California regular is designed to give lower mileage and increase tax revenue. I fill up and head for the AZ border. My mileage goes up with the first fill-up of non CA gas. Been that way with several vehicles over the last 10 years at least.
You can thank Warren Buffett for the trains. He used his stroke to block the pipeline giving his RR the revenue for hauling oil. I notice on my trip that diesel was higher than gas most of the middle America. Many states have higher tax on diesel than gas.
Even at $2.87 per gallon for E85 the cost per mile in a Ford Focus FFV is 1.5 cents more per mile. The cost of E85 would have to be down to $2.50 per gallon for the break even. Wonder if anyone is buying the stuff?
I don't think premium is as problematic as RUG. You do use Premium in your Mini right?
Though I did notice a difference in the Lexus on a trip to Las Vegas a few years ago. I got much better mileage on the return on NV gas than CA gas going. It is a 2 MPG difference in the Sequoia and was even more in the 2005 GMC Hybrid PU truck on the only trip we ever took in it. I have every fuel record on every vehicle for over 13 years on my Excel Spreadsheet. Not hard to show the difference in CA gas vs the rest.
I've certainly also experienced blips in MPG just like you but I don't really know what to attribute it to, is the question. Fuel variation makes sense as an explanation, but so do other factors...so, I DUNNO :confuse:
Yep, I have no choice but to use premium in the Mini Cooper S---probably in the normally aspirated version one could get away with 89 or 87, but with SC/turbo, you are generating a lot of heat, and nobody wants to mess with detonation problems in the engine.
That whole thing reminds me of JDR (John D. Rockefeller) and his "Standard Oil"...talk about helping create the blueprint of messing over people creating jobs and wealth for all :P
Anyway, yes, even with E85 @ that price it's not a bargain by any means. A neighbor of mine has a 2012 Jeep GC and they tried a couple tanks of E85 a while back - didn't have anything good to say about it. Said mileage dropped about 30%. Another buddy tried it in his Caravan once on a trip to Galena, IL. Again, reported mileage dropped by 38%. Don't think it's just b/c they're Chrysler / Dodge products.
Yes, diesel is taxed higher I believe but the price is usually stable unlike regular petrol. Read an article yesterday stating once again people are reducing spending on other things due to petrol prices rising. But for every one of those articles there are five in business mags / newspaper sections saying spending is up :confuse:
I did not have my camera with me yesterday. When we were out for our Touareg test drive we were stopped at a light and the Chevron had RUG $4.06, PUG $4.26 and diesel $3.97. I told the salesman, this is a good time to own a diesel.
$3.569 for 89 at the local 7-Eleven, when I did my bi-weekly booze run today. Took the Ram, and filled it up there as it's usually (but not always) a bit cheaper over the county line. And, by some freak of nature, the thing returned almost 20 mpg on that tank!
My uncle put most of that tank's miles on it, driving it out to the dealer one day for its first oil change, which was free. He also drove it one day out to the shooting range, and drove around a lot looking at cars, to replace his slowly dying 2003 Corolla. I'm really curious though, how he managed to drive it that efficiently. The only time I hit 20 mpg was back in October when I took it on a road trip to Pennsylvania.
$2.92 a gallon for RUG here at the Phillips 66 on 10th St. in beautiful Alamogordo, NM. Wow! And I saw some being sold last night in El Paso, TX, for only $2.99 a gallon for RUG. I didn't catch the name of the place that was at, though.
Apparently the crude goes that way on its way to New Brunswick. (Kennebec Journal). Not the first derailment and leak either but "people shouldn't have worries". (Yahoo).
I would bet pipelines have a better safety record per barrel than railroads. A leak is bad for sure. But not likely to kill dozens of people.
As your one article mentioned. They are going to see more of this. Meaning trains exploding in the middle of town killing people. Likely some drugged out Eco Nuts caused it.
The train was parked waiting for the engineer. Somehow its brakes were released and it went downhill into the town at high speed with no one on board.
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec -- A driverless freight train carrying tankers of petroleum products derailed at high speed and exploded into a giant fireball in the middle of a small Canadian town early on Saturday, destroying dozens of buildings and leaving an unknown number of people feared missing.
TAPS is always monitored. Have to wonder whether the smaller pipelines are. - seems like a lot of bigger leaks aren't caught for 24 to 48 hours. People apparently just walk away from trains.
It sounds like the trains were mostly a supplement to the oil tankers bringing crude up from Venezuela so maybe the prices won't jump much next week, especially for Canadians.
Speaking of Venezuela, one of the local stations near here is no longer branded a Citgo but is a Krist, a small chain based in the western UP. There's not much Facebook love for the chain.
Wall Street hedge funds. Gold is down so now they are shifting their speculation money into oil. Our pathetic congress does nothing about it while the citizens are ripped off by the hedge fund actions over and over again. No surprise - big campaign contributions.
Years ago when you dealt in commodities you stood the risk of having to actually take physical deliveries on your contracts. Now derivatives and the like let people speculate without that risk. Big surprise, commodities run up in price much more now! I don't buy their argument that they help market liquidity because this never was much of an issue except in very rare, low volume areas which certainly doesn't fit for oil, natural gas, corn, copper, etc.
Except in CA where we pay the highest gas taxes and have some of the worst roads in the USA. Too bad the lying legislators steal our gas tax for other than maintaining our roads and highways. The Europeans do pay more for gas, from what I hear they get decent highways for their Euros.
If the price of gas was doubled, and the roads were improved, it would be a more pleasant driving experience. With most of the dregs off the roads. :shades:
I don't know if I would make that sorta analogy - which to me implies Americans get something for nothing. Rather, Americans pay little and get even less.
In other countries, they pay more, but get first world transportation infrastructure, working transit systems, socialized healthcare and higher education, a stronger safety net, etc. You get what you pay for. Americans might pay half, but get 1/5th.
I was in Bellingham WA today, and paid 4.09 for Chevron diesel - price is higher there because of all the cross border shoppers from Canuckistan. Back near home it is still ~3.95, I think.
This is not the country that I grew up in. Our public education system is becoming something of a joke, the roads are terrible, bridges collapsing.
I pay quite a bit of taxes, and I would be willing to pay more if more were being delivered. But back to the price of gas...
I have been thinking about picking up a 2008 Passat from someone I know. The car has been on a diet of 93 octane it's entire life, so the other day at my local Chevron I was looking at the cost of 87 versus 93 octane. The 87 octane that I was pumping into my truck was $3.35, and the 93 octane was $3.99, a difference of 64 cents per gallon. The last time I was burning High-Test, the difference was about 20 cents per gallon. I checked at the HEB, and there the difference is only 30 cents, much more reasonable.
Thanks guys, interesting reading! Perhaps the reason Germany gets away with this, and why the people are not revolting, is that Germany has finally learned to curtail global adventurism? I dunno, but I'd sure trade away some of my money at the gas pump for German roads and transportation services.
Some highways in California are becoming virtually unusable. I almost had a stroke when they installed an expensive and massive light show on the S.F. Bay Bridge (not the Golden Gate), which, once you cross over it, puts you on a road that people in Sri Lanka would be ashamed of.
But you both have a good point---why pay more for gas when you get nothing for it?
As GW Bush said of the oil companies "Nobody tells those guys what to do".
There's a lot more money to go around when so much of it isn't being diverted to sketchy overseas aid and wars, for sure. Germany subsidizes other things with its transportation tax money - but it works. Here, I am not sure where the taxes go.
I'm sure SOME tax money is put to good use but both our government and our population are credit junkies and have been for decades--since the 1980s. We are, in a sense, a perfect match. :P
As GW Bush said of the oil companies "Nobody tells those guys what to do".
He speaks the truth. After 25 years working in the oilfields of the Arctic, you learn not to cross the oil companies. They have lots of stroke. And you really don't know which one is in charge. BP handled most of the production. Yet Exxon owned most of the oil. You will never see an Exxon sign on anything there. In the early days they had a small camp with no name on the building. Yet ARCO and SOHIO which all became BP were all the show names.
I don't know if being a credit junky is why the transportation infrastructure is not first world in so much of the US. I bet transportation related tax proceeds are not all going to transport related needs.
Stop the wars, stop the aid to ungrateful parasites, and maybe some areas of the US can resemble the nations the American military-industrial giant defends virtually for free.
Certainly too big for working transit infrastructure everywhere, but I don't think wanting more than crumbling roads and collapsing bridges is asking for too much.
I don't think wanting more than crumbling roads and collapsing bridges is asking for too much.
That is absolutely right. Fix the roads, highways and bridges with gas tax. Any left over can be put toward mass transit or other pet projects. My guess is it works just the opposite. An article posted on the stock page deserves more readers.
In 2011, for instance, an internal Goldman memo suggested that speculation by investors accounted for about a third of the price of a barrel of oil. A commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator, subsequently used that estimate to calculate that speculation added about $10 per fill-up for the average American driver. Other experts have put the total, combined cost at $200 billion a year.
Comments
RUG = $3.75 to $4.69
PUG = $3.95 to $4.99
diesel = $3.75 to $4.89
Good time to own a diesel here. My local Shell has RUG and ULSD for the same price of $4.09. $3.89 with a car wash.
E85 is going for $2.87
Diesel is $3.79 ~ $3.85
Quite a few mile-long BNSF trains with new, fresh oil tankers move through town and by the plant throughout the day.
Even at $2.87 per gallon for E85 the cost per mile in a Ford Focus FFV is 1.5 cents more per mile. The cost of E85 would have to be down to $2.50 per gallon for the break even. Wonder if anyone is buying the stuff?
Though I did notice a difference in the Lexus on a trip to Las Vegas a few years ago. I got much better mileage on the return on NV gas than CA gas going. It is a 2 MPG difference in the Sequoia and was even more in the 2005 GMC Hybrid PU truck on the only trip we ever took in it.
I have every fuel record on every vehicle for over 13 years on my Excel Spreadsheet. Not hard to show the difference in CA gas vs the rest.
I get the best mileage on New Mexico gas on every trip. Is that a coincidence or what?
Yep, I have no choice but to use premium in the Mini Cooper S---probably in the normally aspirated version one could get away with 89 or 87, but with SC/turbo, you are generating a lot of heat, and nobody wants to mess with detonation problems in the engine.
That whole thing reminds me of JDR (John D. Rockefeller) and his "Standard Oil"...talk about helping create the blueprint of
messing over peoplecreating jobs and wealth for all :PAnyway, yes, even with E85 @ that price it's not a bargain by any means. A neighbor of mine has a 2012 Jeep GC and they tried a couple tanks of E85 a while back - didn't have anything good to say about it. Said mileage dropped about 30%. Another buddy tried it in his Caravan once on a trip to Galena, IL. Again, reported mileage dropped by 38%. Don't think it's just b/c they're Chrysler / Dodge products.
Yes, diesel is taxed higher I believe but the price is usually stable unlike regular petrol. Read an article yesterday stating once again people are reducing spending on other things due to petrol prices rising. But for every one of those articles there are five in business mags / newspaper sections saying spending is up :confuse:
Some cars seem to get better mpg at higher altitudes. You can sure get away with lower octane fuel while driving in the Rockies.
My uncle put most of that tank's miles on it, driving it out to the dealer one day for its first oil change, which was free. He also drove it one day out to the shooting range, and drove around a lot looking at cars, to replace his slowly dying 2003 Corolla. I'm really curious though, how he managed to drive it that efficiently. The only time I hit 20 mpg was back in October when I took it on a road trip to Pennsylvania.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Diesel has dropped a few cents to $3.99.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357352/Breaking-news-Canadian-town-cent- er-wiped-freight-train-carrying-hundreds-tons-crude-oil-derails-explodes.html
And yeah, pipelines never leak or blow up.
As your one article mentioned. They are going to see more of this. Meaning trains exploding in the middle of town killing people. Likely some drugged out Eco Nuts caused it.
LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec -- A driverless freight train carrying tankers of petroleum products derailed at high speed and exploded into a giant fireball in the middle of a small Canadian town early on Saturday, destroying dozens of buildings and leaving an unknown number of people feared missing.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/amazing_photos_quebec_town_evacuated_- 6eKixLeX6CXxf3UlVHChPP
It sounds like the trains were mostly a supplement to the oil tankers bringing crude up from Venezuela so maybe the prices won't jump much next week, especially for Canadians.
Speaking of Venezuela, one of the local stations near here is no longer branded a Citgo but is a Krist, a small chain based in the western UP. There's not much Facebook love for the chain.
Not best time for a Road Trip...
If the price of gas was doubled, and the roads were improved, it would be a more pleasant driving experience. With most of the dregs off the roads. :shades:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-german-fuel-taxes-have-been-a-b- onanza-for-government-a-826004.html
In other countries, they pay more, but get first world transportation infrastructure, working transit systems, socialized healthcare and higher education, a stronger safety net, etc. You get what you pay for. Americans might pay half, but get 1/5th.
I was in Bellingham WA today, and paid 4.09 for Chevron diesel - price is higher there because of all the cross border shoppers from Canuckistan. Back near home it is still ~3.95, I think.
I pay quite a bit of taxes, and I would be willing to pay more if more were being delivered. But back to the price of gas...
I have been thinking about picking up a 2008 Passat from someone I know. The car has been on a diet of 93 octane it's entire life, so the other day at my local Chevron I was looking at the cost of 87 versus 93 octane. The 87 octane that I was pumping into my truck was $3.35, and the 93 octane was $3.99, a difference of 64 cents per gallon. The last time I was burning High-Test, the difference was about 20 cents per gallon. I checked at the HEB, and there the difference is only 30 cents, much more reasonable.
Some highways in California are becoming virtually unusable. I almost had a stroke when they installed an expensive and massive light show on the S.F. Bay Bridge (not the Golden Gate), which, once you cross over it, puts you on a road that people in Sri Lanka would be ashamed of.
But you both have a good point---why pay more for gas when you get nothing for it?
As GW Bush said of the oil companies "Nobody tells those guys what to do".
I put premium in my old car as it deserves it - but otherwise, now that I have experienced diesel, I might be over the PUG-only experience.
He speaks the truth. After 25 years working in the oilfields of the Arctic, you learn not to cross the oil companies. They have lots of stroke. And you really don't know which one is in charge. BP handled most of the production. Yet Exxon owned most of the oil. You will never see an Exxon sign on anything there. In the early days they had a small camp with no name on the building. Yet ARCO and SOHIO which all became BP were all the show names.
Stop the wars, stop the aid to ungrateful parasites, and maybe some areas of the US can resemble the nations the American military-industrial giant defends virtually for free.
That is absolutely right. Fix the roads, highways and bridges with gas tax. Any left over can be put toward mass transit or other pet projects. My guess is it works just the opposite. An article posted on the stock page deserves more readers.
In 2011, for instance, an internal Goldman memo suggested that speculation by investors accounted for about a third of the price of a barrel of oil. A commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator, subsequently used that estimate to calculate that speculation added about $10 per fill-up for the average American driver. Other experts have put the total, combined cost at $200 billion a year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/a-shuffle-of-aluminum-but-to-banks-pu- re-gold.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&hp&adxnnlx=1374458515-%20Br9tis2amkg4eqC/0rCUQ