fuel prices

[homerjward]

Just spent $2.95/gal here in the Bay Area (California) for supreme unleaded. Unfortunately, by MY CHOICE, one of my cars gets about 17mpg the other about 14. They're both high-performance vehicles and require higher octane fuel but good grief are they FAST!!

On a side note -- I'm sure that when America went to the 55 mph speed limit in the 1970s, the average American car was most efficient at or about 55 mph. However, both of my cars get substantially better mileage around 80-90mph during long freeway cruising than they do at 55-65 mph. Anyone have a theory?

cars get the best mileage at the low end of the top gear--if 55-65 is in the middle of the 2nd-to-top gear, then it'd get worse mileage than 90 if that's low in the top gear.

i paid $2.47 a gallon last night for mid-grade at a chevron down the street. our car just doesn't run well on low anymore (13 year-old minivan). it did get ~15.3mpg city though over the course of the last tank--much better than usual.

 

[SharksFan22]

cars get the best mileage at the low end of the top gear--if 55-65 is in the middle of the 2nd-to-top gear, then it'd get worse mileage than 90 if that's low in the top gear.

Ah, that would make sense. One has a five-speed automatic and the other has a six-speed manual. They both cruise well in top gear at low RPMs around 80. Thanks for the info!

 

[sushi]

Yes I'm now completely confused:

1 US gallon = 0.8327 Imperial gallon.
I was taking to mean that 1 Imperial gallon is 83% of a US gallon.

1.0 Imperial Gallon = 1.2009499 US Gallon .
I was taking this to mean there are 1.2/1 Imperial gallons in a US gallon.


I think I understand how i've read it wrong. Now I remember why I hated maths.

No worries, we all do it.

Sometimes I mess up Yen/$ and vice versa coversions.

 

[onebizmaniac]

Interesting new proposition/north america?

This might be worth looking at. I think it is limited to North America, but I'm not sure. Would value some opinions on this... Should be of appeal to entrepreneur types. http://www.4-e-corp.com -- Apparently this stuff is used by the Air force in their helicopters -- from what I read.

 

[zap2]

This might be worth looking at. I think it is limited to North America, but I'm not sure. Would value some opinions on this... Should be of appeal to entrepreneur types. http://www.4-e-corp.com -- Apparently this stuff is used by the Air force in their helicopters -- from what I read.

from what you read?
Seems like a werid 1st post, or is this Covert Spam?

Or i'm a losing it because i want new Apple stuff today

 

[CanadaRAM]

Our gas has just gone to CAN$1.11 per litre, or about US$3.70 per gallon

The pump I usually use has a distinctive rhythmic noise while pumping - and I can't help thinking it's saing "fugg'n CHEAT, fugg'n CHEAT, fugg'n CHEAT..."

 

[ITASOR]

it's somewhere around $2.40-$2.50 here in CNY.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

It's about 2.30 here.

 

[bigandy]

i, for one, certainly do not blame oil companies for fuel prices in the UK.

with the average price per litre pushing £0.90, the average oil company here taking 15-19p from each to cover their costs, and the rest going to the government, i know who to blame.

i'm not happy with this stupid amount of tax because i've never seen any benefit. nothing much is poured back into roads (with this amount of tax we should have the best bloody roads in the world, but in reality we're far from it) - instead most of the money goes to line the treasury's pockets.

yeah, argue that it goes towards the NHS and so on, but then if these billions do, why are they crap too?

what angers me is that the tax is put on engine size, not efficiency, mileage or anything like that.

toll roads are a great success all over the world. why can't we have them instead of a fixed tax? yeah, people that drive further, more often, will be hit hardest, but they're the most responsible for causing problems due to car emissions!

and road tax! going up again! why can't there be a tax based on efficiency properly - the new budget suggests this will be the case, but the bigger the engine, still, the higher the tax cost.

good example - you buy a Bugatti Veyron, and it'll shaft you because it averages 10 miles to the gallon. but it's in the same tax band as a Range Rover, which can do up to about 19-22mpg. And the same tax band as my bloody car, which can easily return 35mpg on the motorway. And the only reason mine's up there is because it's got a big (2.5 V6) engine under the hood. no matter if it's efficient with it's fuel...

i've turned around in my view of the best way to tax drivers, and after seven years of driving, and thinking about it, i think toll roads are the way to go to curb this. if this was really about the environment, that's what they'd do. but it's not - it's about money.

same as speed cameras. - there was a steady 22 year decline in road deaths up until 1992, when cameras were introduced. now it's about the same, despite the revenue and camera numbers going through the roof.

whatever they say, they're out to get the money, nothing else.

rant over.

 

[mpw]

...what angers me is that the tax is put on engine size, not efficiency, mileage or anything like that...

toll roads are a great success all over the world. why can't we have them instead of a fixed tax? yeah, people that drive further, more often, will be hit hardest, but they're the most responsible for causing problems due to car emissions!...

Maybe I missed something but, ?

A tax on fuel is surely not a tax based on engine size over efficiency, over 100miles a 3ltr engine returning 50mpg will use less fuel (and therefore pay less tax) than a 1.5ltr turning in 25mpg.

Put a toll on the same road and both cars pay the same tax but one is using more fuel/causing more pollution.

The only 'fair' system would be to have two taxes, one on fuel consumed (as now) and a second based on a formula of miles covered/weight of vehicle/use of vehicle. Of course the second tax in particular would be a challenge to implement cheaply and efficiently.

 

[cairo]

Filled up today at $1.19 CAD per litre....

 

[ebow]

Maybe I missed something but, ?

A tax on fuel is surely not a tax based on engine size over efficiency, over 100miles a 3ltr engine returning 50mpg will use less fuel (and therefore pay less tax) than a 1.5ltr turning in 25mpg.

I think bigandy was referring to an annual auto tax, right? In Massachusetts such a tax is based on the depreciated value of the car. The more expensive and newer the car, the more you pay.

 

[StarbucksSam]

Also bear in mind that a UK gallon is smaller than a US gallon.

1 US gallon = 0.8327 Imperial gallon.

Wouldn't that mean that a UK gallon is LARGER than a US?

 

[homerjward]

am i correct in assuming that since 1gal=8 pints, an imperial gallon is 160oz because an imperial pint is 20oz? (as opposed to a 128oz us gallon because of our 16oz pints)

 

[ebow]

Wouldn't that mean that a UK gallon is LARGER than a US?

Yep...

Yes I'm now completely confused:

1 US gallon = 0.8327 Imperial gallon.
I was taking to mean that 1 Imperial gallon is 83% of a US gallon.

1.0 Imperial Gallon = 1.2009499 US Gallon .
I was taking this to mean there are 1.2/1 Imperial gallons in a US gallon.


I think I understand how i've read it wrong. Now I remember why I hated maths.

 

[ebow]

am i correct in assuming that since 1gal=8 pints, an imperial gallon is 160oz because an imperial pint is 20oz? (as opposed to a 128oz us gallon because of our 16oz pints)

Well, yes, an imperial gallon appears to be 160 imperial ounces. However, according to Google's unit conversion of 1 US ounce to 1 imperial ounce, our ounces aren't the same size, so an imperial gallon actually equals 153.7 US fluid ounces.

Boy is this all pretty stupid. I like the easy fractions we get with the backwards system (non-metric, whatever you want to call it) such as 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, etc. that are a bit harder to do with decimal metric, but I think I'd readily give that up for some metric sanity!

Sorry, we were talking about fuel prices? We're paying $2.45 to $2.50 per (US) gallon northwest of Boston now. They're slowly but steadily increasing...

 

[Kingsly]

How much does OPEC charge per barrel? How much does the said barrel cost them?
I don't know the exact figures, but I'm guessing its some kind of insane ripoff.

 

[Timepass]

How much does OPEC charge per barrel? How much does the said barrel cost them?
I don't know the exact figures, but I'm guessing its some kind of insane ripoff.

You forget one thing. It cost a lot of take that barrel of crude oil and turn it into fuel and everything else. Dont forget you have to take that raw crude oil from OPEC and then transport it halfway around the world to chemical placets and then that ship has to go back over to the area and get more oil.

But is cost them about 67 bucks a barrel of oil, as of friday or about $1.69 a gallon/ US. And you know fuel well they get less than 42 gallons of gas out of it. Other wise they need to make more than $1.60 per gallon of crude to even break even. It used in a lot of differnt areas and to make a lot of products but it still cost a lot of money. Oh and dont forget how much taxes are added to a gallon of gas. You have to remove that part as well. In the US there is a fedrail tax of 18.7 cents per gallon plus state taxes which from what I looking at looks like an average of 20 cents per gallon so total tax is 38-40 cents per gallon is add to it (in other states is it more). Californai also gets hit because there fuel cost a lot more to make than other states so that adds to it.

So doing that math with a gallon of gas costing at a gallon of gas costing $2.60. First lets take out the 40 cents of gas tax. That be 2.10 a gallon. Now lets removed dallor 1.60 a gallon so we now have $0.50 per gallon left. from that 50 cents you have to pay for the cost of getting the oil to the US. Refining the oil to gas, Transporting the gas to the stations, the profits for the stations, Profits for the refineris, and marketing for both. I am guessing each one markets up the cost of production and supply about 10% which is pretty common place for most things out there so that not a rip. It is normal. If you want to see a rip off go the the eletronic industinst and the market up there is around 50%-60%.

Huge reason gas is so high is not just because supplies of crude oil are tight but also the fact tha refining oil to fuel is running at around 95% of max right now. It does not take much to the supply line to cause a huge problem. And it takes at least 2 years to bring another planet online. To make matters worse is no one wants to invest in building a new planet due to raw cost and the not in my back yard everyone will give them. So even finding a spot to build a planet is hard. Everyone wants more plants to be built but not near them and there are not many areas to be builts.