The increasing price difference between petrol and diesel makes some cars cheaper to run than some bikes. Yes. You didn’t read anything wrong.

Recently, CarToq member Dhiraj Patra chimed in with an interesting observation: “Now diesel car running cost is lower than a bike. Yes, it is true by the grace of Indian Govt.”

We decided to explore this thought further.

With petrol cost touching Rs 71/liter and diesel staying at Rs 40/liter, the per kilometer running cost for some bikes (all of which run on petrol) might have increased significantly in recent times. And with some of the small diesel cars with mileage of nearly 25 kmpl, the analysis could show interesting results.

bike vs car photo

And it did.

And we are not just talking superbikes here. We took the quintessential Royal Enfield and compared it with a diesel workhorse, the Tata Indica eV2. And it turned out that the Indica eV2 was indeed cheaper to run now.

In fact, it compares unfavorably with any cars giving a mileage of over 20kmpl. These include diesel version of hatchbacks such as Nissan Micra, Volkswagen Polo, Skoda Fabia, Maruti Swift and Hyundai i20 (1.4 version).

How is that possible?

Let’s do the numbers.

The two bikes from Royal Enfield return a (claimed) mileage of about 36 kmpl. With petrol at Rs 71/liter, that’s almost Rs 2/km.

Any hatchback that returns a (claimed) mileage of over 20 kmpl has a running cost of less than Rs 2/km since diesel costs only Rs 40/liter. For instance, Nissan Micra returns a (claimed) mileage of 23 kmpl and thus has a per kilometer running cost of Rs 1.74.

If you thought that was weird, listen to this. Even some of the diesel sedans have a lower running cost than the Enfield now!

The Mahindra Verito, Fluidic Verna (1.4 version), Swift Dzire too cost less per kilometer to run compared with Royal Enfield Thunderbird/Bullet. They have running cost of about Rs 1.9/km.

The Royal Enfield is not a common man’s bike, you say. How about the hugely popular Bajaj Pulsar 220 DTSi and Hero Honda Karizma R or the much-loved Yamaha YZF R15? You’d spend about Rs 1.7/km if you are riding Pulsar and Rs 1.6/km in case of the Yamaha R15. Karizma too will cost a shade above Rs 1.5/km to run.

While they are a shade cheaper to run compared with the most frugal diesel cars, it’s only by a fraction. And that despite the fact that all these bikes return a healthy mileage of above 40kmpl!

Whoever said that bikes are for poor while cars for the rich!