Plea for combustion engines:

“Higher gasoline prices won’t curb traffic”

It has almost become a question of faith: Electric or combustion engine? The mileage allowance is being increased, but at the same time the commuter allowance is being discussed as outdated and too expensive. In any case, VP Regional Managing Director Florian Hiegelsberger is "Team Verbrenner" and backs up his plea with current figures.

"Austria is "the car country par excellence", said Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) a good one and a half years ago, putting a stop to the combustion engine. Nothing has changed since then - and probably not even the fact that the ÖVP wants to be the party of car drivers par excellence - now also in Upper Austria. On the one hand, the ÖVP's regional managing director Florian Hiegelsberger is celebrating the fact that the mileage allowance will be increased to 50 cents on January 1st.

Almost 70 euros more per month
On the other hand, he warns the coalition negotiators in Vienna to fleece conventional car drivers in future - in other words, to drive up fuel prices further or to abolish the commuter allowance. Such measures would not help to reduce traffic: According to a recent survey for Upper Austria, the price of diesel skyrocketed by 29 percent between 2012 and 2022 and that of petrol by 18 percent. Figures from Statistics Austria show that an Upper Austrian household currently pays EUR 69.50 or 22.9 percent more per month for the same transport services than before the outbreak of the global crises in 2019.

More and more journeys
"At the same time, the number of daily car journeys in Upper Austria has risen by 11.6 percent and the distance traveled by 27.1 percent," says Hiegelsberger. His conclusion: "Increases in fuel prices are hitting people's pockets hard, but are hardly helping the environment and climate." He can be sure of the approval of a broad clientele: The proportion of conventional combustion engines in Upper Austria is 92.7 percent.