Dubai Car Ownership Costs Soar Amid 30% Fuel Price Hike

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
Personal finance on the Morning Drive, it's owning a car this time. James Thomas is a UE licensed independent financial consultant, and he is back. Nice to see you.

**James Thomas** (0:10)
And you, good morning.

**Tim Elliott** (0:11)
It's a perfect topic for you, this.

**James Thomas** (0:12)
It is.

**Tim Elliott** (0:12)
Isn't it? I know, cars and what they cost, I know.

**James Thomas** (0:16)
Split, not loyalties, but when you asked me to come on the show, whenever it was, six, eight months ago.

**Tim Elliott** (0:23)
Nearly nine months ago.

**James Thomas** (0:24)
Nearly nine months ago.

**Tim Elliott** (0:26)
We couldn't have had a child, you know, you could have had a child. And you know where I'm going with that. Absolutely.

**James Thomas** (0:34)
But yes, when you said, would you like to have a little segment on the show, I was like, oh, is he going to ask me to do cars or finance? Split, split loyalties.

**Tim Elliott** (0:43)
I went for finance, and you were like, darn.

**James Thomas** (0:45)
Darn, a sensible one.

**Tim Elliott** (0:46)
So this is both, but you love your cars, and you know a great deal about cars, and you follow formula on all of that stuff.
The thing is this, right? Cars tend to be a drain on finances, so it works quite well as a segment. I've got some examples for you. In Dubai, it's a necessity for lots of residents because the city is very spread out. It's limited public transport in some areas. So it's very much a car.

**James Thomas** (1:12)
But yes, it's very much a car.

**Tim Elliott** (1:13)
We're in a car city, aren't we?

**James Thomas** (1:15)
And you see the RTA and the expansion of the road network. It's still very much car-centric.

**Tim Elliott** (1:22)
Exactly. So what's the cost of car ownership? It varies significantly depending on the type of car you drive. So what I wanted to do is try and break down some of the, or look at the annual cost of car ownership for different categories. So I picked a few categories, luxury cars, budget-friendly stuff.
But I thought first of all, we'll start off with the cost of owning a car, because we all know, if you own a car, you know what it costs, but how much do you think about it is the point.

**James Thomas** (1:52)
Absolutely.

**Tim Elliott** (1:52)
So I've been thinking about this recently, because my daughter's been here. So I was, she's got a driving license, but she's new to driving and new to the roads. So I was dropping her at work. She had this, an internship in Media City.
So I was dropping her there. So that meant I was going there, I was going through Salik a few times. I was in Charger a couple of weekends ago, went through different kind of toll gates, and then I got this notification. It does, it adds up. And it was like, yeah. And I hadn't really thought about that. And I'm thinking about petrol and obviously with fuel prices at the moment. So here are the costs of owning a car. And I'd sort of forgotten. I don't have any car loans at the moment, which is fine, but I've still obviously bought the car. So, initial purchase. So either you spend a lump sum, you pay for the whole car, or you finance the car. It's a lot of money, and then you pay it back monthly, whatever. Your registration fees, your licensing fees, your e-Dirham, your insurance, whether that's comprehensive or third party.
You're thinking about fuel and fuel efficiency when you're driving a car, or some people are, but you still left them.

**James Thomas** (3:01)
Yeah, no, just on that. Absolutely, there was one of the local newspapers had an article exactly that, people downsizing using more fuel-efficient cars, even switching to metro if, where and when they could, because suddenly, since the situation has developed in the region, fuel prices have gone up 30%. That's right.

**Tim Elliott** (3:21)
That's right.

**James Thomas** (3:22)
Suddenly, that's a lot more...

**Tim Elliott** (3:24)
There are queues at petrol stations at the end of last month.

**James Thomas** (3:28)
Yes, because they knew, because obviously it's published, what the new rates are going to be. I would hope that the prices have been reasonably consistent this month. So I don't think we will have that. We might, if we're lucky, even have a small drop. But yeah, it's suddenly when you're, especially with a larger car, isn't it got a hundred litre tank, suddenly it goes up 30, 40, 50, 60 derams.

**Tim Elliott** (3:53)