That's it, I'm walking. gas up 33 cents since Monday, - Page 4

Bah.....

What is the point of arguing if there is or isn't collusion in an industry where the price was/is largely determined by one organization?

It doesnt really matter how much it costs you to fill up, it matters what its costing you per mile. NORMALLY (outside of a few situations) people that can afford gas guzzlers can afford the gas. That may cease to be the case. I drive a dodge ram with a Hemi and I've given up trying to be feather foot because driving like an 80 year old lady only gains me 1mpg and its too much work. So I drive normally and end up about 12mpg combined per tank and that's about 50/50 city/highway to maybe 60/40 city/highway. I'm starting to feel a pinch, but even for "well off" people, trading in a car due to current gas prices isnt an option. Then you have people like my dad who is a farmer. So he lives out on a farm (duh) but due to the horrible farm economy, he takes a job in the city between planting and harvest, as well as over the winter. Since his ONLY vehicle is a farm truck, he's spending probably $80+ a week for gas, maybe closer to $100, I dont know for sure.

Gas here in G.R. went up to $2.79 a gallon.

There was an article in the paper yesterday about how people around here are trying to sell their SUV's a.k.a gas guzzlers and not really having any luck.

$2.79 at the independent auto joint I frequent. Local guy, employs teenage kids who have good manners, and a nice carwash with towel dry is $5. Worth the extra 10c/gal. to keep him in business.

Eat a sandwich, ride your bike, repeat.

My father's friend is a oil trader. He says that about $20 of the oil's pricing now is due to the speculators.

And, if he is correct, they will reap the same reward as those that heavily speculated in tech stocks in 99-00

Mort

On NPR this morning there was a gasoline dealer/service station owner that said a big part of the price increase is from zone pricing. His suggestion was to write the state reps to eliminate zone pricing.

Hmm, let's think about where the Bush family made their money for a second and ask that again...

Interesting idea with the speculators being in the game now. Hopefully this means that it's only a matter of time before the price of oil plummets again. In the meantime, someone should really get on inventing the better battery...

Wonder how many extra priuses Toyota is moving these days?

Thomas, I remember when gas was at 40 cents a gallon.

Everybody: Please refrain from talking about the current president and his family. Thank you.

Speculators have always been in the market, but due to a whole lot of factors including speculation the price has gone up.

People moaning and groaning about the profits of the oil companies, well when speculators/market drive the price of oil up, the oil company reaps the benefits from that as well with higher profits (ie 10% of $100 is less than 10% of $1,000).


Last I heard there was a 3 month'ish waiting list to get one in some markets.


A Prius get's great mileage for stop/go type driving, and even then you have to drive in specific ways to hit the ultra-high economy numbers. If your commute consists of a lot of freeway driving then you're numbers will go down.

Either way 40/50mpg numbers aren't earth shattering, econo-sub compacts have been in the 40's for 10-15 years now.


You were working when you were 4?

That whole point is in regards to people who always moan at some magic number, like $3/gallon being higher than ever, but unless you factor in inflation it doesn't always give a clear picture. My father bought his first house for less than $20k, his nice mid-line car only cost him around $1500 or so brand new from the dealer, of course he was only earning $3-4/hr.

Same thing with comaprisons to 1980.
$3 today = $1.18 in 1980
Median $40k/yr income today = $16k/yr in 1980

A big part of speculation is "risk". The Middle East is a MUCH riskier place post 9/11 and the Iraq war. If insurgents/terrorists start actively targetting Saudi's pipelines, the sh-t will really hit the fan. Fortunately the Saudi government knows this and apparently has pretty decent security.

Heck, you don't have to be that old. It was in the 67-69 cent range just a few years ago in 1998-9 in Indiana during college.

BZZZT Wrong.

Combined mileage is north of 42MPG for many people.

Just drive it. If you stomp on the accelerator in any car you aren't gonna get good mileage no matter what other conditions are present.

For a car that is supposed to get 60/51 mpg (city/highway), 42 is pretty bad, and there are MANY people who are getting much less than that, like down into the mid 30 mpg range (there's been much press about this) and less. Which puts it into the same range as a whole lot of other cars out there that offer better performance for the same fuel economy.

So again, if you want to hit 50-60mpg numbers in a Prius, you have to drive it like your grandmother would with just about all of the accessories off (they suck up battery power, less power the more the engine runs, the lower the fuel economy), etc.

Andrew

Finally the price of oil drops today. Hopefully this is the beginning of a big selloff.

Many experts agree as we have said here that much of the run up in price is speculation.

From MSN:


I think it is rather telling that our inventories are bigger than last year and our refineries are producing more per day than a year ago yet gasoline prices are atleast 75% higher than last year.

Bend over, we're getting screwed.

And if you read about those "many" people that get sub 40, they are all stomping and living on the accelerator.

My point still stands. Drive it normally.

You do not have to baby the Prius. Please drive one, then comment on it. An unformed opinion does a disservice to those looking into Hybrid tech.

Our gas here in alaska really hasn't been changing all that much, thank god! But if it did, well, I'm already considering walking... hahaha...

Every single one of them "stomps" on it?


I have driven them, and I also have 2 people working for me that own hybrids, one Prius and one Civic, neither of them have ever gotten remotely close to the EPA numbers and neither of them drive their cars like they stole them, both of them drive quite conservatively. The Prius owner is getting low 40's and the Civic owner is in the middle/high 30's.

Andrew

Hell, I'd take the prius in the above situation then. Better than any of my current vehicles. But, living without car payments is nice enough. And as time goes on efficiency will increase. But when the time comes, Im giving it serious thought.

I do not see this as a potical issue but rather as an economic one.

Gas and Oil Prices are consuming are larger and larger part of our disposable income.

We need to drill in Alaska, build more refineries, build cars that are not gasoline dependent.

I'm becoming ashamed of my country because they don't seem to be doing this.

Aren't the reserves in Alaska much deeper and harder to get to than the ones in the mideast? The drilling process itself would cause the prices to rise.

Agree on the need for non-gas dependent cars.

I'm certainly not saying that low/mid 40's or even high 30's is bad mileage, it's still very good. But you can get very good numbers out of other cars, my ex Honda Civic would get around 30/40 and I beat the ever loving crap out of that car, the diesel's that are out/coming out offer some very good numbers as well, the VW TDI get's into the low/mid 40's on the highway (mid 30's in the city), and on.

And depending on how much you drive, I'd do some math work before figuring out if a super-mileage car is going to save you money. Even if you drive 100 miles a day (20 days a month) in your 20mpg car you only lose about $150'ish compared to the 50mpg super-mileage car. Bad, but certainly no car payment.

The Prius' outstanding technology and efficiency notwithstanding, the fault for this lies with the EPA testing standards, not with Toyota. Toyota is compelled by law to publish the mileage determined by EPA test results, even if the test procedure doesn't account for the presence of batteries in the drivetrain. I've never met a Toyota dealer who didn't explain this to prospective buyers and lower their expectations with regard to mileage before they buy. They are very up front about it. They know the EPA test results are sky high, and they don't want to suffer the certain customer backlash for the mileage figures they are law-bound to publish.

Even so, 42 MPG is not "pretty bad" in any respect. In fact, I'd say it's excellent mileage, especially for a mid-sized sedan.
My 1988 CRX Si gets 32 MPG. But it's a two-seater, sub-2000-lb car. Sure, it gets great mileage, and it's a blast to drive, but I can't in any way compare it to a mid-sized sedan that gets the same or better mileage with decent performance. (Yes, I've driven a Prius. I know someone who owns one.) I don't think there's another mid-sized sedan that can touch the Prius' performance/economy ratio. Comparing apples to apples, the Prius is significantly more efficient. Just because the numbers don't match the faulty EPA figures doesn't mean the numbers are bad. 30 to 50 MPG for a mid-sized sedan is excellent mileage by any measure.

As for driving like Granny or lead-footing it, as has been pointed out earlier, the effects of such extreme driving styles will be significant in any car, not just the Prius.

(As an aside, did you all know that the Prius has no clutch and no transmission gears that mesh and un-mesh? Nothing to wear out! Cool, huh? )

[Edit: Ajay, you beat me to the punch while I was writing. Thanks for clarifying your stand on 40 MPG, and good point about needing to do the math to determine whether the extra mileage will save in the long run.]

Well the EPA city certainly does work to a hybrids advantage, but it does so more than other cars. It's done on a dyno, so no turning the wheel (which uses an electric pump to give power assist), no radio on, no A/C running, etc. All of those have a heavier impact on a hybrid than on a regular gas engine car (hence the massive complaints about the hybrids EPA numbers).

Car and Driver did a test on the Civic Hybrid, on a "city loop" they got mid 30mpg numbers and low 50mpg numbers. The difference? Running the AC in "normal" mode (where the AC runs all the time, hence the engine runs all the time), and running the AC in an "economy" mode (where the AC shuts down along with the gas engine when the car stops).

But either way, they are still good numbers, just not the world-beating super-savers when driven in the "real world". Although I really like the direction things are going hybrid wise with cars like the Accord, Camry, Lexus RX400, etc. Making bigger "average" cars that don't pay the "normal" hybrid price (smaller, poor performance, etc), for instance the Accord hybrid performs better than the gas version, but posts 25-30% better fuel economy numbers, it's a "no-compromise" type setup (well except for the extra money you spend for it).

These are difficult times for Californians who must drive for their $5 Starbucks cup of coffee

That's always been the way here though. I'm actually looking at trading my 99 Yukon for a 2005 Excursion.

Yeah, but who drinks 3 gallons of Snapple a day???

That list reminds me of Instant Pudding. If you look at the price per pound (at the supermarket, on the price thingy), it's like $20/pound (or something like that). It's because you're paying like $2 for a few ounces, so the price per pound is a bit jarring when you first look at it.

I once saw a graph, that showed historical data on gas milage.

For both the EU and Japan, it seemed that the average gas milage was asymptotically approaching 50mpg. In the US, it stopped rising in the mid 80s at something like 21 mpg.

Why is this?
Don't americans want more efficient cars? Are we all just convinced that cars HAVE to be this inefficient?

I, myself no about as much about cars as I do the mongolian postal service but I once listened in on a conversation between my brother (British) and my father-in-law (Texan). My father-in-law was saying how his chevy truck got really good milage at 25 mpg. My Brother said that his Toyota Supra, which does 0-60 in about 5 seconds gets about 35mpg.

Both of them were shocked.