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11 December 2008
Mecha poll: Will gas break $1/gal? If so, when?→[More:]less than a year ago I posted this. The economy continues to sink, so now I'm wondering if gas will go below $1. I saw 1.79 today...
And you old timers: do you remember when you first paid $1 for gas? I do. I think it was 1979...
The expensive interstate exit convenience store down the road was $1.34 this morning. The manager said she expects $1.27 this evening. Their prices are computer-controlled by corporate - including the roadside sign - so they just stand at the window and watch the prices move penny by penny. The store across the road is not automated at all, so their employees have to scramble. A lot of stores have closed because they cannot keep up with the automated pump stores.
Unleaded fuel here has gone from ~AUD1.50/litre to ~AUD.95 in the last week or so. That puts us at about USD2.40 per gallon currently. Diesel has gone down from ~AUD1.75 to ~AUD1.20 in the same period. Less than a dollar a gallon is not even a dream for us :-(
Well, I guess it's relative. We finally dropped below 2 dollars in NYC so I don't see NYC dropping below 1 and, lets face it, if it doesn't happen in NYC, it doesn't matter, right?
Won't get there in Washington State. We have a built-in bottom (read: tax) of something like $0.60/gal so even if the gas itself were almost free we'll still be donating to the state.
Gas taxes vary State by State. Here where we don't pay enough gas tax (to yanno, build roads), I've seen the high $1.20's to mid $1.40's this week. It might go .99 somewhere around here before it turns around.
Less than a dollar a gallon is not even a dream for us :-(
I don't really know how things work in other economies, Australian or European. I can only assume your governments are doing something worthwhile with the tax money that raises your gas prices so high.
Stynxno, NYC might as well be another planet as far as I'm concerned.
Logistics is also a big factor in cost. Savannah is a huge petroleum port and less than a 6 hour haul from where I am. KC is on the Mississippi upstream of LA's refineries. I can imagine the nightmare of gas deliveries in NYC.
Such a huge change from 4th of July weekend. We stopped in Reno on our roadtrip and filled up, even though we still had half a tank, because we found gas for the astoundingly low price of $4.19.
To be honest, in September I expected it to be $5.29 by now, and I made some big family-affecting decisions based on that. In hindsight, my decisions weren't wrong because the rest of the economy sucks, but had I foreseen this, things would be a lot different now, though not necessarily better.
That would be a way to prop up the big 3. "Hay, buy our big-ass gas-guzzler pickups and SUVs, gas is cheep again, kthxbai".
Remember Dodge's $2.99/gal price guarantee gas if you bought one of their gas pigs a few months back? At the time many auto blogs did the math and said customers should just suck it up and pay the pump price and take the better rebates and other incentives. For those that did take them up on their offer, they currently are hosed as they didn't get any discounts at all on the car. Of course, if in the next 2 years gas goes back up above $3 they are back in business.
The cheapest I've seen here in South/Central Jersey was $1.49, just today. I was actually wondering the same thing about when, and if, the price would go under $1. I don't know that it will happen, however. I saw an interview with a Saudi oil baron who insisted that if the price dropped too low, it would be bad for everyone involved. Though I took that with a grain of salt.
Gas here in England is still 91p/litre. That's about $6.10 per gallon. It was closer to $12/gal a few months ago, but the difference is more because the dollar has gone down, not because gas prices have halved. I think back then gas was £1.10/litre.
I don't think it'll drop below a dollar here (especially once OPEC cuts production). I do remember it going under a dollar in '97 (I think), but it coincided with my car's tire falling off, so I wasn't able to take advantage of the low price. Right now, the low price lines up with my check engine light being on. Sigh.
OK, OK. But you know what I mean. The money is at least supposed to go for something, right? Like infrastructure or health care or public transit or lowering other taxes or tithing to the queen. Of course, I am naturally naive (and consequentially rather cynical) and don't know crap about Australia. But I'm sure that was already obvious.
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