All I have to say is perfect timing for some warmer, drier weather so I can commute on one of the 55mpg machines, instead of in the 28mpg machine. Indoor parking is a nice secondary bonus. 
All I have to say is perfect timing for some warmer, drier weather so I can commute on one of the 55mpg machines, instead of in the 28mpg machine. Indoor parking is a nice secondary bonus.
Actually filled all the cars up at home about a week ago. 94 Gallons across everything. If I just used the motorcycle that is 4500ish miles which is about what I drive a year.
The local station next to the rental car return and the airport had 7.29 a gallo for regular today. It is likely the most expensive station in the county but had a chuckle at it.
I was amazed that I purchased gasoline for under $1/Gallon sometime in the past two years. After the 90s ended I figured I would never see that again. So this uptick just all averages it out over years.
The thread is titled "sticker shock...." I was more shocked at that $0.89 /gal in 2020 than I am now.
I will revisit this if we get above $6/gal
High energy prices are not unique to the US or North America
US gas prices specifically, climbed from $1.84/gal in Jan 2016 to $2.45/gal in Jan 2020. The pandemic shutdowns obviously cratered demand, but if they hadn't, the rate of increase from early 2016 to now would be pretty consistent. The rate of increase feels so shocking because prices were so low due to the shutdowns. But current prices seem to be pretty on-trend with the rate of increase we were seeing before the pandemic began:
This is zoomed in and the trend line is just eyeballed, but the trend doesn't seem too far off to me:
OPEC production over time ( very delayed response to demand spike after shutdowns. Still producing a couple million barrels per day less than 2018):
Meanwhile:
Are you feeling pinched and shocked at the pump primarily because of elected officials in your country? Or is it because OPEC, a global cartel, is still under producing and global Big Oil corporations are soaking up as much cash as they can after a down 2020?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:Just checking in to make sure we've covered the "Nobody needs a big truck" and the "This is all politician X's fault" points. Check and check. Carry on.
Well, a vanishingly small number of people NEED a big truck. A lot of people WANT one. And then buy them, because that is their freedom of choice.
Choice is not without consequence. One has to accept the consequences of their choices. You buy something that gets 9mpg, that is the choice you made, and it is a bit immature to complain when forced to accept the consequences of that choice.
Pete,
vanishingly small need a truck? Do tell. Is the carpentry trade automated, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, boat owners, campers, hunters, fishermen, snowmobiles, sled dog racers, airplane enthusiasts, DIY guys, drag racers, sprint car racers. Yawn. Have I made my point yet? I can go on.
It's kind of arrogant to decide who should and who shouldn't have a truck.
Be grateful that same group doesn't get to decide who should and who shouldn't have a sports car. Oh and you obviously have checked recent fuel mileage on trucks I get 24 mpg with my V8 4x4
Duke said:Meh, maybe it's my privilege talking, but for gasoline and milk, I never pay attention to general market pricing.
I need X number of gallons a week of both commodities. I buy X number of gallons of each a week. If it's $5 a gallon, that's what it is. If it's $3 a gallon, that's awesome
Anybody that thinks gas is expensive in Canada, have a look at what we pay for milk. There's a good reason why, when we're going over the border (usually for parts), Mrs. P tells her friends we're going on a cheese run.
I did a little math last night because of something Pete said and the price of gas, relative to my income, is between a half and a third of what it's typically been over most of the last 30 years when I was commuting. I don't like expensive gas but it's not hurting me.
In my little corner of the world, gas is about $4.35 - going by the Sunoco and Giant stations I passed yesterday ($4.25 and $4.45, respectively). I ended up paying $4.05 at the Giant since I got 40 cents off using rewards points (Giant is a regional supermarket chain that also sells gas near many stores). Since my gas usage is mainly dependent on where I go mtn biking, it could be well into April before I fill up again.
The last time gas prices were this high (2008ish?), my income level was considerably lower - and I drove a lot more back then - so I'm lucky that current prices don't really affect me.
In reply to STM317 :
It's both. Because prices go up at the drop of the hat then take months to years to go back down.
I'll also blame my state officials for having a $0.60 per gallon fuel tax that is supposed to go to taking care of roads but instead goes to line the state police pockets, err "general budget".
My biggest complaint is that we could be entirely energy independent as a nation. For years our exports outpaced our imports, yet we still had to pay ridiculous prices.
My main blame is the oil cartels seeing record profits through rising prices. Funny, it's just like a lot of the massive corporations have that been seeing massive profits while "inflation" destroys the value of the dollar and they crank prices up even higher. Almost like as a world we decided greed and profits were better than keeping things affordable and accessible. Or more likely, we allowed to few to consolidate too much power, and they're just going to keep pressing the screws to us until there's no more blood left in the stone.
I average 4 tanks of fuel a year in the excursion, prices go up it doesn't affect personally at the pump very much because I don't drive. But watching prices of everything skyrocket, while hearing reports of record profits from just about every sector EXCEPT small businesses, while also watching quality of life plummet for a huge percentage of the population that's already struggling to live where wages have been essentially stagnant, if not negative, compared to inflation just rubs me the wrong way.
I'm just glad I bought a pellet stove, there's no way in hell we could have afforded heating oil this winter.
RevRico said:My biggest complaint is that we could be entirely energy independent as a nation. For years our exports outpaced our imports, yet we still had to pay ridiculous prices.
Production costs of US oil tend to be higher than a lot of other locations in the world, and fracking is not a quick "switch on/switch off" way of getting oil. When it is profitable for the US to increase production, two things happen that discourage it:
So, for the US to maintain production, we'd need to increase subsidies(or shift some of the indirect subsidies to direct), and I suspect that would not go over well.
In reply to RevRico :
Well, that's capitalism. It doesn't seem like anyone is interested in alternatives.
Years ago I read fracking production needs oil to be in the $60+ range in order to break even. It's probably improved a bit by now, but at the same time, many of the producers may be a bit gun-shy after the last time they ramped up production thinking they were printing money until the prices crashed and a bunch of them went bankrupt.
The price doesn't hurt me, we only drive 20K miles per year and we can afford it. It does wind me up when I put $50 worth of 93 octane in a MINI though. I need my hips or knees to go to hell so I have an excuse to go buy a hybrid that uses 87 octane and gets 48 mpg.
Tom1200 said:In reply to frenchyd :
When it comes to truck usage you are likely in minority in the way you use your truck. Of my friends neighbors & coworkers who own & daily pick up trucks at best 10-15% use them as you do.
I live in a community where owning a full size pick up truck or big SUV is a status symbol, so that may be skewing my view.
That's interesting. Myself and one contractor across the street from me are the only ones to own trucks. Homes are in the millions.
$4.79/gal this morning. Wallet is screaming for relief.
There's a Citgo near me, like 2 miles away. Im just outside of Winston Salem. Anyway.
Saturday it was 3.79/g
Monday morning/yesterday it was 3.89.
Monday evening it was 3.99 when they closed (maybe I should have said 'night')
THIS MORNING, 24 hours after I filled up at 3.89/g, it was 4.18 per gallon.
So we went up 40c in two or three days (I didnt see it on Sunday), and, for sure, 30c in 24 hours.
And they are usually the last to increase their price around here.
Im glad I drive the little econobox that I do, '14 Fiesta, daily. But it still sucks. Ive not filled up the MR2 yet, so not sure of Premium pricing...yet.
Where were we a year ago? Hell, two months ago, Im curious what I/we were paying. THIS SUCKS.
I would guess 80% of the homes on my street have a pickup truck. Some have multiple. I would guess that 0% of those people NEED those trucks. Some use them heavily, but its for hobby stuff. The majority are just because they want to drive a truck. But, like Pete said, that's their freedom and they are free to literally pay the price.
Will it change their behavior? Yes. They will whine. Will it change what they buy? No.
It now costs me $142 to fill my tank. I do that TWICE A WEEK!
Yeah....This shouldn't be a 'who needs a truck' discussion. The question is dishonest because 'need' is an individual requirement. We should all stay out of other folks pockets and mind our business in that regard.
Looking at what some of y'all are saying. Fuel prices certainly affect people like Toyman more than a typical commuter like myself. The price of every single thing I can think of has gone up in the last 2 years.
yupididit said:Yeah....This shouldn't be a 'who needs a truck' discussion. The question is dishonest because 'need' is an individual requirement. We should all stay out of other folks pockets and mind our business in that regard.
Looking at what some of y'all are saying. Fuel prices certainly affect people like Toyman more than a typical commuter like myself. The price of every single thing I can think of has gone up in the last 2 years.
Thank. you.
I was filling up about once a week, putting in about 40 gallons. From about $114 to about 147 in two weeks' time. And it shows no sign of stopping the increase. That's the part that's really hard to plan for. I get it. I choose to drive a 3/4 ton SUV that gets 9mpg around town. But having that cost ramp up by $33/week - and growing! - in such a short timeframe is a bit of a stiff bite and not something that we've really seen in recent history. This would be so much worse, though, if I had to go in to an office. My office is up in Springdale, so if I had to go in and do the pickup of the kids every day, that would be $21/day for me to commute plus another $4/day for my wife. Which would mean that we'd be spending $125/week just on gas. As it is, by using the wife's car, we're more like $8/day as long as we're both working from home. I just drive her Mazda5 instead of taking my truck.
But today, I get to take the truck on 2 22 mile roundtrips to get the kids since one of them has to be picked up early and my wife has to be in the office today.
Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to RevRico :
Well, that's capitalism. It doesn't seem like anyone is interested in alternatives.
Looks an awful lot like medieval serfdom to me.
Handful of people on top own everything, and get all the rewards, while everybody else toils away for crumbs and being told they're actually getting cakes. The stupid believe it, the complacent are just happy to get crumbs and maybe their crumb is a little bigger than the next persons, and the people who realize it are shouted down and told to be happy with their crumbs or they'll get nothing at all.
Bring on the asteroids.
I'm not so much worried about the extra ten bucks a gallon I am paying per tank, but more about what's going to happen to the economy overall. Airlines and trucking companies are going to be hurting. Construction companies getting hit with higher expenses when houses are already selling at a premium. Everybody has everything delivered by Amazon and Fedex and UPS. Higher delivery prices for everything. High fuel prices taking a whack at a supply chain still not recovered from COVID.
About a year ago I was talking to a guy at my local Ford dealer. I was noticing that Focuses and Fiestas were no more and the few Mustangs he had were all V8s. No Ecoboosts. He had a whole line of very expensive Raptors. He said he couldn't keep the Raptors in stock. He said every single one that went out the door was leased, and the guys who got them were convinced that spending another $100 a month over the regular F 150 to get the Raptor was a good deal. Take that for what it's worth.
In reply to RevRico :
Well, yeah?
And my HR people keep asking me why I don't want to play the game anymore...
Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:I'm not so much worried about the extra ten bucks a gallon I am paying per tank, but more about what's going to happen to the economy overall. Airlines and trucking companies are going to be hurting. Construction companies getting hit with higher expenses when houses are already selling at a premium. Everybody has everything delivered by Amazon and Fedex and UPS. Higher delivery prices for everything. High fuel prices taking a whack at a supply chain still not recovered from COVID.
About a year ago I was talking to a guy at my local Ford dealer. I was noticing that Focuses and Fiestas were no more and the few Mustangs he had were all V8s. No Ecoboosts. He had a whole line of very expensive Raptors. He said he couldn't keep the Raptors in stock. He said every single one that went out the door was leased, and the guys who got them were convinced that spending another $100 a month over the regular F 150 to get the Raptor was a good deal. Take that for what it's worth.
Control what you can control. Don't worry about the rest.
Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to RevRico :
Well, yeah?
And my HR people keep asking me why I don't want to play the game anymore...
I think half the country feels that way now.
Just got a call from a recruiter wanting me to interview for a six figure job at a firm where somebody I knew there recently got fired after having a total mental breakdown and heart problems for the first time in her life. I told the recruiter I was going to retire and live out of my motorhome in the middle of the desert, have a couple of dirt bikes and a pet coyote, and that my social security check was enough to buy gasoline, groceries and whiskey. The recruiter was horrified. I couldn 't stop laughing.
In reply to STM317 : Great charts, looks like you did a lot of research. But look at 4 year segments, from 2016 to 2020 gas was relatively low. From 2008 to 2016 prices (8 yrs.) were higher. After Feb. 2021 gas prices increased at a dramatic rate. Unfortunately government do affect our hobby and the suppliers who support us.
God Bless America and we pray for the victims in the Ukraine.
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