Fuel Prices Rose Equally Across the Fleet. Fuel Bills Did Not
The first issue of our monthly Fleet Fuel Cost Index. Weighted to what the cars on offer in Georgia actually burn, July fuel is 22.6% dearer than a year ago — not the 36.4% the diesel headline reports. Split by age, the price rise is almost identical everywhere, within 0.9 of a point. What differs is volume: the oldest stock burns 21.3% more fuel per 100 km than the newest.
Fuel prices, July 2026 compared with July 2025
Geostat item indices, with the fleet-weighted index computed from them.
The headline belongs to 4.3% of the fleet
Every report on July's inflation figures led with the same number: diesel fuel 36.4% dearer than a year ago, the largest move in the transport division. It is a real figure, correctly calculated, and it describes almost nobody in Georgia.
Diesel is 4.3% of the cars currently on offer here. Gasoline, at +23.2%, describes far more of them. Gas fuel — LPG — rose 0.4%, which is to say it did not move at all.
Geostat publishes what fuel costs. It does not publish what fuel costs for the cars Georgians actually buy, because its weights come from the national consumer basket. We hold that other half. Weighting Geostat's published prices by the fuel mix of the stock on offer gives +22.6% — nearly 14 points below the headline.
This is the first issue of that index. It will run monthly.
The headline belongs to 4.3% of the fleet
Every report on July's inflation figures led with the same number: diesel fuel 36.4% dearer than a year ago, the largest move in the transport division. It is a real figure, correctly calculated, and it describes almost nobody in Georgia.
Diesel is 4.3% of the cars currently on offer here. Gasoline, at +23.2%, describes far more of them. Gas fuel — LPG — rose 0.4%, which is to say it did not move at all.
Geostat publishes what fuel costs. It does not publish what fuel costs for the cars Georgians actually buy, because its weights come from the national consumer basket. We hold that other half. Weighting Geostat's published prices by the fuel mix of the stock on offer gives +22.6% — nearly 14 points below the headline.
This is the first issue of that index. It will run monthly.
Fuel prices, July 2026 compared with July 2025
Geostat item indices, with the fleet-weighted index computed from them.
What we weigh, and what we assume
The method is deliberately narrow, and the boundary is worth stating before the numbers.
Observed: the fuel mix of the stock on offer — 64.7% petrol, 21.9% hybrid, 4.8% electric, 4.3% diesel, 3.3% LPG, 0.9% plug-in hybrid. Assumed: how much each of those burns per 100 km. We use 9.5 litres for petrol, 6.0 for hybrid, 7.5 for diesel, 12.5 for LPG, 4.0 for plug-in hybrid and zero for electric, each tied to the median engine size we observe for that fuel.
Each fuel's weight is its share of the stock multiplied by that assumed consumption. Annual distance is deliberately not an input — it cancels out of a price index, and including it would only invite a false precision about how far anyone drives.
The index covers fuel and nothing else.
Same price rise, different volume — by vehicle age
Fuel burned is relative to the 0–3 year group at assumed consumption.
The price rose almost exactly the same for everyone
We expected the interesting result to be a spread — that owners of older, thirstier cars would be carrying a visibly steeper price rise. Computed by age group, that is not what the data says.
Cars aged 0–3 years: +22.3%. Aged 4–7: +23.0%. Aged 8–12: +22.4%. Aged 13 and older: +22.1%. The entire fleet sits inside a band 0.9 of a point wide.
That is a genuinely flat result, and it is worth reporting as flat rather than dressing it up. Whatever a Georgian owner drives, the percentage by which their fuel got dearer this year is roughly the same.
The price rose almost exactly the same for everyone
We expected the interesting result to be a spread — that owners of older, thirstier cars would be carrying a visibly steeper price rise. Computed by age group, that is not what the data says.
Cars aged 0–3 years: +22.3%. Aged 4–7: +23.0%. Aged 8–12: +22.4%. Aged 13 and older: +22.1%. The entire fleet sits inside a band 0.9 of a point wide.
That is a genuinely flat result, and it is worth reporting as flat rather than dressing it up. Whatever a Georgian owner drives, the percentage by which their fuel got dearer this year is roughly the same.
Same price rise, different volume — by vehicle age
Fuel burned is relative to the 0–3 year group at assumed consumption.
What each age group runs on
Share of listings stating a fuel type. Electrified = hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric.
The volume burned did not
The spread is in the other term. The oldest group burns 8.98 litres per 100 km at our assumed consumption; the newest burns 7.40. That is 21.3% more fuel for the same distance.
The composition behind it is stark. Among cars 0–3 years old, 44.6% are hybrid, plug-in hybrid or fully electric, and 0.7% are diesel. Among cars 13 years and older, only 13.7% are electrified, 11.1% are diesel and 7.3% run on LPG.
The two groups are also two different price brackets. Median asking price is $23,000 for the newest group and $5,500 for the oldest. The stock that burns the most fuel is the stock bought by whoever is spending the least on the car itself.
So the correct sentence is not that fuel inflation hit older cars harder in percentage terms. It is that an identical percentage was applied to a materially larger volume.
The volume burned did not
The spread is in the other term. The oldest group burns 8.98 litres per 100 km at our assumed consumption; the newest burns 7.40. That is 21.3% more fuel for the same distance.
The composition behind it is stark. Among cars 0–3 years old, 44.6% are hybrid, plug-in hybrid or fully electric, and 0.7% are diesel. Among cars 13 years and older, only 13.7% are electrified, 11.1% are diesel and 7.3% run on LPG.
The two groups are also two different price brackets. Median asking price is $23,000 for the newest group and $5,500 for the oldest. The stock that burns the most fuel is the stock bought by whoever is spending the least on the car itself.
So the correct sentence is not that fuel inflation hit older cars harder in percentage terms. It is that an identical percentage was applied to a materially larger volume.
What each age group runs on
Share of listings stating a fuel type. Electrified = hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric.
Why the two offset
The flatness is not a coincidence, and it is not the index failing to detect anything. It is two real movements cancelling.
Older stock holds far more diesel, which rose 36.4% — that should push its index up. It also holds far more LPG, which rose 0.4% — that pulls the index back down by almost as much. In the oldest group the two together account for 18.4% of the fuel mix, and they move in opposite directions.
Newer stock avoids both: it is overwhelmingly gasoline and electrified, so its index sits close to the gasoline figure with the electrified share carrying no fuel weight at all.
Different routes, same destination. Next month the two may stop cancelling — if LPG starts moving, the oldest group separates from the rest immediately, and that separation will be the story.
What the index measures
The +22.6% is a fleet-weighted price movement, not a household budget: the percentage is the same whatever distance a household drives.
The fleet it describes is advertised supply — the cars on offer — not the registered fleet or the cars in use.
Fuel type is stated for 72.9% of listings, and unevenly: 84.1% of the oldest stock states it against 65.4% of the newest. That gap is a real limitation on the age comparison.
Finally, 4.8% of the fleet is electric and consumes no fuel this index covers; household electricity sits outside COICOP division 7. With 27.6% of the stock already electrified and rising, a fuel-only index describes a smaller share of the fleet each quarter.
Methodology
Geostat's Consumer Price Detail Indices for July 2026, read at item level in COICOP division 7: gasoline, diesel fuel and gas fuel, from both the same-month-of-previous-year and previous-month workbooks. Fleet composition comes from the AutoBridge listing database.
17,978 listings, of which 13,097 (72.9%) state a fuel type; shares are calculated against that base. Each fuel's weight is its share of the stock multiplied by an assumed consumption in litres per 100 km — 9.5 petrol, 6.0 hybrid, 4.0 plug-in hybrid, 7.5 diesel, 12.5 LPG, and zero for electric, which consumes nothing Geostat measures in division 7. Consumption figures are assumptions tied to the median engine size of each fuel, not measurements. Annual distance is not an input: it cancels out of a price index.
July 2026 index values, released 3 August 2026; fleet weights as of 11 August 2026, revised quarterly.