California has reached a dubious milestone today, the statewide average price for self-serve regular gasoline has just crossed above $4 per gallon (even though it has been that high in some cities in the State for a while now): http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gas23-2008may23,0,6215332.story
Let me ask you a question: how high is too high? What do you think is the breaking point? $5? $10? $15 per gallon? And what would you if (or when) it got there?
Last year we were upset when it went over $3 now its $4. Im sure it'll be $5 next year this time and $6 the year after that
LET THE PRICES RISE!
That is actually is going to get us... shipping the food. We have grown use to having our lettuce/beef/food flown to us from across the globe. Now that fuel is going through the roof we are going to have less choices.
It's ok. I need to lose some weight anyways.
The thing is, over here mostly the Chinese and Americans are blamed. Gee, I wonder why, with all the Hummers on the road. No offense meant, but when I've been over to the usa a while ago, it absolutely didn't look like anyone cared about using petrol-efficient cars at all. Now, the OPEC-states aren't raising what they pumping or producing, the demand is rising a lot and we are back to business 1x1.
(and trying to "own" countries that produce oil only for the oil won't help either.)
Now, with the devaluation of the dollar, this plateau is just around the corner. The oil companies are screaming about drilling (they want ANWAR), but even if we drilled now, those fields are 5 years away from production. There is good evidence that refinery capability is the limiting factor in our production, anyway.
I think that $5.00 gas is coming soon, and that the days of $2.00 gas are far behind us.
Of course, if I could just manage to make a living working at home and using the Internet and Postal system to send work in (I'm an illustrator, but have to make a living as a teacher, which costs me over $300 a month in fuel), then I wouldn't have to worry about it so much.
Now that hybrids have become a bit more numerous since the last time I had to buy a car... Can anyone recommend a good USED hybrid? (Keep in mind that I'm practically flat broke despite working 7 days a week. It must be very inexpensive, as cars go. Like a compact two-year-old used Saturn.)
Personally i feel we've allready passed breaking point, namely because the big companies are scrambling to make more economically friendly vehicles. Toyota Prius and soon to be GM's Volt. Though if you have a whole heap of cash to spare get a Telsa car (you lucky americans, only available in usa at mo) completly electric so no more petrol complaints and its got a range of over 200 miles to boot!
In the next couple of years we should see a big roll out of family size vehicles at reasonable ( i hope) prices.
btw the volt is rubbish. it only gets 30 miles a charge! and GM where the world leaders in the electric car field gah!
LOOPING YOUR DAY WILL HELP YOU ELIMINATE UNNECESSARY TRIPS.
THINK OF IT AS DOING THINGS FROM A STARTING POINT, LIKE HOME TO THE MIDPOINT, SUCH AS WORK OR SCHOOL(APEX),AND BACK TO HOME.
DO EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN STARTING-MID-ENDPOINT. THIS ELIMINATES ALOT OF TRIPS.
OF COURSE, LIKE A SUCCESSFUL DIET, THIS REQUIRES A LOT OF PLANNING AND DISCIPLINE!
OH...BY THE WAY...SLOW DOWN ON THE FREEWAYS PEOPLE! GOING 65 MAKES ME FEEL LIKE I AM A SAFETY HAZARD!
Hillary Clinton said we need an Apollo Program for alternative energy sources. A lot of people have said it. While I have issues with Hillary, I agree with her words, although her original proposal had way too little money in it. We need to invest in research and education like we did in the 1960s.
Hopefully as prices spiral over the summer, this will force both Obama and McCain to get their heads out of their butts (Obama's energy policy emphasizes Illinois coal, go figure) and make some real committments to change.
The government (not the greedy) controls the gas price and it is the same throughout Mexico.
Tell me, now who are the stupid ones????????
At 5/gal it would be $6.45 a day.
At 6/gal it would be $7.74 a day.
I am going to try to move closer to work. I rent, so I can be flexible. $6 a gallon sounds pretty rough, though, it would take me over 1/2 an hour of my work day just to earn back the money I had spent getting there.
As long as people sit 13 deep in a drive through In-N-Out burger and 8 deep for a beverage at Starbucks, we do not have a demand problem.
They made fun of Jimmy Carter for putting on a sweater and urging Americans to conserve energy. Gas prices have been kept low, regulations were relaxed (Reagan years--trickle down, de-regulation, etc.)and people here just went crazy.
I think it will take real shortages rather than price hikes to wake up my fellow citizens of the USA.
The limit has been reached.
I'm renting my car out to a friend who needs it.
As a bonus, I'm gettin' super ripped.
What does piss me off about rising gas prices is the fact that its not linear with the ~3.5% inflation we already have to deal with. Its climbing exponentially and that means that Americans' budgets have to give elsewhere.
Europe can talk to me when they have to work 2 jobs and 60-80 hours a week to survive. Damn you people ruin my trips over there with your ignorant views.
The economy was already in sorry shape from trade imbalance, a weak dollar, a very expensive war, and a self inflicted credit crisis. I fear that even if we could fix all of those things, that the fuel prices will simply create an inflation spiral that we will are prepared to control.
If everyone is complaining about gas prices how come everyone is still driving like 75 on the highway?
My commute is 30 min one way all highway and set my cruise control at 65. I feel like an old lady driving on a Sunday, cars blowing by me left and right.
Where is the breaking point where people slow down?
I agree with most of the (obvious) Europeans here - as far as gas prices are concerned, America is spoiled. Sweden is just one of the many places where gas has reached $9/gallon and scientists are estimating the gas price will need to be doubled to reach climate goals for the next couple of years.
Good thing I don't drive.
You might consider this high, but my country, the Netherlands, a gallon (3.78 liter!) costs $9.22.
I live in Denmark, and the prices here, 9-10 $/gallon, has now caused med to drive slower to save fuel. And public transport is not an alternative where i am currently living.
Combine this with the ever increasing annual car tax we pay to keep our cars on the road it’s becoming harder to keep a car running.
i have an amazing idea for a new vehicle, and i think it would work, but i'm not a mechanic or engineer and don't know the exact intricacies of my project. it uses segway technology and solar power... intriguing, no? i've emailed a couple people familiar with this technology telling them my idea (of course not disclosing all of my plans for fear of having it stolen), but no responses yet. anyone in here know about segways?
also-- my dad is really looking into engines that run off of water. you have to build the engine yourself, but the parts only cost around $3500 and i'm sure there is an instruction book. he said that if he gets it to work well, he's going to do the same in our (mine and my siblings) cars as well. of course, i'm trying to think of ways to illeviate the need for ANY resources capable of depletion, so i would probably collect and purify rain water instead of pumping out of a hose or whatever.
but i don't think we need to think of ways to lower gas prices because it's just not happening. we have already reached peak oil, and our supply IS running out no matter what OPEC tells us. and even if it's not running out now, it will run out in the next couple centuries. that is our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. i don't want them to live through this sh*t, why not use what awesome technologies we KNOW are useful and change the face of society?
The point at which people look around a nd see that the alternatives are right there but political payola , industrial inertia and share holder greed have all stopped progress for decades and will not assist in sorting things out unless they are again allowed near monopolies of any emergent industries.
The truely stagerringly awful fuel mileage of US cars is extraordinary.
The rise of the SUV in particular was The Big 3 auto manufacturers lobbying hard to have industrial vehicles excluded from laws governing gas mileage targets, then defining those 19th century buses called SUVs as industrial vehicles,ie TRUCKS.
That's just the tip of the ice berg.
The thing is that carbon fibre bodies, double glazed car windows and alws controlling all vehicle mpg ratings are all easily doable right now, hell you don't even need to abandon the internal combustion engine at all.
Really, if you trimmed the car weight down by four fifths, which is waht carbon fibre would do, and installed double glazing thus n olonger needing domestic sized AC units, you could all sit in proper sized cars.
A one litre engince capacity is only a weak engine when it is dragging a huge an=mount of weight, remove most of the weight and it's quite a powerful unit.
But if you used modern super efficient engines , the ones that turn off at the lights or at idle, that'd help too.
All I'm saying is that a country that invented "Armoury Technique" the fore father of mass production, invented the aeroplane, the modern car and miryiad other innovations, it should be humiliating to be seen as as such a technologically remedial bunch nowadays.
The gas prices are only so high and hurt so badly because you you use so very much for so very little effect.
Come on USA, you're the heart of the industrial world, implement the innovations that are already at hand, revitalise your own economy, make detriot the motor city once more, except this time a carbon fibre motor city.
It is all here, all to hand and all doable.
Except that you now have a feudal ruling class who would rather see you all dead than dream of relinquishing their strrangle hold on power.
And remember, the Bush family, and all their pals consider themselves to be a superior species to you lot.
Btw, it's all because oil cartels...
The ONLY reason gas is so expensive now is because our government has been printing money like there's no tomorrow to pay for its wars and illegal surveillance programs, among other things.
If you convert your savings to gold or silver, you won't have to worry about food or gas inflation, since precious metals are inflation-proof.
I'm not sure what our breaking point is (we are close to $4 where we are...). I think at some point it will get to $10, especially if we elect McCain, and he up and invades Iran (or Bush does it before he leaves office).
But perhaps if gas keeps going up like this, we will all start making enough noise for alternatives to be seriously looked at (not ethanol based on a food product however... that I think is proving a bad solution). This might be a silver lining, environmentally, politically, and economically.
Mindy
100 mpg is better than your hybrid single commuter.
I go on joy rides often. I love driving, so the gas prices dont bother me much.
I recall paying $0.89 to $0.99 per gallon, not too many years ago.
When I was growing up, less than 50 years ago, the gas station on our corner had gas for about $0.27 per gallon all year long. A pack of cigarettes cost that same amount.
You youngsters should try to imagine what I am going through now. It is torture.
$1.20 Aus = 1L
Which means, compared to that, we (where I am in Aus) are paying
$1.60 Aus = 1L
And that's a number that rises every day. :(
Diesel costs about $1.82 per litre and rises even faster.
For now, you guys are lucky!
what is LPG going for these days in Oz?
folks who own the big old Holdens must be getting it in the neck.
I loved my 1970 Kingswood 186 wagon., Dirty Pierre was his name and he was a beaut.
3 in the tree.
I miss Melbourne
I think LNG was 88 aus today. And rising, like everything. Petrol was $1.62 today :)
Where are you? I'm in NT, Aus (which means my prices are probably higher than the average).
Since everything is so far away out here, it really hits everyone hard - but the Holdens - the 4x4's are the worst. You see a car and you can predict the wage of the owner because it'll be based on it's fuel economy! And fuel efficient cars are rising in price too, since everyone wants them... We're looking a bit backwards when I put it that way!
I have recently been shopping for a new, fuel efficient new car. The vast majority of the choices are Japanese or Korean vehicles, and these vehicles are commanding full sticker price and more. The entire fleet of new vehicles for sale need to be trimmed down in size for greater fuel economy. People are trading in their 8 cylinder Tahoes for small Toyotas, Nissans, etc.
There are only 2 viable American made small cars, the Ford Focus and the Chevrolet Cobalt. Chrysler has the Neon and quit making them. The American automobile manufacturers are basically out of touch with reality, and have been for quite some time.
Yeah but do we get free healthcare and all the other goodies they get for paying such a high price via taxes? No.