Gas Price Check...

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

The Honda Civics are cheaper than the Toyota Prius because they look exactly like the regular Civic which arent that great to look at in their own right.

 

Thank you for explaining to me that car price is determined by the all-important relative attractiveness of the vehicle, and not based on arbitrary things like size, reliability, demand, horsepower, features, or type of engine and transmission.

 

I just told you, the majority of people only want hybrids if they can differentiate them from a regular car so that the car becomes a status symbol. "Hey, look at me! I drive a hybrid..Im doing my part to stop global warming, protect the environment and ween america off foreign oil..what are you doing?"

 

Also, people who put priority into horsepower or types of transmissions aren't probably getting excited over hybrids, at least now anyway. Most fuel efficient cars have crappy horsepower. My yaris only has a 106, the civic hybrid only has 110 (vs the regular Civics 197+) and the Prius only gets 110 as well.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Marvin, ladies & gentlemen!

[Guest]

[SuperJerk 0]

I just told you, the majority of people only want hybrids if they can differentiate them from a regular car so that the car becomes a status symbol. "Hey, look at me! I drive a hybrid..Im doing my part to stop global warming, protect the environment and ween america off foreign oil..what are you doing?"

 

Or maybe...JUST MAYBE...the Prius costs more than the Civic Hybrid because it gets better mileage (PROBABLY A BIG SELLING POINT FOR HYBRID BUYERS) and has more standard features on it?

 

Also, maybe...JUST MAYBE...there's a certain economics to being able to drive 400 miles on $35 worth of gas in a car you get a $2100 tax rebate for buying?

[NoCalMike 0]

As-if MOST cars aren't status symbols anyways.

[Dandy 0]

I just told you, the majority of people only want hybrids if they can differentiate them from a regular car so that the car becomes a status symbol. "Hey, look at me! I drive a hybrid..Im doing my part to stop global warming, protect the environment and ween america off foreign oil..what are you doing?"

 

Also, people who put priority into horsepower or types of transmissions aren't probably getting excited over hybrids, at least now anyway. Most fuel efficient cars have crappy horsepower. My yaris only has a 106, the civic hybrid only has 110 (vs the regular Civics 197+) and the Prius only gets 110 as well.

Woooooooooow!

[Firestarter 0]

Where n = the number of posts in any thread including Marvin, the probability of this image being referenced asymptotically approaches 1 for all values of n+1.

[tekcop 0]

That Civic SI would be pretty sexy if it were green or black.

[EricMM 0]

That Civic SI would be pretty sexy if it were green

 

[Perfxion 0]

Uh...hybrids don't need so much HP because the electric motor does natural high RPMs thus freeing left over HP for 3/4 speeds on the transmission. And Chevy is working on v8 gas/diesel hybrids which will have high HP/high torque. Add a turbo charger and you can have a high performance tuner without much gas usage.

 

As for the two biggest drawbacks to hybrids: maintenance is Bentley price levels. And the battery from hybrids leave a bigger dent to the ozone layer than an H1 Hummer diesel. Since strip mining of the NiMH is so bad to the environment.

 

Best long term solution would be corn E85 with the stock used for fuel, and the by-product sold as subsidized feed for livestock. Makes two renewable resources for this country and cheaper fuel without any need for foreign oil.

[SuperJerk 0]

As for the two biggest drawbacks to hybrids: maintenance is Bentley price levels. And the battery from hybrids leave a bigger dent to the ozone layer than an H1 Hummer diesel. Since strip mining of the NiMH is so bad to the environment.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought ozone depletion was caused by CFCs, not carbon emissions from vehicles (such as the fuel a Hummer uses). And how would a working NiMH battery have any effect on the ozone layer?

[Perfxion 0]

To make the battery, the NiMH needs to be mined. The process to get the raw goods is done by strip mining. Which does more harm to the earth than good. Thus its greatest dent is from making the battery. And since they use 200000X the amount of older Cell Phone/Cordless phones they need alot of raw goods per batch.

 

CFCs, carbon emissions, sulfur smokestacks, and tree deforestations are four main ways of ozones layer depletion. CFCs are pretty big but not as common now a days due to an almost complete ban on the product.

[Firestarter 0]

The sun makes ozone. Next "problem."

[EricMM 0]

We've proven in the past the ability to damage the Ozone layer. The earth makes oil, too, but that's not really helping us.

 

Oh, and MX, corn is absolutely not a "renewable resource"

 

Topsoil says hi, er bye.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

We're winning! Its almost over now! Gas will surely be $1.50 again by next month at this rate..har har

[2GOLD 0]

 

Oil went down for the third straight day? Funny, gas around here went UP for the third straight day. From 3.21 to 3.47 to 3.69.

Why don't they just stop bullshitting and admit the reason gas is going up is because summer is coming and they want to make a huge buck on people going on vacation. I'd rather be told the truth then watch this Broadway musical type dance around crap.

[EricMM 0]

Here's to hoping the dollar does WAY better in the future.

[Youth N Asia 0]

$3.75 in most of Michigan.

 

They'll raise it 20 cents right off the bat, and over a week slowly lower it by a dime...then raise it 20 cents again. Happened 4 straight times that way now

 

[EricMM 0]

that's certainly S.O.P.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Oil be goin down, but da gas is going up. It like $3.78 down here and I'm mad.

[megaadvice 0]

OMG, $3.75????????????? You guys really don't know how lucky you are. In the UK just last week it hit £5. That is $10. We basically pay 3 times more for our Gas, now quit complaining.

 

Although our minimum wage is £5.15, which is $10.30 so at least we dont have multi millions living in poverty.

[EricMM 0]

You guys really don't know how lucky you are.

True, and yet false.

 

Yes, we're lucky gas doesn't cost that much.

 

But, we've set ourselves up so that sprawl will be our undoing, should gas ever cost as much for us as it does for you (and if they start trading oil in pounds instead of dollars we won't be far from that) we're fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.

[Guest Vitamin X]

The sun makes ozone. Next "problem."

Oh Ra, where are you when we need you.

 

We've proven in the past the ability to damage the Ozone layer. The earth makes oil, too, but that's not really helping us.

 

Oh, and MX, corn is absolutely not a "renewable resource"

 

Topsoil says hi, er bye.

Not to mention that biodiesel actually produces more nitrous oxides than gasoline. It seems that electric is the best option if you have to have a car- if harvested from sustainable, renewable resources such as wind, solar, and hydro-electric power. For reference:

[SuperJerk 0]

To make the battery, the NiMH needs to be mined. The process to get the raw goods is done by strip mining. Which does more harm to the earth than good. Thus its greatest dent is from making the battery. And since they use 200000X the amount of older Cell Phone/Cordless phones they need alot of raw goods per batch.

 

My question was more along the lines of how does strip mining for materials to make a number of batteries cause more damage to the atmosphere than the emissions from the same number of Hummers?

 

Pollution is inevitable, so the best choices available at the moment are to choose things that will create the least pollution. Does one hybrid car create as much pollution as one Hummer? I doubt it.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

So, hows about that gas tax holiday?

[SuperJerk 0]

Senators John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and Hillary Clinton, who hopes to win the Democratic nomination, have both called for suspending the 18.4 cents per gallon federal tax on gas as well as the 24.4 cents per gallon tax on diesel. McCain proposed the idea on April 15, while Clinton introduced her twist on it on April 25. Both candidates claim that the “tax holiday,” which would extend from Memorial Day through Labor Day, would save Americans money by mitigating the rising price of fuel.

 

McCain (April 15): I propose that the federal government suspend all taxes on gasoline now paid by the American people -- from Memorial Day to Labor Day of this year. The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus -- taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time a family, a farmer, or trucker stops to fill up.

 

Clinton (from campaign Web site): Suspending the gas tax will provide real, immediate assistance to American families and for our economy. Recent testimony before the House of Representatives by the American Trucking Association indicates that even small changes in price can have big impacts. Just a one-penny decrease in the price of diesel annualized over an entire year would save the trucking industry $391 million a year.

 

 

 

Clinton campaign spokesperson Geoff Garin said in a conference call this week that the proposal would save each driver $70. The Clinton campaign did not respond to our request to clarify how it arrived at that figure. But the non-partisan American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates that the total savings for the average American motorist works out to about $28; for a two-car household, that would be $54.

 

That's IF prices actually dropped 18.4 cents per gallon. However, there's every indication that they wouldn't. Here's why: According to the basic principles of supply and demand, cutting the price of an item causes people to buy more of it. That’s why stores put items on sale. But when something is priced too low, consumers will buy it faster than it can be manufactured, which leads to shortages.

 

For gasoline, this means that cutting the price by 18.4 cents per gallon -- even though that's only about five percent of the current going rate -- will likely stimulate demand for more gas, economists say. Unfortunately, there's not all that much more gas that can be provided to U.S. consumers. The refineries that turn crude oil into gasoline are already working at close to full capacity. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), U.S. refineries have the capacity to process 17.4 million barrels of oil each day. Since only about 46 percent of a barrel of crude oil is converted to gasoline, U.S. refineries, operating at their peak, can produce only 8.06 million barrels per day of the stuff most cars run on. But the DOE also says that the U.S. consumes 9.25 million barrels of gasoline per day. In other words, American motorists are already using about 1 million more barrels of gasoline per day than American refineries can produce.

 

With the supply of gasoline pretty much fixed (at least in the short term), the increased demand triggered by the price cut will lead consumers to bid up the price of gas. Len Burman, of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, says eliminating the federal tax won’t actually lower the price of gas because “supply constraints will push pump prices near their pre-holiday levels.” He goes on to warn that “If that didn't happen, there would be shortages.” The libertarian Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor agrees that a short-term gas tax holiday will have "little impact on pump prices."

 

For all the legislative prowess of McCain and Clinton, we’re doubtful that either candidate can rewrite the laws of supply and demand. That 18.4 cents per gallon won't go to consumers. Instead, the proposal will simply shift that money from government coffers to the oil companies. We're willing to grant that if the laws of economics themselves took a holiday and the price did drop that much, the amount saved might be meaningful to many motorists, particularly those who are low-income and those who drive a lot. And there would likely be all kinds of ancillary benefits involving price reductions for food and other products that have to be transported, as well as airline tickets and the like.

 

But we can't find any economists who think we'll actually see that drop in the price of gasoline. Others have tried and failed as well. And the Clinton campaign hasn't produced one, either.

 

Plucking from the Profits

 

 

 

There's another catch to the McCain and Clinton proposals. Currently, the gas tax is deposited directly into the Highway Trust Fund, which is used to pay for upgrades to roads and bridges. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the three-month gas tax holiday could cost as much as $8.5 billion.

 

McCain has responded by pledging to fund the Highway Trust Fund out of general revenues. That, of course, means adding another $8.5 billion in federal debt, which in turn means adding as much as $383 million per year in interest payments.

 

Clinton’s plan is somewhat more complicated. She promises to impose “a windfall profits tax” on oil companies -- the mechanics of which she hasn't outlined -- and use that to fund the gas tax holiday.

 

Clinton (May 2): We have a choice. We can choose to have you continue to pay the federal gas tax this summer or we can choose to try to make the oil companies pay it out of their record profits...We ought to say: Wait a minute, we’d rather have the oil companies pay the gas tax than the drivers of North Carolina, especially the truck drivers, or the farmers, or other people who have to commute long distances.”

 

 

Problem: If, as we outlined above, the price of a gallon of gas stays roughly the same despite the "holiday," then what used to be 18.4 cents that would go to the federal government for every gallon sold instead goes into the coffers of the oil companies as profit. That would be the profit that Clinton is proposing to tax to recover the cost of the gas tax holiday. (Clinton planned to introduce a bill today with New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez to implement her proposals; Sens. Charles Schumer and Sherrod Brown introduced legislation in March to tax "excess profits" of oil companies.)

 

Paul Krugman, a Princeton economist, calls Clinton's plan "pointless." We think it sounds a bit like a Rube Goldberg machine.

http://www.factcheck.org/gas_price_fixes_that_wont.html

[Jingus 0]

While I generally agree that temporarily knocking a whole 18 cents off the price of gas won't help, I gotta strongly disagree with the reasoning given here.

 

That's IF prices actually dropped 18.4 cents per gallon. However, there's every indication that they wouldn't. Here's why: According to the basic principles of supply and demand, cutting the price of an item causes people to buy more of it. That’s why stores put items on sale. But when something is priced too low, consumers will buy it faster than it can be manufactured, which leads to shortages.

 

For gasoline, this means that cutting the price by 18.4 cents per gallon -- even though that's only about five percent of the current going rate -- will likely stimulate demand for more gas, economists say. "

 

Bullshit. A reduction like this would add almost zero new demand for gas. The price of gasoline has increased more than 18.4 cents over the past MONTH. Back when gas cost $0.18 less per gallon than it does now, we didn't hit this magical demand increase which caused our refineries to run out of oil. Why would that happen if we returned to those prices? Gasoline isn't like most other products, it's a necessity for modern society, and people will buy mostly the same amount of it regardless of the cost.

 

Problem: If, as we outlined above, the price of a gallon of gas stays roughly the same despite the "holiday," then what used to be 18.4 cents that would go to the federal government for every gallon sold instead goes into the coffers of the oil companies as profit.

 

This part is true, but not because of any retarded theories about supply/demand which don't even remotely mirror the reality of the situation. Gasoline purchases in terms of quantity are roughly the same as they were last year. Demand has stayed steady. Supply has stayed steady. Yet the prices have steadily gone up. Gee whiz, you'd almost think that the gas companies don't listen to the economists' models and are just raising prices for pure profit under the "well, the market can bear higher prices, so why shouldn't we charge higher despite our expenses remaining the same?" theory. It's as if the men in charge of billion dollar corporations think their own bank accounts and stock options are more important than society's general well being! I've never heard of such a thing in my life!

 

But seriously, even if the government did drop the tax, the prices wouldn't drop much if any, the companies would just go "yoink!" and pocket the difference. And even if that didn't happen, it's eighteen cents. Big money! That's smaller than the differences in gas prices between some states. If you're not a truck driver or jet pilot, it doesn't make that big a deal.

[EricMM 0]

Jingus, don't be a COMPLETE R-Tard, please.

 

The entire point of this pandering is publicity. If they went out and told everyone that they were knocking ~10 cents off a gallon of gas, a tax-free HOLIDAY, what do you think everyone would do AS SOON AS the price went down?

 

They would fill up! Everyone! They would drive the price right back up! Don't be so naive..

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Demand has stayed steady. Supply has stayed steady.

 

I am very skeptical of this statement.

[Dandy 0]

You are correct, Eric, but to support Jingus' argument, this article made ludicrous comparisons to placing items on sale in a store. This is a commodity that we have to have for travel in vehicles. People fuel their vehicles when it is needed. They make it sound as if people will start filling their pools with gasoline simply because it is on sale. Most people I know will thank fuck that it is lower and spend the money saved per fill-up on something else. The part that does suck, as the article said, is that 18.4 cents per gallon would be helping out our governement, but would now be profits for the oil companies.