Carl Tyler's Blog :: Whining about gas (petrol) prices.

Category Gas Petrol

It was interesting to see on Twitter today, people share how much it has costing them to fill their car with petrol. It reminded, me how I've blogged a couple of times about petrol prices up here before, first in 2004 and almost exactly one year ago.

The things I hear aren't that different to what was being said in the 70s, and the results are the same, people are buying smaller, more efficient cars (still way less efficient than the cars in Europe), but what really amazes me is how the large US car makers seem to act shocked that people will want smaller more efficient cars, and yet again, the foreign manufacturers seemed to see this coming and are cleaning up the market on Hybrids and diesels. What is trully amazing though is that these same US car makers have fuel effiecient cars for sale in Europe, but they don't seem to bring them over here?

Diesel is now up to about $4.60 a galloon, and the bug is still getting 48mpg, but I'm not complaining as it's way cheaper than why my brother is paying for his diesel in the UK. Summer could be a good time to consider alternatives to oil for heating the house this winter though.

Comments

1 - Even taking into account the currency differences between Australia and the US and the fact that we use litres rather that US gallons (3.785411784 ltrs - US gallon), you in the US still have some really cheap fuel by international standards.

I recently paid A$1.74 per litre in Australia for Diesel (which in Australia is tagged to the Singapore spot price for Diesel) which converts to approximately US$10.93 per US gallon.

However, I also regularly visit Qatar in the middle east and smile at the irony of paying four times as much for the tap water to fill the window washer than for the same quantity of fuel in the fuel tank.

Posted by Ian Randall At 12:20:29 AM On 05/20/2008 | - Website - |

2 - I also don't understand why cars over here have crap fuel efficiency compared to cars in the UK and Ireland.

I just watched an episode of Top Gear last night where they drove an Audi A8 Diesel for 800 miles on a single tank of gas with an average of 40.4 mpg. The car is rated for about 38 mpg.

Looking for the exact same car model and year in the US I could only find cars rated to about 23 mpg. Big difference...

Posted by Declan Lynch At 09:31:26 AM On 05/20/2008 | - Website - |

3 - Answer to #2
Because gas was cheap. Things will change quickly as prices go up. As I was leaving work yesterday I saw a 90 pounds lady driving a 6000 pounds SUV, next year she'll trade it for a 4500 pounds SUV and in few years she will be driving a 3300 pounds car.

Posted by Wassim At 12:14:38 PM On 05/20/2008 | - Website - |

4 - For heating and cooling the house - dig a 6 foot trench, 30 yards long, lay a 6inch pipe in the trench and have an extracter fan at the end. They tell me at 6ft the ground temp is a static 18C. Heat the house in the winter and cool it in the summer all for the cost of running the fan. Emoticon

Dad

Posted by Dad At 04:55:28 AM On 05/21/2008 | - Website - |

5 - Did you know they're selling Smart cars in the US now? They're importing them through Charleston, so I see them at the shipping terminal pretty regularly.

Dad is on the right track with his thinking, but in New Hampshire you'd have to go a little deeper than 6 feet. We installed a geothermal heat exchange pump in July of last year and they dug 6 220' deep wells. In January 2007 our gas cost over $300. This year it was $22 (we have a gas stove, clothes dryer, and hot water heater). On average our utility bills are down nearly $90/mo. The geothermal system was expensive, but it's saving us some money off utilities and we feel better about polluting less.

Posted by Charles Robinson At 10:03:51 AM On 05/21/2008 | - Website - |

6 - Dad may well be right. Actually Charles is right too. Geothermal systems can be dug vertically as Charles describes or horizontally as Mr Tyler snr descirbes.

Would a little solar energy drive that fan? Emoticon