Short‐term break in the French love for diesel?

From 1980 to 1995, France was the first European country in which diesel cars became more popular than petrol cars. In addition to offering improved performance, this preference was notably due to a much cheaper cost of use, in line with the taxation on both fuel types. But the advantage of diesel technology does not clearly seem to extend to energy and CO2 savings. In this paper, French trends over the last 15 years and latest annual available statistics about both diesel car ownership and use are analysed, on the basis of the ‘ParcAuto’ panel data source. The results notably show that, from the moment the gap between fuel prices was reduced, the annual mileage amounts of diesel cars have fallen faster than those of petrol cars. A specific section summarizes the results of our work on the behaviour of French households who chose to replace their petrol car with a diesel. Detailed examination of these switching behaviours, involving a complex set of variables, confirms that there are increases in driving associated with ‘new diesel motorists’. The final section of this paper briefly discusses recent evolutions of fuel expenditures.