UTMC

The mass media gods are in prep-the-public mode...http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/gas-pri ... g-18555164 and it is really no mystery why:



The Margin Must Be Reconciled! Interesting is that the oil companies have been apparently subsidizing lower gas prices for years now...but I imagine there is a limit to their collective largess.... lol (and we are indeed lucky that line is not a *curve*, no? ) Yet.

Glad i have *one* bike that gets 50mpg+...

There was an article in the WaPo about that a few days ago.

Yeah, I'm very glad I invested in the scooter last autumn. I haven't been riding much the past couple of months because, well, it's fuckin' COLD out there... but as soon as the weather is above 40ºF I'll be back zipping around NoVA as much as possible.

I generally like my Ridgeline, but gyat DAYUM is it a gas hog (~15mpg)! If I had a real commute I'd be thinking of trading it in about now.

--Jaeger

Heard that while it may be creeping up to $4 right now, "experts" only see about $4.25 this summer.
Not that it matters.

Just as an FYI, I've taken the liberty of working what our gas prices over here mean in 'merican.
Octane numbers are RON, I understand you 'mericans usually use MON, which for the same juice tends to be a bit lower than RON, but there's no mathematical formula to compare the two.

Super E10
the cheapest, nastiest, 10% ethanol, 95 octane stuff.
€1.60 / liter = $7.99 / gallon

Super
the old-fashioned, 5% ethanol juice, 95 octane
€1.63 / liter = $8.14 / gallon

Super Plus
the good stuff, 98 octane or higher
€1.67 / liter = $8.34 / gallon

Ultimate 102
the own-brand stuff of BP and their subsidiary, ARAL (from my hometown, literally invented one of the first types of affordable "high octane" gasoline in the 1920s, hence the name). More octane than any lawmakers foresaw, so no standardized term. 102 octane.
€1.70 / liter = $8.49 / gallon

Diesel
apart from LPG, the cheapest. Always.
€1.44 / liter = $7.19 / gallon

Before you ask what happened to regular ... nothing happened to regular, and nothing is happening to it. Or with it. Literally. When it became apparent that laws would be made to "encourage" the E10 shit, all the oil companies and gas station chains decided that three different types of gasoline besides the diesel is enough already, enough to refine, store, transport and all of that. So the regular got phased out. The terms "Super" etc. are legally defined by octane numbers and stuff so motorists don't have to actually know stuff like how many octane their car needs.
This is just as an FYI. During the last year, especially around the start of the vacation season and times like that, I've seen prices as much as five to ten cents (euro-cents) higher.

It's funny how some conservative sources are still claiming that not only are we not running out of oil, but we actually have more than ever while their god, the market, shouts the opposite.

The world may actually have more oil than ever before. I read an article in a magazine recently about fracking for oil going on in North Dakota and that general neighborhood, you guys (I think they also mentioned parts of Canada) are looking at becoming net exporters of oil by 2035 with the stuff they've found up there.
But demand hasn't stagnated - China, India, post-Soviet Russia, they all stuck the oil needle in their arm and need their shot. Demand rising faster than even an increasing supply is increasing drives the price up.
That and peak oil, which for the "old fasioned" sources of oil is still applying, make oil the sort of commodity people invest in. Even someone who doesn't believe we are running out of oil will look at the market, at the public concern over depletion of oil reserves, and decide to make some money off of the other suckers. This kind of thing can grow into a speculative bubble which eventually bursts, like we saw before the last Iraq invasion or when the whole world exploded up it's own arsehole in 2008 and the commodities boom ended. But sometimes, the price just keeps climbing and then just sits there, munching toast right from the bag, a somewhat more robust bubble that can hold it's own for a while. Because there are actually two markets here. The actual commodities market, where oil is supplied and demanded, and the market for investments and other "financial products". The market where commodities aren't what is demanded and supplied, but the "financial instruments" based on just that speculation in such commodities is demanded and supplied. So not only must the commodities market balance supply, demand and the inevitable speculation therein, the other market will drive prices, too. And even in that market, there are more consumers now, there is more actual money available because of the economic development in places like China. So that end heats up with the other.

At least that's what I think I've gleaned. I don't pretend to understand all that economic hooplah, all I understand is that all those who claim to understand it have, in my lifetime, so it seems, inevitably been caught having made errors of epic proportions when they used that understanding to make any predictions.

@ DG, The way octane is calculated here is (RON+MON)/2 it's listed on every pump
most places have 87 (regular) 89 (plus) and 92 or 93 Premium, some pumps have Diesel (not many) and it's on average 10% more expensive than gas
Sunoco had 5 grades, not sure if they still do, 86, 87, 89, 92, 94, all achieved by blending 2 grades right inside the pumps.

Well, with MON being usually eight to ten points lower than RON, according to Wikipedia, your 'merican octane rating would be between four and five points lower than the RON numbers I mentioned above.

I love my Jeep, but it fucking sucks down the gas. Just Empty Every Pocket indeed.

Hey DerGolgo (or anybody else who feels like chiming in on this):
In your opinion, why do you think diesel is cheaper than gasoline in European countries, but substantially more expensive than gasoline in the United States? I really have no idea myself. It's my understanding that there are many more diesel models available over there than there are here. The last time I checked (and it's been a while), the only two automobile manufacturers that were selling diesel powered cars (note: cars, not light and heavy trucks) in the United States were Volkswagen and BMW. I own a Jetta TDI and can say that the fuel economy that I get GREATLY outweighs the difference in the cost of fuel.

Fuel was always a bit more expensive over here, not least because of taxes. People also had slightly less purchasing power at their disposal than you 'mericans. Fuel economy was thus always a bit more important. Diesel engines are, by their nature, a little more fuel efficient than petrol engines, and I think I also read someplace that diesel was also slightly easier to refine, hence a bit cheaper to begin with. So folk who needed low running cost, no matter what, and didn't much care about performance, commercial and municipal operators, public transit, they'd prefer a diesel, since always. With the economy effectively running on diesel, it got massive tax breaks and was thus, in the end, significantly cheaper at the pump, so this generated even more demand. on top of which, agricultural users got a complete tax exemption for their diesel fuel - I don't think I ever even heard of a petrol powered tractor over here. Those tax breaks are also why their diesel is a different color, so the cops can tell when farmer Joe has filled his Merc D model up with offroad tractor juice, which is tax fraud (not that anyone ever checks, though).
With all of that demand, and how, in my understanding, diesel is a cheaper proposition for manufacturers, not just because of any ease in refining, but being less volatile than gasoline and thus being easier to handle, they could offer it a lot cheaper - and with the competition of a market economy (or what passes for that with the petrol station cartels), prices for diesel got low. People would see how folk with diesel cars paid a lot less at the pump, and to add insult to injury, got much better fuel economy, also ... and wanted diesel cars of their own. What's good enough for a taxi is good enough, period!
Manufacturers thus would offer diesel models wherever they thought they might sell some...which turned out to be any part of the market except perhaps sports-cars. You could get cars like an Audi convertible with a diesel, though ... and had they not worried about their brand image, I'm sure Porsche would have managed to sell a few diesel models. Before turbochargers and common rail injection and all of these tricks came along, people would accept a quite significant trade-off in performance for quite significantly lower running costs. In the passenger car market, the first inroads were with the Mercedes models the taxi drivers would come to love, of course. As technology developed, and the fuel economy advantages grew, while the performance disadvantages disappeared pretty much entirely, more people would buy more diesel cars, more diesel would get sold at the pump, so much so that they eventually started to offer two different types of diesel. One for big trucks and buses, one for passenger cars. Different taxation also, I think, and different size nozzles at the pump to make sure you can't put the truck diesel into a passenger car. A whole diesel culture developed, so even when most of the tax breaks for diesel were struck off the books in recent years, the huge demand and competition that went with that would keep prices low.

Diesel got a bad rep in the last decade, though. Particulate emissions got the governments dragged through the courts, and now every car needs a little sticker - red, yellow, or green, depending on how much particulate matter comes out the rear. At autobahn exits, where roads lead into built up areas, sometimes around entire conurbations, there are traffic signs which indicate who may enter. In many larger cities, red or even yellow stickers? You may not drive past this sign. Older diesels have red stickers, even models only a few years old often have yellow ones. Not even vintage cars with "historic" plates are exempt, from what I understand. Since citizens can now sue the authorities if particulate levels exceed EU standards, where those particulates come from is irrelevant. Diesel has gotten slightly less popular because of that and the running-cost advantages being reduced with the taxes having gone up.
Milage-monsters, fuel-economy-geeks and penny-pinchers tend to swing towards LPG these days, it's available at more and more gas stations. I think I read something about a government project to ensure that LPG selling stations are never more than so-and-so many miles away from one another, so you don't get stuck in the sticks with an empty tank. Retrofitting a car for LPG is cheaper than buying one of the newest, green-sticker diesel cars, too. And it's the cheapest fuel at the pump by quite a margin (or so I hear, the comparison isn't quite as simple as with petrol and diesel). As it once was with diesel, most models from most manufacturers are now available in at least one LPG variant, from compacts to luxury sedans. Makes sense, if you can retrofit an existing diesel or petrol engine for LPG, adapting a design straight out of the factory wouldn't be too complicated.
So it's becoming the go-juice of choice for taxis and other people who need to drive for a living, like contractors and delivery drivers. Even many public-transport buses now run it. I wouldn't exactly bet on it, but I get a feeling that, especially if electric cars become more common and gas stations have to deal with shrinking demand for their product, we may see the day that diesel becomes the specialty product LPG was a decade ago, and diesel drivers have to plan their cross-country routes based on where they can fill up. We may see things going that way within the decade, if there are a breakthrough or three in battery technology, or at least a drop in battery prices.

SSCAM over here diesel was cheaper right up to the point the EPA began to force fich extra crap into it and sulfur out of it. Damn hippes. So now diesel is rated by its sulfur content, and anything for road use costs craploads. You can still get cheap diesel for farm vehicles in some places, you just can't get caught on the road with that in your tank. Farm diesel is died red, road is dyed green/yellow/cancer. By removing the sulfur, the fuel required other additives to make up for the lubrication etc formerly provided by S. So just keep tacking o cost. Same as when they did away with leaded gas.

http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


On top of that the frickin re-burn requirements turn what would be amazing mileage vehicles into wallet burners. Easy example, my brother's 1992 F-250 gets about 21mpg on a 7.3ltr. I get about 14.5 mpg on a 6.0ltr 2007 F250. If I modify it (making it no longer able to pass emissions tests) I can get right back up to that 20mpg zone. We both drive like old women to achieve better mileage.

ok I'll quit griping.

Mk3 wrote:over here diesel was cheaper right up to the point the EPA began to force fich extra crap into it and sulfur out of it. Damn hippes. So now diesel is rated by its sulfur content, and anything for road use costs craploads. You can still get cheap diesel for farm vehicles in some places, you just can't get caught on the road with that in your tank. Farm diesel is died red, road is dyed green/yellow/cancer. By removing the sulfur, the fuel required other additives to make up for the lubrication etc formerly provided by S. So just keep tacking o cost. Same as when they did away with leaded gas.

But Europe has been running cleaner diesel for years, so that doesn't really make sense.

rolly wrote:

Mk3 wrote:over here diesel was cheaper right up to the point the EPA began to force fich extra crap into it and sulfur out of it. Damn hippes. So now diesel is rated by its sulfur content, and anything for road use costs craploads. You can still get cheap diesel for farm vehicles in some places, you just can't get caught on the road with that in your tank. Farm diesel is died red, road is dyed green/yellow/cancer. By removing the sulfur, the fuel required other additives to make up for the lubrication etc formerly provided by S. So just keep tacking o cost. Same as when they did away with leaded gas.

But Europe has been running cleaner diesel for years, so that doesn't really make sense.

Cabal. I've watched diesel go up in cost relative to unleaded for years, working in construction most of the equipment we work with is powered by the devil's fuel although we can use the "Off-Road" variety. It used to be you paid a premium for the diesel engine in a vehicle (seemed like it was always in or near the $5k range above the comparable gas engine) but went further and paid less at the pump. Maybe oil producers got wise to how that would benefit the american consumer what with our wide open spaces and longer commutes and decided to dis-incentivize it for you and I. For that matter, why has it taken so long to get diesel sedans back in the country? I am tired of the same old bullshit about how GM ruined the diesel's reputation back in the early 80's, enough people understand the march of technology bringing about improvement to justify a continued presence by Audi/VW and Mercedes diesels.
OK, tinfoil hat off for now.

I doubt they actively dis-incentivize. Rather, they have no incentive themselves to keep that price low. Compared to Europe, gas in the US is still ridiculously cheap - and that has been the case basically since ever. So fuel economy never played into running costs as significantly as it did over here. You guys never developed the diesel culture we have over here. Where petrol is so cheap, even taxi drivers don't feel the need to go diesel, it just won't catch on, and evidently hasn't. Even with petrol being cheap enough, the extra expense of the diesel engine may still have been an economical proposition - but not with as much economical benefits as it had over here. On top of which, I gather diesel isn't available at all gas stations in the states (or so I've heard) - who's gonna buy a diesel car when they don't know where to fill her up?
So when folk figured out sulfur in diesel is bad and regulation started, there wasn't a market large enough to spread the additional cost (not just refining costs, but related capital investments) over many customers like there was and still is over here. What's more, with a smaller market, there is less demand, less competition - and without competition, they have no incentives to keep prices low.
All of that combined with the price-gouging cartels you surely have over there just like we have over here, diesel ends up more expensive. That this has a side benefit or three for the oil industry is an added bonus, an additional incentive, but hardly enough to justify suspecting active and conscious strategy in that pricing strategy. But enough to justify suspecting active and conscious dis-interest in any alternative pricing strategies. Just letting it happen, but that on purpose.

I cannot speak to anywhere else in the US, but here in texas diesel is available at most stations. Given that my commute is commonly over 20 miles each way, the efficiency, availability and durability would make sense for me except for the cost.

Bigshankhank wrote:I cannot speak to anywhere else in the US, but here in texas diesel is available at most stations.

As in Southern California--I'd guess at least half the stations here. Had an old Mercedes diesel up until a few years ago and never had problems finding diesel.

How much more expensive is diesel in the US? I've never really paid attention to it but a quick survey has it at about 2 cents a litre more than regular 87 octane gasoline. That's around 7-8 cents a gallon, or 60 cents more to fill my shitbox if it were magically converted to diesel.

Rolly, I took a quick loook on this site, and found that in my area, diesel is priced somewhere between regular and premium, but in Toronto, it's a few cents cheaper per liter than reg.

Edit: Jeez gas is 10¢ more per liter in Vancouver than Toronto--that's almost 40¢ per gallon.

Diesel is about $0.50 more per gallon than 87 octane gasoline where I'm at. I have never seen it cheaper than premium gasoline.

The regional variation is in interesting. I remember when I was a weelad my parents packed me in a camper van for a roadtrip to Expo 86 in Vancouver. At home I recall diesel being 25¢/litre and gasoline being around twice that. In Alberta, gas was 25¢ and diesel was more than at home, can't remember exactly how much. Guess the Alberta refineries weren't into diesel.

Zer0 wrote:Jeez gas is 10¢ more per liter in Vancouver than Toronto--that's almost 40¢ per gallon.

Well, it apparently is the most expensive city in North America. Ask Thrasher sometime

In europe, diesel is taxed less than gasoline and has been for ages, primarily because Europe as a whole chose to emphasize fuel efficiency after WWII rationing. America chose emissions control as a federal priority instead - starting in the late 1960s, and thus taxes gas and diesel at a far lower rate, and since diesel was primarily a truck fuel here (and trucks cause a lot of road damage), diesel has usually been taxed more than gasoline.

Since demand for diesel far outstrips gasoline (due to the lower price at the pump) in europe, european refineries use a different refining method that makes more diesel and less gasoline per barrel. US refineries do the opposite, since demand for gasoline is much stronger in our market.

Diesel in the US is usually 10% - 30% more expensive per gallon than regular gasoline. This, along with the considerable extra cost of a diesel engine option often completely negates any cost savings from increase in mileage a diesel model might get over the standard gas engine, especially in passenger cars.
The 2013 Golf TDI is rated at 42mpg highway and costs $24,495 (base)
The 2013 Golf gas engine is rated at 33mpg highway and costs $18,095 (base)

You're getting 9mpg more for an extra charge of $6,400 for the cheapest diesel model over the cheapest gas model.
At 12,000 miles/yr (the average US mileage) at the current US average cost of gas ($3.85/gal @ 363 gal used annually) and diesel ($4.15/gal @ 285 gal used annually) you're spending $1,397 annually on gas and $1,182 annually on diesel, assuming you achieve the rated mileage.

That's a fuel savings of $215 per year, which would take more than 29 years - or 300,000 miles - to pay for the increased cost of the diesel option. Not worth it, since you'll never hit the payoff point before the car dies even if you drive a huge number of miles annually.

Comparing 4 door hatches , the cheapest Golf is $19,995 and gets 31mpg hwy and the cheapest Prius is $24,200 and gets 51mpg. Using the same cost of gas and annual mileage, you'll spend $904 annually on fuel with the Prius for 235 gal of fuel. That's a fuel savings of $493 annually, which will take 8 and a half years - or 102,000 miles - to pay off the increased cost of the hybrid Prius. Once you own the Prius for 9 years, you're making money and if you put a lot of miles on you'll hit the payoff point even sooner.

Source for pricing: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_w.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Source for mileage figures: http://www.vw.com/en/models/golf/trims-specs.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But... If I paid $6500 for my TDI in 2006, and it still gets 47+mpg, do I win a prize of some sort?

Perseverance?



OK, more seriously, buying used has so many variables that meaningful comparisons are hard to make - especially when the cars involved are more than a few model years old. Condition, miles driven, cost, frequency and severity of repairs and maintenance, price paid for the car and dumb luck are all wild cards that vary hugely from transaction to transaction and car to car. Buying used can be a real bargain if you know what you're looking at and get a well maintained car in good shape for cheap. Avoiding a lemon is key, and if you do your own maintenance and repairs (correctly) you can save even more cash.

One of my favorites was a new-car trade in '91 CRX HF I bought for $900 from my dealership. It got 52 mpg all day long on the cheapest swill I could find and cost me virtually zero dollars in maintenance and insurance for the 2 years I owned it, it never broke, and I later sold it for double what I paid for it. With gas at a dollar a gallon at the time, driving that car for two years was essentially free other than insurance. Before that I had a '87 Chevy Sprint turbo (42 mpg) I bought from a junkyard for $800, put $250 into it for a windshield and some tires and drove that for 2 years. A guy in a Jeep totalled it (his fault) when he turned into me. His insurance gave me $1700 for the car, so driving that for 2 years was essentially free too.

Some cars, they are more frugal and hard-to-kill than they have any right to be. Which is cool, since way more energy goes into building a car than into running it (unless it's like one of those million-mile Volvos, from the sixties, probably, and even then only if the operator always drives for good mileage).
If you want to really do something for the environment, but need a car, and want to save money also ... keep some old ruster on the road seems to be way to go. You have to sacrifice the peace of mind a new car gives you, in that it'll work, but if you junk it and get a new one rather than doing major repairs, even the fuel economy can be not-so-hot to make that an economical proposition. Not to mention an environmental one, if you only ever get a used car that would get junked anyway, your carbon footprint will be acreas and acres smaller than that of any Prius owner.
And it's not even such a horrible proposition...I could tell you stories about a 1991 Ford Fiesta that just stubbornly refused to die...

Stiles: Turbo Sprint FTW! I had a basic Sprint for a while and it was my favorite car ever. More go cart than car. I always wanted a turbo.

Everyone else: Ride a bike fatass.

I loved that little weed whacker. I'd buy another CRX HF or Civic VX in a hot second if I could find one in decent shape that wasn't totally riced to ruin for an acceptable price.