will be banned in Britain from 2040, as a way of tackling air pollution, has led to widespread confusion amongst drivers.
Common concerns include the impact on residual values of used diesel and petrol cars; the relatively high cost of new electric cars; whether hybrid cars will still be available; and how the industry and infrastructure will cope.
We try to tackle these concerns, and more, based on the limited information currently available.
The plug-in Golf GTE looks great but how does it stack up against its more conventional petrol and diesel siblings? (Picture © Volkswagen)
The debate over which is the best fuel is becoming an increasingly hot topic among car buyers. Petrol v diesel v hybrid v electric: which really is the best type of car to own? To try to find the answer, we’ve taken Volkswagen’s perennially popular Golf, the only model available in the UK that uses all four kinds of power source, and crunched the numbers.
We’ve split our report into four sections. This enables us to look at how the different versions of the Golf compare to each other in key areas of price, performance, economy, and running costs. The cars are ranked by our favoured criteria in each chart with the model at the top the best. It’s a fascinating read.
| Model | Fuel | Price | Per month |
| Golf 1.0 TSI BlueMotion | Petrol | £20,765 | £205 |
| Golf 1.6 TDI BlueMotion | Diesel | £22,360 | £302 |
| e-Golf | Electric | £27,180 | £345 |
| Golf GTE | Petrol/electric | £31,055 | £493 |
It’s not easy being a driver who wants to do their bit and buy a car with the lowest nitrogen oxide emissions. These NOx are harmful pollutants emitted by cars that are estimated to contribute to over 30,000 premature deaths a year in the UK. Information about a car’s NOx levels has been hard to come by as, for obvious reasons, vehicle manufacturers tend to advertise cars’ fuel economy or performance rather than the nasty particulates pumped out of exhausts.
But now a new website allows drivers to see just how polluting Britain’s most popular makes and model of car are when used in normal, everyday driving conditions.
It’s a familiar scenario. You drive onto a petrol station forecourt and pull up alongside the pumps. Staring back at you is a range of multi-coloured nozzles labelled with an equally confusing array of names: Fuel Save, V-Power Nitro+, Synergy, Synergy Supreme+, Regular Fuels, Ultimate, Momentum. The list goes on, with all retailers offering standard and premium fuels. The question is: should drivers fill their car with premium fuel?