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High: 31° / Low: 18° — Dude Weather Subscribe to Secrets Minneapolis / St. Paul
Gas prices are making business tough at gas stations across the state. Gas drive-offs are on the rise, and it's becoming a bit of an epidemic due to the highest gas prices in history. It now has a name: pump rage, defined as "misdirected anger -- a sense that someone needs to account for the pain this is causing." We know it's not the station owners causing this pain, but am I a bad person for secretly enjoying that high gas prices are finally causing us to pay attention to how we use these fuels and how they effect the cost of all goods? Have you experienced a form of pump rage? Do high gas prices change the way you live?
I have been taking the bus to work since March. I have only put 4 tanks of gas in my little honda civic since then. Gas could be $10 a gallon and it wouldn't effect me in the least. Other than the bus being way more crowded.
I don't mean to pimp my site here, but, does everyone realize that we're being actively prevented from getting smarter and better cars here which would allow us to reduce consumption? It's illegal to even import a SmartCar for display purposes!
Is everyone aware that the same policies that are keeping fuel efficient cars out are making Hummers exempt from testing?
like doug, i rarely fill my tank and have been trying to walk everywhere. not b/c of gas prices - but just to try to cut down on consumption in general. and bland - i love those smart cars and keep looking for them to hit the states. i'm not familiar with the manufacturer but i'm guessing it's an icky political issue of some sort. if you figure out what the deal is let me know.
I have been taking the LRT and busses from the MOA and Bloomington's 28th Ave Park and Ride to various destinations in both Minneapolis and St. Paul. Unfortunately for me, due to my location in the South Metro, I am unable to ride the bus to work. Luckily, my fiance can and does (as we only have one vehicle).
Due to on-going issues w/my 2002 Saturn and the fact that the extended warranty is about to run out, we have been researching hybrid vehicles for a possible fall purchase.
While the SmartCar is inexpensive and "green" it is small and unusable for our needs. Hybrids, while expensive, should make up for their cost in short order with gas prices remaining so high.
I hope that the US automobile industry steps up its efforts on fuel economy but until then I will have to go with what we have available to us.
:(
The Smart seems to be a child of Diamler-Chrysler and Mercedes Benz. The more I look into it, the more it looks like they just don't care to bother with it in the U.S. because they have no need. Marketing research shows that "nobody wants a little car" and why would they poison their own profitable SUV market by risking it to find out if people really do want them.
Bill - I drive a VW TDI right now and I can highly recommend it. My theory is that the hybrids you're seeing today will be the 386 computers that were more worthless than boat anchors when the technology ball got rolling. I shyed away from a hybrid because I didn't want to end up obsolete and unmaintainable in two years. GM did that with their electric car already.
I already take the bus everywhere, as my husband has our car in Austin (Texas) and it's unpractical to have a car downtown anyway. Everywhere I need to go I can get to by bus, and I actually prefer it anyway.
There are way too many people who aren't willing to jump to public transit, though. Last night I asked my husband if he would start taking the bus because of gas prices, and he insists that he "doesn't have that far" to drive so doesn't use much gas. In the same conversation he said we would have to eat Ramen every day to save money.
Are people who grew up in the suburbs just completely afraid of the bus system or what? I meet too many adults who claim public transit virginity.
I have trouble seeing what all the "pain" and "anger" is about -- isn't it odd that people have such expectations that they are actually pissed off when they have to pay for their gas? The other day, when I was at the pump, this guy driving a brand new full sized truck (not hauling a thing) says to me, "gotta take out a loan to fill up these days" to which I replied, "actually mine only costs 25 bucks to fill up" while standing next to my Corolla. And that will last me a couple weeks, but only because think about my driving. Here's a cool site: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
Oh, and bland, I had a TDI once as well -- awesome car -- but not really a great car for mass production, as diesel causes a lot more pollution than gas. Oh, and btw, boat anchors are pretty useful on boats ;)
LRT splits the parking lot where I work (between the airport and the MOA). I had a lunch planned with someone downtown the other day and figured I'd give it a try. It seemed perfect because I was getting on right outside my door and I'd be getting off within blocks of where I was meeting the other person. I was reading up at the station on how to get a ticket and whanot and noticed that was going to take me about 34 minutes to get downtown.
I hadn't given myself 34 minutes to get there. I ended up driving because the train didn't get me there on time. I'm still a LRT virgin.
I've found that the LRT times are often grossly overestimated. I think (as a former suburbanite who's not afraid of the bus system) the convenience and efficiency of alternative transit are major factors in its acceptance. I live on a bus line right between the Downtowns and it still takes at least 40 minutes to get to anywhere important.
Sooo, where's this University Line? :)
The new tires on my fleet of bicycles is killing me!
I gave up the car life 3 years ago and even in DUluth it is easy. I rent cars when I need to visit my hometown of Austin, MN. for 25 bucks a day.
What pisses me off is that people feel so fucking entitled to cheap gas they refuse to pay for it when the price goes up. What kind of shit hole do we live in when the neighborhood doesn't realize its to blame for its own anger.
Before everyone gets too hysterical here, let's look at what these outrageous increases actually cost: Figure an SUV getting heavy use of 18,000 miles annually - say 5 tanks per month at 25 gallons per tank (which by the way is roughly 12 MPG - does not get much worse than that.) Just to keep the numbers simple, lets compare gas at $2.00 per gallon and then $2.50. My back of the napkin calculations show a difference of $62.50 per month, or $750.00 per year - again this for someone driving a real gas hog, with heavy use. Real money to be sure, but Ramen Noodles? Please. For most people, the transaction costs alone in selling and buying a more efficient car would eat up all of that savings and then some. For those of you driving something even moderately fuel efficient, the difference is even less.
Really, do the math - most of this is just hype. Disgruntled people at the pumps give good quotes for the evening news, who if nothing else excel at selling the drama (and one might argue fuel the drive-off increases - if you are going to steal gas because it costs an extra $12.50 to fill up the tank, well then, you've got other issues.)
*Full disclosure: I drive an SUV that gets about 15 mpg
Will we see a spike in sales of antique cylinder-style hand lawn mowers? I'd better buy some stock.
I ♥ Alex.
Hype or not, I've been riding my bike a lot more lately. Turns out exercise is healthy. Who knew?
It's the non-essentials that have to give when you're out $750 a year. So $750 may pale in comparison to your annual mortgage payment, but that's not what's at stake here. $750 annually in groceries or booze? Now we've got something.
Regardless, there are plenty of great reasons to not own an SUV. Even if those $750 won't tip the scales all on its own, it really shouldn't have to. It will still help.
the thing i like about the whole gas debate is just that: the debate. most people will not, like alex, calculate their actual losses but they might think: am I using resources wisely? what happens if the cost of fuel becomes really high, like in (gasp!) europe? we americans (as a stereotype) have never had to deal with such questions and it's healthy and will hopefully stimulate some change - or at least some thought about change.
I think what's missing in this conversation is the notion of public and private well-being. I agree with Alex that the personal cost is greatly exaggerated; however, it misses out on what this means to the economy or to the environment. $750 multiplied by, say, 200 million people is a whole different ballgame.
Rachel wrote:
"am I a bad person for secretly enjoying that high gas prices are finally causing us to pay attention to how we use these fuels and how they effect the cost of all goods?"
No, Rachel, you're not. But you are learning a valuable lesson about economics. Price sends signals about the availability of a product. Cheap gas means there is lots of gas. Expensive gas means there is less. Duh. So why are all the liberal chicken littles saying we're going to run out of gas when it's cheap? And why worry anyway- if it gets expensive, meaning that it's running out, then people find alternate means of transportation.
It's called the marketplace, and it works.
Chonger
You're math is right Alex, but mentioning some other figures will makes the situation a bit more accurately represented for SUVs: using your figures, at $2.00 a gallon, it costs $250 for a gas a month or $312.50 a month at $2.50! That's more than my house electricity, heat and cable combined during the winter!. By way of comparison, driving a car that gets 30 MPG the same mileage at the same gas prices will cost you a 100 bucks a month -- quite a difference.
And I agree with Mark -- these figures are only the beginning of the real numbers, from vehicle costs (such as tires) to pollution to safety.
Chonger, wasting gas is the issue . . .
Everyone listen to Chonger. When gas is cheap, then by all means, consume, consume, consume. And then when it's expensive, not to worry, of course we'll have all these alternative means of transportation that we had worked so hard on developing while gas was cheap (and infinitely plentiful). Hooray!
Chonger, don't you realize it's the long term supply of gas that the "chicken littles" are concerned about? To say that we shouldn't worry about consumption while prices are low (and short-term supply is high) is pretty irresponsible.
If oil continues to trade upwards of $60.00 a barrel this winter, I'd expect those utility bills to spike, but your point is well taken.
I'm not arguing that operating any vehicle is cheap - or that one type of car is more or less virtuous than another, or that our car culture doesn't have costs - just that if you do the math, the increase prices as a percentage of what one already spends on gas is not as much as one would believe given the disproportionate amount of attention this latest "gas crisis" is getting. And if that increase has caused true financial hardship - then you probably bought too much car to begin with, or some other factor is at work.
And to Rachael's point, before everyone squares off on their respective green vs. gas culture sides: I for one would be happy to trade in the gas pig if there were an alternative in price, capacity, and power. Build me a better mousetrap and I'll buy it. ("Automakers blocking fuel efficient cars" conspiracy theory post in 3, 2, 1...)
I would like to apologize for my use of "you're"; that was very irresponsible of me.
And I'd like to apologize for not closing the <i> tag. Very irresponsible of me...
Your HTML has been fixed.
I'm in Canada where we drive a smart and an Odyssey.
The smart has more room in the front than the Odyssey but you got to be a people person. Every time you stop people want to talk about it.
Took the smart on a 800 mile trip last week. It was great.
Dave,
The fact is that the chicken littles are consistently wrong about their predictions of long term supply shortage. Perhaps you have heard of the famous bet between Paul Erlich and Julian Simon? Unless you think oil resources will dry up in the space of a year, or even five years, there is plenty of time for the market to respond to the need for alternatives.
Have some faith!
Chonger
Okay, you've got me on Erlich vs. Simon (which I hadn't heard of). But five years sounds kind of optimistic to me to get our shit together if we all suddenly have to drastically change our lifestyles to account for a shift in the way we get our energy. At the very least, it sounds like an awfully painful five-year transition (if it really could be handled that quickly) that could be eased a little bit by thinking ahead now rather than wait for the consequences later. i.e., start buying more efficient cars now, show city governments there's a public interest in better mass transit, etc. Maybe there's some hysterics at the fringe which you refer to as the "chicken littles," but I think most of us are more in line with just being careful rather than insist that all oil consumption is inherently bad and destroying the earth as we know it. I just think concern about consumption right here and now is well justified, and I have more admiration for those people who trade in their car for a bike than for those who just consume irresponsibly. Do we have some common ground at least?
chonger i wish i could feel as comforted by randian anti-chicken-littlism, but there a few facts that markets can't make go away:
personal transportation is the last stop for energy consumption; we have to recompute those costs into everything else: anything that gets trucked, anything that gets flown (flown?? er flied? you know), all farming (incl the machines and the fertilizers), anything with a plastic part or carried in one. energy costs are a drag on every element of the economy, not just folks driving around.
no other source of energy is as efficent or productive as petroluem. there are, frankly, NO alternatives, nothing works as well. it won't just "run out" one day, it's becoming increasingly (and at some point, prohibitavely) expensive to get out of the ground--and no other source can really pick up the slack. it's not just a matter of switching but of living & working with less energy, period.
in the meantime, the bottom piece of the whole economic jenga game is the saudi royal family. the invisible hand hasn't fixed them yet.
(oh and i drive a big olds my late grandma gave me. everywhere.)
I'm surprised it took 29 comments before our dependence on foreign oil was mentioned.... Is this a big issue (Chonger, et al)?
The point some here are dancing around is the lifetime ownership cost of an automobile. Take a $20K auto that gets 18 mpg that you drive for 12,000 miles per year for 10 years (I'm trying ot use something close to an average here, so you can increase or reduce your guess at your own cost in comparison). If you finance it over 4 years and put 20% down ($4K), it costs you $22.4K to own it, plus $1.5K in gasoline per year (at $2.25/gallon). It also will cost you $1K per year in maintenance and, say, $0.8K per year in insurance and taxes.
Add it all up, and you're paying $22.4K (ownership) + $15K (fuel) + 10K (maintenance) + $8K (insurance/tax) = $55.4K to own this vehicle for 10 years, or $5.5K per year. This is oversimplified, of course, because it doesn't take into account (a) time value of money (except for pmt @ 7%), (b) accidents, (c) rising costs of fuel and insurance, or (d) salvage value at year 11.
But you get the drift. Your $20K car costs you about $7.5K your first year of ownership, and over $55K for 10 years of ownership. At the end of 10, you maybe could get $1.5K for it, if you've treated it well with no accidents. What a deal.
Dave,
My main point was that we will NOT have a sudden disappearance of oil. Rather, IF it were to run out, it would a drawn out process and would surely take longer than five years. Over that time the price of oil would slowly inch upwards. The further it inches upwards, the more incentive there is for someone to come up with a cheaper alternative energy source.
But we do have some common ground- I drive a fuel efficient car. It's because I'm a cheapskate, not an environmentalist, but it has the same effect.
Chonger
P.S. Geoff, I'm no Randian. Also, it's clear that the Saudis are propped up by governments, which is no failure of the invisible hand.
ok chong, i get u. "randian" is a bit much i guess, i have a habit of ripping into folks...
i'm no economist, but there is some work out there abt the limitations of the inviz hand, that it can only select for efficiency among the choices history has given it: the metaphor is a road built on a curve btw two points. obv it's the fastest way between them, and rebuilding the road straight isn't in anyone's immediate capital interest, so long term inefficency is built in to the short-term best choice. so, voila: the road to energy has a toll both staffed by 30,000 mendacious sanctimonious drunk bedouins...
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