Dutch blogger George Maschke reminds us that although our gas prices may seem high here in North America (it’s about CDN$1.23 / litre in Accordion City) — high enough that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has suggested a gas tax holiday — they’d be considered a king-sized bargain in the Netherlands. He took this photo of the price sign at his neighbourhood gas station in The Hague on Saturday, May 10th; note that they’re in Euro per litre:
George did a little math and converted the Dutch prices so that they’d be expressed in U.S. dollars per gallon; I simply did the Euro-to-Canadian dollar conversions to get the prices in terms of Canadian dollars per litre. The results of our calculations appear in the table below:
| Gasoline grade | Dutch price | Dutch price in Canadian dollars per litre | Dutch price in American dollars per gallon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | €1.559 / litre | CDN$2.43 / litre | US$9.14 / gallon |
| Premium | €1.673 / litre | CDN$2.60 / litre | US$9.81 / gallon |
| Diesel | €1.359 / litre | CDN$2.11 / litre | US$7.96 / gallon |
No wonder there’s such a strong bicycle culture in the Netherlands! (Yes, their urban geography helps too.)
Keep these Dutch prices in mind should the predictions of gas hitting CDN$1.50 per litre this summer come true.

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personally, I’ll be shocked if gas prices DON’T hit $1.50 this summer.
shocked, not pleased.
It’s not only in Dutch prices ! It’s average European prices…
Just cam back from Glasgow where in early May 08, the gas is 1.25 pounds Sterling per litre. That’s $2.50 to us Canucks. Chew on that.
If we paid for the subsidy given to the oil companies at the pump the cost of gas in the U.S. would be $10 per gallon. This is the actual cost to us not the $4.40 per gallon seen on the pump.