U.S. gas: So cheap it hurts

Over 100,000 miles at 48 MPG, the total gallons used in the Prius would be 2083.34. My old 97 Honda Accord got 27.5 MPG and would have used 3636.36 gallons or 1553 gallons more. With gas at:

$18.42, the additional gas costs $28606.26 or more than enough to pay for the Prius.

at $3.45, the additional gas costs $5358 or more than enough to pay for the elec motor and battery, etc (I really bought this car for the styling ) especially when you add in the $1350 tax credit I got.

Just a thought, I'm sure there's other factors to be considered.

and...

UMMV teehee

~buttster

 

Eur 1,57/L for gas in France last week (Paris).

That's about $8.80/gal.

 

I like this Thread, It really puts things in perspective. Just like how a gallon of milk is around $5, a gallon of paint around $20. There are more expensive things out there than just a gallon of gas. Don't get me wrong though, it does suck but at least were not on the top 20 of most expensive.

 

And of course it's MASSIVELY subsidized, which damages their economy. All of those countries pay a heavy price when they undercut the cost of oil so heavily.

 

Last week when our main refinery shut down here in Scotland, I paid £1.30 per litre to fill up.

That's equivalent to $9.84 per US gallon!!

We don't even blink at this kind of thing over here, but if you started paying almost $10 per gallon in the States there would be riots in the streets on the first day!

 

I'm not sure about the Bosnia-Herzegovina data, I have friends that boast of having filled up with really cheap petrol.

 

Really? So if everything is funded off from taxes for road construction and repair work on bridges why are we all of a sudden having issues with funding? Could it be our own Government pocketing some of the tax payers money? Ludicrous programs that the government has enacted and which the end result was failure?

Take the 35W bridge collapse for example. They knew there was a problem and did nothing about it until it came down. They would rather put 11 billion dollars towards stupid light rail (which is failing) than 11 billion into road work.

 

The gas tax is used for road construction and maintenance in the US, however the tax is not indexed to inflation. The cost of steel and concrete has gone up dramatically in the last few years.

 

I think the biggest problem with getting americans away from SUVs is that gas goes up in price too slowly. The U.S. needs to charge gas like this:

$3 a gallon the first 5 gallons you buy every week.
$5 a gallon for gallons 5.1-10 you buy every week.
$7 a gallon for gallons 10.1-15 you buy every week.
$9 a gallon for gallons 15.1-20 you buy every week.
$11 a gallon for gallons 20.1-25 you buy every week.

So if you use 5 gallons a week you'll spend $15 a week on gas.
if you use 10 gallons a week you'll spend $40 a week.
if you use 15 gallons a week you'll spend $75 a week.
if you use 20 gallons you'll spend $120 a week on gas.
if you use 25 gallons you'll spend $175 a week on gas.

The rate should be the same for diesel cars & trucks, but not commercial semi-trucks as that would raise the price of food & other commodities too outrageously.

I was in Hong Kong 10 years ago and they were paying $6USD per liter which is $9-$10 a gallon. My uncle drove a BMW 518i. Back then in America the 1.8liter engine was only avail in the 3-series bimmer. In america the smallest engine you could buy for a BMW 5-series was the 2.5liter, hence the name 525i; the 518i he drove didn't even exist in the United States.

Gas is too cheap in america, if we can get it raised high enough i think trucks & suv's would disappear. & cars would get smaller engines, we use 30+ million barrels a day & only produce 7-8million barrels a day. that means we're importing 22 million barrels a day. We don't need to stop using gas (hydrogen is stupid), we just need to use a heck of a lot less.

 

Maths correction. $6USD per litre is more like $23 to $24USD a gallon with just under 4 litres in a US gallon.

I think the best and easiest way to get people out of their SUVs and onto public transport is bump the price straight up to $10 per gallon with an environmental tax then invest the revenue in public transport and solar electricity. Pissing about with 10 cent at a time increases is too soft and people adjust slowly as the price goes up, just shock the market with $10 petrol.

 

Way to complicated. Just raise the gas tax. The amount we pay is nearly nothing and not enough to fix the roads. You can argue about other uses of the money and some of them may be wasteful but the prime problem is inflation.

I would be willing to pay $1 more a gallon for gas and not even complain. I would not like to see the tax all at once, but slowly to allow people to change or eliminate commutes/vehicles.

 

Raising the Gas Tax is a sound idea, the problem would "Who would manage it" Giving more money to government is not the best idea. We just end up with more bad programs. I don't have the answer but I think we need to promote efficency in fleet average MPG. Invest in our own resources and not ship cubic dollars to unstable regions. Just my .02 worth.

 

Yeah....By 2020 the Cafe standards will be here.

But taxing more on gas is a very bad idea.

 

Gas Tax put into 'well-paved-roads' is NOT the benefit one would think. It's a mixed bag. Put into mass transit, the same tax dollar would ultimately prompt more & more into a better system. By funding more and more roads, we ultimately bury our selves. This forces us to continue funding a system that can't be maintained as gas spirals ever upward, and supplies wane ever downward. Put into rail, busses etc, would slow the process.

It's like the whole stupid "free-summer-no-fed-gas-tax" dumb plan ... Prez Bush makes a speech, "America is adicted to oil" ... Solution? Sell the crack to the addict even cheeper. Oh yea, THAT'll help.

 

Historically, at least here, around 10-15% of total gas tax collected was put into infrastructure. The rest went to subsidizing other programs

If people weren't lazy, fat, ignorant, and would bother to get off their fat a** to see how the real world worked, they might figure that one out

I don't expect everybody to become an engineer or to take 4 years of college calculus. I just expect everybody to turn off the boob tube and think for themselves for a change.

Nothing is "free." We pay for it one way or another. Thanks to a failed education system and endless boob tube "news" a lot of folks believe we can get something for nothing

If you want to drive a full size pickup or suv, that's great. Just don't piss and moan to me about what it costs, I'm not interested