I had a ’63 Austin-Healey Sprite roadster ($1800 new) with an 1100cc motor that would get 40+ miles/gallon if driven carefully (which I didn’t). My gas expenses would be $3 a month and I could put it on my Texaco credit card.

I was teaching junior high math and making $4800 dollars a year. My rent was $65/month. My beautiful 500cc Triumph bike cost $1200 and my Rolex Submariner (which I still have) cost $185 new.

JFK was murdered during my first semester as a teacher.

That table is an eye-opener, and though it is not comprehensive, it does give the equivalent cost per gallon in $US, ranging from 0.19c in Venzuela to $7.69 in Norway! Now that is an obscenely large range in anybody’s books.

WE recently drove to Adelaide from Sydney, and starting with a tankfull, costing around A$1.30 liter,(about US$5.20 per gal.), needed to refill – 50 liters – halfway across (700km of the total distance of just over 1400km), and, so as not to runout within spitting distance of our daughter’s home, and on a freeway, went for a splash and dash, at what we (rightly) assumed was the last servo before the end of the freeway. A bit over two tankfulls.

It was a near new Nissan Tiida, 1.8 liter motor, auto everything, and it went faultlessly. I consider it to be a “big” small car. And the wife chose it all on her own! For herself. It is the latest version of the Pulsar, and as usual, comes with various extra appointments as you go up the range.

The return trip, covering a different route from halfway, ended up using not much more fuel at all, maybe two and a quarter fills. The maximum cost per liter was the splash before the refill on the return trip, (our favored brand not being available in the small town), was $1.50liter, about $6.00 US/gallon.

It was a just run-in car, two on board and not a great deal of luggage, an efficient new design engine, (I suspect to be made to Renault specs, as they have a controlling interest in Nissan Motors now), though I personally would have preferred a larger engine, this one seemed to fill the bill anyway, and I was pleasantly surprised. We both drove at, or under the legal speeds (most of the time!) – the max on Australian roads is 110km/hr – about 70mph.

Ivan

The profit margin made by the oil companies, if what I read was correct, is (substantially) less than the amount made by several other industries, including pharmaceutical companies.

I wish we paid that little for petrol, but even 5 years ago it cost more than that

Especially when you consider that that’s right in the same ballpark as the original Model T Ford….

You should be really ashamed of yourselves!

>>> However, I would just love to see some of you folks
>>> who are complaining about these vehicles get thru 2
>>> feet of snow on a bicycle.

A few years back here in Southern California the local government had a “alternative commuting” shindig (probably at taxpayer’s expense) and the star of the show was “SuperCommuter”. It was some super in-shape guy in his early 20s wearing some sort of olympic speed skating outfit and roller blades.

Yeah, the 40-60 year old scientists and engineers at my workplace are going to go that route

>>> In a city like L.A., it is quite impossible to ride a bike to
>>> work. Not difficult; impossible.

And to be perfectly blunt, between my home and my work, there are some areas that would be very dangerous (as in crime) to bike through. And as others have mentioned, there’s just too many loose nuts behind wheels out there on the roads.

I actually have a very nice Trek bicycle that I ride for exercise. I put it into the Caliber and *drive* it to a local park, and ride there, away from cars and with the ducks and squirrels.

Les Dalrymple (and everyone else) I think you might have been using imperial gallons rather than US gallons in your calculation, which makes your gas a
little cheaper, or US gas a little more expensive. 1 US gallon = 3.785 liters
1 Imperial gallon = 4.545 liters

Sounds like most of the world is paying over double US prices, Australia gets off easy with about 1.5 times US price.

I agree US gas taxes should probably be raised a lot to encourage efficiency and to reduce the cross-subsidies (pro-rate the cost of the Iraq war per gallon!) not to mention highway construction and maintenance, hidden subsidies to oil companies, etc, etc. $16 sounds like a lot to me, but I’ve seen $8 or so cited as the true cost. But it would be political suicide to try to raise gas taxes. Lots of politicians are talking about *lowering* gas taxes (which is just a direct transfer to oil companies), and a few years ago some one (Kerry?) was rumored to be in favor of a 50 cent raise in the gas tax and had to back-pedal furiously.

A guy I know is slowly losing his vision due to a hereditary condition. (Not sure exactly what, but it sets in your 20′s or 30′s and takes 20 or more years to go completely blind.) He had to stop driving about 20 years ago and commuted by bicycle in the Phoenix/Tempe area. He had a lot of close calls (not due to his eyesight, which was still plenty good enough to ride a bike) and everyone was terribly concerned someone would run him over. I don’t think he cycles any more – buses or taxis, which are either tremendously inconvenient or really expensive.

Your complaints aboout the price of fuel fall on deaf ears here too. Currently in Sydney, Australia we are payng about $1.40 AUD per litre (ie $6.37 AUD per gallon — or $5.35 USD per gallon)

At 4.55 litres to the gallon, in USD your 15 gallons = 68 litres would have cost nearly $81- USD here. Only the small matter of being $32 dearer.

Les, your calculations on equivalence with Australia are wrong. BA is talking US gallons (3.78 litres) not imperial gallons (4.55 litres), a difference of about 17%.

That’s true enough, and it’s a fine explanation of why American cities are so poorly designed, but it isn’t a good reason for continuing with policies that support the problem. Instead of waiting for gas prices to rise due to scarcity, apply some real gas taxes. The tax money can be used to fund public transit, there would be popular demand for better city design when there’s time enough to do something, and it may reverse the trend of buying gas guzzlers.

BA and others brought up the economic damage high gas prices can bring. Sure. But that’s inevitable. By keeping gas prices low, you are encouraging/supporting the problem which got you into this mess: SUVs, suburban sprawl, and single-occupant vehicles. The longer that gas prices stay low (and $3/gallon is still low), the more SUVs go on the road, the more the suburbs sprawl, and the worse the impact will be when people seriously address the problem.

Let’s face it: there is going to be a big economic impact coming. It’s unavoidable. What we can do is try to reduce the impact, and the easiest way to do that is raise the gas tax and fund mass transit. At least when $6/gallon or $8/gallon hits, the communities will get some revenues to cope with the change.

I wouldn’t dare suggest that. Our countries differ way too much to make such remarks on a whim. All I intended was to give a reference to what it’s like elsewhere. (And to your other question, yes the prices have skyrocketed here too in the last several years).

It truly is sad that we are so… so… mean? Wasteful? Ignorant? Rude? I dunno, take your pick, I guess.

Shame, shame on US.

Repeated for truth. I live in Phoenix and would love to bike to work. But I also don’t want to get hit by a car and die. The entire city is made for cars and is sprawled out to the point where single blocks are sometimes 1 or 2 miles long. No biking or walking, and public transit is a joke here.

So, there’s a reason that you hear Americans complaining about high gas prices that are only half or less of what the rest of the world pays–many of us have no other choice. It sucks and needs to be changed, but the fact of the matter is that gas at $3 per gallon is painful for a lot of people in the US. If it ever gets higher we’re going to see economic disruption–not because we’re all spoiled idiots (though I’ll admit that could be a part of it), but because we have few other transit options available.

My point was that the price has gone up substantially since 2001, far faster than inflation, which I find curious

Take a look at this chart that shows gas prices in adjusted dollars. Prices in 2001 were about as far below the historic average as current prices are above, so by choosing it as your reference point you’re cherry-picking the data. Prices have certainly spiked in the last few years, but people think it’s worse than it is because we’ve gone from one extreme to the other.

FWIW, my Caliber has 2.0L 4-cylinder with the continuously variable transmission you see in some hybrids. It’s actually beating the crap out of the EPA estimates. I hear Dodge is selling a lot of them in Europe.

I *hoping* for higher gas prices here in the US, but I have to admit to selfish reasoning. I think it will cut down on freeway traffic at some point.

People need to relax a bit. Science and tech will deliver. There’s starting to be a profit motive in addressing people’s desires to be green. That’s why the last thing you want to do is hobble your economy.

Note that when I last worked in Saudi Arabia(1990) gas there was 30 cents per gallon. I expect it’s not that much higher today,,,

The major, national, oil producers must walk a tight rope, between raising fuel costs so high they impact world economic development or keeping them so low the oil producers are screwed by world wide inflation.
High prices encourage alternative energy production. Solar cells are becoming increasingly attractive as production rises and efficiency increases but they will require a major shift in how we USE the energy in order to make all that enviro. safe energy production useful.

Yes, Americans ARE spoiled. We likes our cars big, powerful and fast. It’s a freedom thing, Y’All,,,and yes, there are few cities compact enough to allow for usable public transit. In Los Angeles it takes 2.5 hours to travel 20 miles by bus.

GAry 7

I drive a Ford Explorer that I bought in 2004. I bought it because I was constantly going back and forth between school and home with a large dog, a rabbit cage, and suitcases to visit family 1-5 hours away. At the time it made sense. It still does, sometimes. I would love for public transportation to be easier – I would visit friends in other areas of NC more often if it were cheaper to get there.

However, the thing that really ticks me off is that commercials for new cars are so excited about the 25mpg or 30mpg the cars get, now. Didn’t cars get that kind of mileage back in the day, too? Or better? I mean, come on – we can make a more fuel efficient engine…