$3.52 for regular here today, but the guy on the radio said that when he turned in his rental car up in Chicago, he stopped to fill up by the airport and paid $5.25!
Gas at $3.30 a gallon for regular in VA, the S10 can't come soon enough...
- Thread starter pqsqac
- Start date
I think what suprises me more than the giant upswing in prices is that people didnt learn from last time this happened. My kid works in sales at Malcolm Smiths dealership and during the last fuel price spike the demand for Vespa's and other scooters was crazy but after things went back to somewhat normal they couldnt give them away. This kind of volitility in the fuel prices I think will become the new norm but Im sure when things stabilize truck and SUV sales will surge again. Me.... Ive got my bikes and two small cars that are still stupid expensive to fuel. I cant imagine going back to my Hemi powered Dodge pickup that was over $100. to fill up last time they started screwing us at the pump. BTW, regular gas in So Ca today just under $4.00.
i was wanting to buy a 25 foot BigBlock V8 power boat this year. But with all the speculation about fuel prices this summer I am having second thoughts. Gas at the marina will cost twice as much as it does everywhere else!
I'll say it before it happens, but let's keep politics out of this completely. Facts and theory welcome. There. Preemptive comment done. Ha.
Airline tickets, I've noticed, have already crept up as they do as soon a all forms of fuel prices go up. Still, we are pretty spoiled by extremely low fuel prices, and have always been compared to most parts of the world. Since it's always been that way, we've based all travel (both us and our goods) costs and even business value (think stock evaluations) on doing business with a constant cheap fuel supply. Every time there is a spike, it cripples us in many ways. Not saying that is good or bad or that there was any other way to be. Just the way it turned out. I agree the public's memory is short. One year, 1 year old SUV were going for 1/2 of MSRP and Prius, if you could get one, were going for 20% over MSRP. As mentioned, motorcycle sales had a little spike, too. One year later, everything went back to how it was before. One nice side effect is there have been quite a few newer versions of engines released that have considerably higher fuel economy ratings. Happy to see it because I'd prefer to give as little of my money to the middle east as possible (yes, I know we get petroleum from many non-middle eastern sources, but it's a global commodity and if we get some from Canada, it means that another country can't buy that Canadian barrel of oil and buys it from the Middle East).
That being said, I just read a very interesting article on gasoline consumption in the U.S. stating that peak usage occurred in 2006 and would never reach that number of gallons again. The near term reasons are obvious (the gas price spike and the economic slow down), but the claim that the U.S. would never again use that many gallons of gasoline annually sounded unbelievable, until I read further and realized all the things that will mean less gasoline burned. That ranged from increased mixing of ethanol (booo!), increased overall fuel efficiency of autos (Yea!), drivers putting on less miles on average (for a variety of reasons), higher gas prices triggering less usage, etc. The various articles said the consumption decrease would happen even though the number of autos on the road will continue to increase. They also said the overall price trend would continue to go up since it's a global commodity and the world's consumption continues to grow. It all made sense and I found it interesting, so thought I'd share. We'll see if it holds true.
For me, I ride motorcycles so much that I often put my truck on a battery tender in spring, summer, and fall months. I only put about 13,000 miles on it a year and many of those are from road trips to MN to visit family (2,000 mile round trip) and trips to the ski mountain every other weekend in the winter (280 mile round trip). Our drive to town is 32 miles round trip. Even with all that, I put on so few miles that changing from driving this 18mpg truck to a 36mpg car would only save me $120 a month if gas is at $4.00/gallon. Not enough to cover the insurance increase on a newer vehicle and/or a car payment. My 6 year old truck will last a long time and though I would love if it got better mileage, it's not a big deal. If someone puts on 25,000 miles a year, I can see how it would be a pinch, though. The big 3 manufactures all had 1/2 ton trucks with small diesels in the works a few years ago but they stopped development. That's a shame because I can't imagine a better engine for a truck, SUV, or even small cars if you drive mostly rural like I do.
The Super Tenere doesn't get really great gas mileage, but gets pretty good for what it is and will carry a lot of groceries! Ha. I could fit a fair amount on my WRR, and the ST will be even more (I ordered the 45L micatech V2).
Here is a shot from back when I still had the dirtbagz brand saddlebags on my WRR. Since then, I have the wolfman dry bags and a lot of other changes. This was about 9 bags of groceries packed in two saddelbags and a box on the tail rack.
Airline tickets, I've noticed, have already crept up as they do as soon a all forms of fuel prices go up. Still, we are pretty spoiled by extremely low fuel prices, and have always been compared to most parts of the world. Since it's always been that way, we've based all travel (both us and our goods) costs and even business value (think stock evaluations) on doing business with a constant cheap fuel supply. Every time there is a spike, it cripples us in many ways. Not saying that is good or bad or that there was any other way to be. Just the way it turned out. I agree the public's memory is short. One year, 1 year old SUV were going for 1/2 of MSRP and Prius, if you could get one, were going for 20% over MSRP. As mentioned, motorcycle sales had a little spike, too. One year later, everything went back to how it was before. One nice side effect is there have been quite a few newer versions of engines released that have considerably higher fuel economy ratings. Happy to see it because I'd prefer to give as little of my money to the middle east as possible (yes, I know we get petroleum from many non-middle eastern sources, but it's a global commodity and if we get some from Canada, it means that another country can't buy that Canadian barrel of oil and buys it from the Middle East).
That being said, I just read a very interesting article on gasoline consumption in the U.S. stating that peak usage occurred in 2006 and would never reach that number of gallons again. The near term reasons are obvious (the gas price spike and the economic slow down), but the claim that the U.S. would never again use that many gallons of gasoline annually sounded unbelievable, until I read further and realized all the things that will mean less gasoline burned. That ranged from increased mixing of ethanol (booo!), increased overall fuel efficiency of autos (Yea!), drivers putting on less miles on average (for a variety of reasons), higher gas prices triggering less usage, etc. The various articles said the consumption decrease would happen even though the number of autos on the road will continue to increase. They also said the overall price trend would continue to go up since it's a global commodity and the world's consumption continues to grow. It all made sense and I found it interesting, so thought I'd share. We'll see if it holds true.
For me, I ride motorcycles so much that I often put my truck on a battery tender in spring, summer, and fall months. I only put about 13,000 miles on it a year and many of those are from road trips to MN to visit family (2,000 mile round trip) and trips to the ski mountain every other weekend in the winter (280 mile round trip). Our drive to town is 32 miles round trip. Even with all that, I put on so few miles that changing from driving this 18mpg truck to a 36mpg car would only save me $120 a month if gas is at $4.00/gallon. Not enough to cover the insurance increase on a newer vehicle and/or a car payment. My 6 year old truck will last a long time and though I would love if it got better mileage, it's not a big deal. If someone puts on 25,000 miles a year, I can see how it would be a pinch, though. The big 3 manufactures all had 1/2 ton trucks with small diesels in the works a few years ago but they stopped development. That's a shame because I can't imagine a better engine for a truck, SUV, or even small cars if you drive mostly rural like I do.
The Super Tenere doesn't get really great gas mileage, but gets pretty good for what it is and will carry a lot of groceries! Ha. I could fit a fair amount on my WRR, and the ST will be even more (I ordered the 45L micatech V2).
Here is a shot from back when I still had the dirtbagz brand saddlebags on my WRR. Since then, I have the wolfman dry bags and a lot of other changes. This was about 9 bags of groceries packed in two saddelbags and a box on the tail rack.
I drive a big 2010 Toyota Tundra double cab pickup with the 5.7L V8 :'( $60 a week is what it is costing me to commute back and forth to work and a few errand trips thrown in the mix. The truck suprisingly get's 17~19 mpg on the commute but suffers in town to tune of 14~16 mpg. 
Am I getting rid of it, hell no! I love the thing and I need/use a pickup truck whether it be towing our toy hauler, hauling lumber, towing motorcycles on my trailer or hauling one in the back. I will get through this at $3.50 a gallon or $5 a gallon. I could commute on a bike but the last time I did that back in '05 right after Katrina when gas spiked for the 1st time I was hit (run over) by a women in a mini van. Spent 5 weeks out of work with pay, broken foot, broken hand, severed finger, contusion on my back, grade III concussion so I am not in any hurry to jump back into the commuter fray on a day to day basis. People drive even worse now days than back then, 99& are on the phone :
Am I getting rid of it, hell no! I love the thing and I need/use a pickup truck whether it be towing our toy hauler, hauling lumber, towing motorcycles on my trailer or hauling one in the back. I will get through this at $3.50 a gallon or $5 a gallon. I could commute on a bike but the last time I did that back in '05 right after Katrina when gas spiked for the 1st time I was hit (run over) by a women in a mini van. Spent 5 weeks out of work with pay, broken foot, broken hand, severed finger, contusion on my back, grade III concussion so I am not in any hurry to jump back into the commuter fray on a day to day basis. People drive even worse now days than back then, 99& are on the phone :
I was making my own diesel fuel from used vegetable oil. But now they want you to pay them $ 2.50 a gallon for the used oil, thats what they are paid for it here. At this rate it would cost the same as the pump to process it.
I used to work with a friend that did a vegetable oil addition on an old Mercedes diesel car. It was very neat. He could run it even in winter. As with all of those system, you start and end a drive by using diesel from the stock fuel tank, but in the middle, you use vegetable oil from it's dedicated tank after it is warmed up to operating temps by a heat exchanger that is heated by the engines cooling system. I like contraptions and this was quite a kick. That guy was a real tinkerer and had all manner of neat "improvements" not just auto related.
He would get oil from a Chinese restaurant and they would give it away for free (because otherwise they had to pay to have it hauled off). I imagine if more people came sniffing around wanting it, a place would start to charge. My buddy had that source locked in because he always came when they needed him even if he didn't need more veg. oil at the time. Others had not been reliable so they didn't want to mess with coordinating with anyone else.
He drove a lot and said a tank of diesel would last him all summer because he only used it for the first 3 or 4 minutes and last 1 minute of any drive. The process to heat, filter and otherwise clean up and process the used oil was pretty straight forward and easy. One just needs the room for it (several 55 gallon drums going at any given time). And your exhaust literally smells like whatever was cooked in the oil. Chinese wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't want to get it from a fish fry place. Ha.
He would get oil from a Chinese restaurant and they would give it away for free (because otherwise they had to pay to have it hauled off). I imagine if more people came sniffing around wanting it, a place would start to charge. My buddy had that source locked in because he always came when they needed him even if he didn't need more veg. oil at the time. Others had not been reliable so they didn't want to mess with coordinating with anyone else.
He drove a lot and said a tank of diesel would last him all summer because he only used it for the first 3 or 4 minutes and last 1 minute of any drive. The process to heat, filter and otherwise clean up and process the used oil was pretty straight forward and easy. One just needs the room for it (several 55 gallon drums going at any given time). And your exhaust literally smells like whatever was cooked in the oil. Chinese wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't want to get it from a fish fry place. Ha.
I'm not sold on bio-fuel although the waste cooking oil/diesel thing seems a perfect match.
I guess my engines like hydrocarbons or carbohydrates but I can only ingest carbohydrates. I prefer the cars to consume the hydrocarbons so there are enough carbohydrates for the creatures. 8)
I guess my engines like hydrocarbons or carbohydrates but I can only ingest carbohydrates. I prefer the cars to consume the hydrocarbons so there are enough carbohydrates for the creatures. 8)
Later this year when a few things are out of the way I am hoping to start work on a special little trike.
No it won't do 4 sec quarters, Sound as sexy as a 75 degree Hyabusa based V8, etc etc. Completely different thing.
What it will do is, teach me to lay up CF properly, get about 300 MPG and present a bunch of engineering challenges in software, Steering angles. suspension, Hi compression ETH, METH motors, 3 phase DC controllers, Battery tech and all the unexpected little things that come along on Bleeding edge engineering challenges, all for the cost of a medium size bike. (yeah right)
Anyway, should be fun. Of course that's between possibly running around on a big gas guzzling bike for no particular reason of course.
It's more about learning and choice though.
Cheers
Graham
No it won't do 4 sec quarters, Sound as sexy as a 75 degree Hyabusa based V8, etc etc. Completely different thing.
What it will do is, teach me to lay up CF properly, get about 300 MPG and present a bunch of engineering challenges in software, Steering angles. suspension, Hi compression ETH, METH motors, 3 phase DC controllers, Battery tech and all the unexpected little things that come along on Bleeding edge engineering challenges, all for the cost of a medium size bike. (yeah right)
Anyway, should be fun. Of course that's between possibly running around on a big gas guzzling bike for no particular reason of course.
It's more about learning and choice though.
Cheers
Graham
Hikers and bikers, the packaging experts. 8)Chadx said:
I've been watching this all unfold since I bumped into an article in about 2002. You are right, it MAY continue, but after reading a gazillion articles and listening to 100's of "experts podcasts" on the subject it appears that the answer is, It depends. (Bummer eh!)Mondo Endo said:
I think, given the short attention span of many people and the way media outlets tend to focus on todays issue, you will see this kind of affect for a while. Undulating plateau they call it. Prices go up, a million Vespas / Priuses / Learner bikes are bought, economies tank, demand goes down, fuel price drops, A million Vespas are sold, a million Big V8's are bought, demand goes up, prices go up, Rinse and repeat.
The world can only deliver about 85 million barrells a day continuously. After that the price skyrockets, As time ticks by that 85 million barrels is going to get expensive and hard to maintain, so bear that in mind.
Won't be the end of the world though, Kids will probably wonder what all the fuss was about. They will be asking you why you bothered with all that complexity when their electric cars only need two bearings replaced every six years to keep them running. The batteries will be leased as part of your charging price. Just like Swap and Go gas cylinders.
That's one version of the future anyway.
Cheers
Graham