So is putting it in the weed whacker and whacking some weeds. 
Seriously, though, when you’re flying on fumes and you’re going to put a single gallon in your car, I’d skip work before I’d put premix in my tank.
Yeah, I considered begging out of work but I took all of last week off to be with my mom in the hospital and I don’t really have more time to take off. So, it was either that or take public transportation. I care more about my job than my car, so it was an easy choice.
Is it up to $4.25? Ouch! You near Detriot? I live in near Kzoo. I’ve had the last few days off do to the monsoon we’ve been getting flooding the building at work. So been staying home to save gas.
One of my friends who works in a gas station says people have been filling up cause the expect the gulf hurricane to cause a price surge. What’s causing the surge is everyone filling up. Idiots. Self fulfilling prophecy.
I told her to smack em around, but she declined cause she wants to keep her job. Se la vi
I’m looking forward to a nice price drop when demand falls on account of everyone being full up, but bet it won’t happen.
The fucking market failed us. Wasn’t it “the market” that flooded us with gas guzzling SUVs when gas was cheap? A little regulation here would have been wonderful. But fucking oil and auto lobbyists couldn’t have that. Traitorist bastards. The GM Volt is a decade fucking late atleast.
No it didn’t.
Yes, it was. A market economy doesn’t care about your particular opinion on conservation or politics, a market reacts to what people want to buy. How many people did you see driving small cars? There was ample opportunity for everybody to get into one, they opted for SUVs and now they’re paying the price for it. That’s how it is supposed to work. Where’s the failure?
Blah blah blah. A decade ago GM would have died trying to sell the Volt. They couldn’t even sell the EV1, that ridiculous movie notwithstanding. Oh, and as for regulation, now that CAFE standards have essentially doubled, gas will cost 50% less for the same distance. That’s a wonderful deterrent to driving, wouldn’t you say? So much for regulation.
The market didn’t fail us. It gave us exactly what we deserved. I have no sympathy for the people desperately trying to unload their Excursions, Suburbans and Town Cars; they’ve been making my gas more expensive for years. Fuck 'em.
ETA: And what AD said about the Volt is absolutely true. The EV-1 flopped and the Honda Insight flopped because Americans didn’t want them. Why would they? When the Insight was launched, gas was still under $1.50 a gallon.
The only reason the Prius has done (relatively) well is that lots of marketing muscle got behind it and the Feds finally starting providing tax breaks.
You know I’m finding upon proof reading that I don’t have nearly the rage I had last summer. Life was alot harder then and gas prices where square in the middle of alot of problems. It kind of messes with your head when no matter how hard you struggle you’re stuck, and lucky to be eating romen noodles at $.20 cents a packet meanwhile gas is $4 a gallon.
So the following is a reedit of a response that’s toned down.
I don’t personally believe the market is inherently evil, nor completely at fault. I do believe it was given too much trust, and mismanaged.
Yea the market did. So did the government for letting it. So did the public for letting both the market and the government.
Large passenger autos should have been taxed accordingly to their real world consequences. You can’t tell me all those SUVs and other gas hogs didn’t cause this. They should have been taxed to pay for their real world consequences, including pollution, and the risk the extra foreign dependence causes. The backlash of which we’re feeling now. We’re getting off easy it could have been alot worse.
Plus it seems pretty bad to knowingly put the US at the mercy of a potentially hostile region. As a combination of market forces, the government, and lobbyists did. We’ve already been embargoed us once. Being dependent on that is pretty badly planned. As the crashing market is showing. Although interestingly it wasn’t the middle east but our own inability to build refineries that got us.
I believe free market economics does have alot of practicality. I just think trusting anything on faith is stupid. Especially letting an every man for himself system manage a currently crucial but limited resource with extreme environmental impacts.
All this could have been avoided with a little forsight. I figured out we’d be screwed as we are when the oil supply ran low when I was 8. It’s a pretty simple thing to figure out.
Wait isn’t going the same distance for 50% less a good thing? I don’t care how much people drive. Honestly I personally enjoy a good drive, but few have the time to drive just for the fun of it That’ll free up money to spend in other parts of the economy and maybe create some jobs.
Sounds like CAFE is doing some good.
Did that come out different then you intended?
GM is dieing anyway. They’re running at a loss. If they had came out with the Volt sooner they could have made a killing. I’m hoping it pulls them out. There’s alot of good people that work at GM. There’s alot of people in Michigan and around the country who depend on GM staying afloat.
I’m not sure I understand. You could buy a Honda Insight 9 years ago. No one did, and they eventually stopped making them. But you can still buy them used. Sure, most people didn’t worry about fuel efficiency when gas was cheap. Their loss. Anyone who wanted to could buy an efficient car 10 years ago.
CAFE is a terrible solution to solving high fuel costs. The proper solution is to just let high fuel costs take care of the demand curve. If you want to stimulate more efficient vehicles, don’t mandate it, just increase the tax on gas.
Haha me too.
My first car was a Geo Metro convertible. I was proud of that thing and always trying to fine tune it to get better mileage. It was more tree hugger logic then oil conservation logic. Plus all around cheapskateness.
And honestly alot of vanity from enjoying the dropped jaws at “yea so after I put the new synthetic oil in my MPG went up to 43”. So I’m exactly perfectly in the vanity auto. I wanted to put s turbo charger in it because I figured I could squeeze out a bit more power and a bit better mileage.
I know. in 2002 I personally bought a used Geo Metro convertible made in the early 90s. I miss the old girl alot.
The problem is we mismanaged our energy supplies as a nation and now everyone is paying the price, not just urban assault drivers.
Hmm I could go with that. Especially if some of the taxes where used to help pay down the deficit and help the dollar recover some. With a tax exception for semis and shipping. Shipping costs are damaging enough to the economy.
Before the storm even hit, Friday afternoon, here in Greensboro, I needed gas cause I was running on fumes all week. I don’t drive much, mostly just to and from my parents house when I need to get stuff for school or deposit junk or whatever.
First gas station: $4.35, cars lined up around the block. “SHIT! What the hell is going on?” I pulled in just because, and they were all out of unleaded. It was $3.60 that morning, $3.50 the night before. As I was driving home, it was the same story everywhere. $4.52. $4.15. $4.20. I settled, got about 6 gallons at the only place that had it, went home, asked my parents what the fuck was going on.
My dad is a Fed Ex driver. He drives 200+ miles a day and only gets a paltry compensation for whatever he pays for gas. He drove past one station that started the day at around $3.70 and ended around $5.35. My mom went on her lunch hour to get gas and she saw the gas station across the street go up $0.74 as she sat there.
I personally witness a lady in an SUV, already filled up with gas, holding the nozzle right outside her gas tank, trying to drip some more in.
And this was before the hurrican even made landfall hundreds of miles away.
People are idiots.
No, it didn’t. You can’t have it both ways. Either we pollute or we drive less. Increasing the distance you can drive for the same price will necessarily result in more driving, more pleasure trips, etc., all of which leads to more pollution. Right now I wouldn’t dream of driving to Florida, the money is too tight. Cut my actual fuel bill in half and I’m there, with all of the resultant pollution. Emissions may actually increase.
So, do you still think it’s a good idea?
No, they couldn’t. Lead/acid batteries were too heavy, and Li-ion batteries were too expensive.
Honda and Toyota have been sinking huge amounts of money into alternative fuel vehicles for 15+ years- the kind of money that, spent elsewhere, would have made either the undisputed king of the mountain in world car sales- and are barely any closer to producing a competitive electric vehicle.
That is also, for those of you paying attention, the kind of money that GM and Ford simply haven’t had during the same timeframe because they haven’t turned the sort of profits that (well-managed) Honda and Toyota have over the last 20 years. For all their humungous revenues, the “Big Three” have been operating at a net loss during that period. Chrysler has that sort of money now, but only because uncle Daimler-Benz has very deep pockets.
For people who seem to think that their distance from the hurricane is relevant: it isn’t. The wholesale gasoline market in North America is continent-wide for the most part (exceptions being for various states with additional rules regarding ethanol content and the like). Significant supply issues anywhere on the continent (and shutting down 1/4 of all refineries is certainly significant) are going to have an impact everywhere.
Not so. Although wholesale prices are more or less equal everywhere, supply isn’t. Refineries in Texas and Oklahoma supply the West and Midwest; refineries in Louisiana supply the South and Northeast.
That’s a false dilemma. How do plugin hibreds affect your little dilemma? Or the fact people have other things to do then drive. Most people have jobs, and things to do around the house, social gatherings, Etc. Sometimes you just need to chill and read a book.
Are you postulating people will spend twice the time on the road?
People didn’t spend 4x the time driving when gas was nearly 25% percent the cost it is now.
God forbid people might enjoy themselves, spending money on vacations stimulating the economy and new jobs instead of handing it all to the oil barons.
Also you’re mudding the issue. Gas costs under the new CAFE are cheaper because cars are required to use less of it. That means less goes to Iran and more stays in the country being products and services and creating American jobs.
Fuck yea. You’re doing a good job convincing me.
I think there may be good arguments against CAFE, and I am not following the pros and cons enough to comment. But this isn’t one of them.
If the standards actually cause you to use 50% less fuel for the same distance, how can that be considered a bad thing?
Of course lowering the amount of gas you used, consequently lowering the total price you pay, is going to alleviate the pressure to not drive. But logically it cannot make the situation worse than it is currently. If I currently spend $100 a month on gas and then buy a car twice as efficient my gas bill will go to $50 a month. Even if I drove twice as much in that month I will only use the same amount of gas I was before. And it isn’t like I’m going to quit my job that is 30 minutes away just to find a job 1 hour away because the anti-driving pressure has gone away! I know I didn’t drive twice as much when gas was half the price it is now.
What can make the situation worse from a pollution point of view is a lowering of the price that isn’t based on a lower demand (for example, lowering the gas tax). From an alleviating pollution point of view a high gas price is a good thing. But if a lower price was caused by lower demand (perhaps due to more efficient use) that would have to be a net positive.
This is one of the reasons why the current high gas prices have not had as much of an effect on the economy as the 70s - we use gas far more efficiently now then we did then. This is not a bad thing, and it will not be a bad thing if we continue this trend.
There wouldn’t be people without health insurance if we only had some Heart.
And there wouldn’t be a Patriot Act if we only had some Courage.
Haha I like what you did with that.
CAFE standards in E,Union 44 in 2010
Australia 34 2010
Japan 48 2010
China 36 2010
Where will we sell our gas guzzlers? We have to change rapidly if we want to capture any market but the US.