Wishing for $6 gas
I pose a few questions for discussion: How high do gas prices get before there’s a massive sell-off of SUVs and large cars? Will the American roads look more like European roads (lots and lots of compact cars, a few sedans, rarely anything larger) within our lifetimes? Will you be able to adjust to eating more seasonal foods (e.g., not getting tomatoes year-round)? If the answers are “something soon like $6 a gallon,” “yes,” and “sure,” respectively, is the rising cost in gasoline a good thing?
Comments
For it to be a good thing, Americans in large numbers would need to posess the ability to think logically and rationally and connect multiple, divergent thoughts and ideas. I think we know the chances of that happening are slim to none.
For example, I give you my coworker. Spends all day every day ranting about liberal tree huggers and how they can’t tell him he shouldn’t be able to drive a big SUV. Spends all day every day ranting about how government needs to keep their nose out of corporations business and let them earn as much money as they want, however they want.
Yet he also now spends all day every day bitching about the cost of gas. So he hates that gas is so high but yet doesn’t want to do anything to conserve gas and doesn’t want the government to intervene in any way with price caps, both of which are pretty much the only big, major solutions to lowering the price of gas. He likes to bitch a lot about drilling in ANWR because he hears about it on O’Reilly or whatever, without realizing that even the oil companies don’t want to invest in this because they know that the amount they’d get out of it doesn’t justify the investment.
As for the cars piece of it, SUV sales are already in the dumper.
Yeah, the average citizen does not think like a Scrabbler. It’s going to take a lot to turn the majority around, but I do see a better America emerging. Maybe we’ll all ride bikes and the Mom & Pop stores will thrive again.
suv and truck sales have fallen off recently.
some automakers have already closed dedicated suv/truck plants.
some automakers are offering HUGE incentives to get people to buy their trucks right now.
so, fun.
Yep, we’ve already reached the tipping point. The sales for big stuff are plummeting. I don’t think we’re going to see much beyond smaller cars in the short-term, but in the next 15 years there’s probably going to be a hell of a lot more public transit in the outlying suburban areas of large cities.
(remember what happened to muscle cars like the mustang and the nova the last time gas shortages happened? oh man!)
maggie said:suv and truck sales have fallen off recently.
some automakers have already closed dedicated suv/truck plants.
I’ve been coming across quite a few articles that indicate this as well, and it’s the first real confirmation I’ve been able to find that rising gas prices are a GOOD thing. The government can’t come out and say you’re not allowed to buy that SUV, but they sure as hell can do whatever they want to discourage you from doing so, and I think it’s working pretty well. That is, until I read something like this:
“I hope Hummer and the H2’s will always be around. I dont like pick up trucks and I need something that can tow my large boat to the lakes and bays. The Hummer fits what I need and want. What happend to LIVE and LET LIVE? Why does other people have to trash other people. There are far more worst cars on the road that is doing more damage the Hummer.”
Submitted by: Paul
11:06 AM PDT, Jun 9, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-garage7-2008jun07,1,7880354.story
Awful grammar aside, this guy embodies Kevin V’s sentiments. “Live and let live” sounds like a great idea, but he clearly doesn’t understand how that mantra is a serious threat to society. The days of excess and seemingly unlimited resources are OVER, and people are going to have to stick together and think seriously about how their actions affect everyone else if we want to maintain some semblance of our current lifestyles. This problem goes beyond just gas as well.
i don’t necessarily see an SUV plant closing as a total good thing.. i guess the checkmarks in the good column might outnumber the bad. but thousands of people are losing their jobs. they’re not getting relocated to the hybrid plant, they’re just getting laid off. so that whole town/area is about to get MAJORLY poor. and that sucks.
i always feel so conflicted about things like this. it’s hard to remember how much i hate people.
The selloff’s already started. The attempted sell-off, I should say, because nobody’s buying them even used.
Public transportation use is soaring. Just yesterday in the Inquirer there was an article on the R6 line, and how last year, it was nearly deserted, but this year, it’s stanading room only.
The worst part of this is Chrysler’s “Let’s Refuel America” promotion ($2.99 gas for 3 years/12,000 miles) , which is basically subsidizing cheap gas as a way to get people to buy their SUVs (they mention that this offer includes Jeep vehicles)
Fortunately I have a 15 mile round trip to commute every day, so I can go 2-3 weeks between fillups. The gas prices haven’t affected me too much, as I’ve it’s an extra $7-8 every 2 to 3 weeks but still, I’m sure as hell glad I’m driving a car that does 24/30.
Goddamn it felt great to read that article, Reggie. I love the despair in that man’s eyes.
yo the train i used to ride into center city is actually more expensive for a one-day roundtrip than it is to drive the car. how much does THAT suck? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE PROVIDING ME WITH A REASONABLE OPTION.
Fortunately I have a 15 mile round trip to commute every day, so I can go 2-3 weeks between fillups. The gas prices haven’t affected me too much, as I’ve it’s an extra $7-8 every 2 to 3 weeks but still, I’m sure as hell glad I’m driving a car that does 24/30.
Man do I envy that. My round trip is about 75 miles, and even though my car gets 30+ on the highway, it’s brutal and I feel awful about it. I’ve been trying really hard to find a job in the city (NYC) which is only a 5 minute bus ride from my house, but it’s tough for me to give up the security of a government job in this economy. Shitty.
I’m conflicted about this as well, but that has a lot to do with my personal situation. I do whatever I can in my life to limit my carbon footprint, but I own an SUV. Not because I want to, but because my VW fell apart and my dad gave it to me cheap. It’s not a Hummer mind you, its a Land Rover and gets decent mileage, but I’d still rather not have it if I could help it.
The thing is, I can’t. I’m a reporter and I need a car for work. The gas prices are hitting me really hard right now and if it continues on its current path then I have a big decision to make for myself. Recently I’ve been spending $250 a month on gas and Newscorp only pays me 25 cents to the mile for what I drive.
This was not an issue when gas was $2.20 two years ago, but now I’m in a situation where, fiscally, if gas prices hit $5 or even flirt with it, I’m seriously going to have to consider changing my line of work, a profession that I put my heart and soul into because I believe in its purpose over the income it brings me.
I have an SUV because it was the car that was presented to me and the car I could afford. Congestion and gas being huge issues in NYC right now, I can tell you there are thousands of people in Queens alone that are in similar situations. Maybe they dont have SUVs, but they have poor mileage vehicles because its what they can get. People in places like Queens make less money, but don’t have access to good mass transit like those in Manhattan.
While there are certainly a fucking horde of douchebags that drive their big bulky piece of shits and dont have to, and shame on them, there are also masses in this country for whom poverty frames how environmentally responsible they can be.
So its tough for me to see $6 gas as a good thing when, while it may bring about some degree of change to a problem I wholeheartedly believe in fixing, it will likely bring about the end of a dream I’ve spent the entirety of my adult life working towards.
i hear they’re putting a new patco stop in gloucester county, so that should help public transportation down here. There’s also car pooling. My mom and I started and it’s been pretty excellent to only have to drive to work 2 days a week. plus with a car in the driveway during the day, we’re less likely to be burglarized!
they’ve been talking about that patco extension for like thirty years. are they actually going to do it? my hopes have never been high.
oh… no you’re right, Maggie:
[From yesterday’s GCTimes] “Last week’s announcement from Delaware River Port Authority Chief Executive Officer John Matheussen that it will be at least another six or seven years before DRPA runs a rail line into Gloucester County is no consolation to residents reeling from heavy traffic and high gas prices.”
oh damn. i always wanted it. they were saying how they’d build some kind of patco extension (or separate njt or septa rail line) down the median of 55. i feel that south jersey is pretty critically underserved by the rail system. (sure there are a ton of buses, but buses suck.)
i obviously wouldn’t use it much now, since i live 50 miles north of there, but i hoped for it for years and will continue to do so!
That Patco stop has been in the planning stages for years. My understanding is that everybody in GC wants it but nobody wants it in their town. Which is kind of silly, because I thought more people coming into town and supporting the local economy was a good thing.
In general, I feel that higher gas prices are good. For me personally, they suck. I recently left a job with a 10 mile round-trip commute for one with a 50 mile commute (in Philly). The differnce in salary was enough that I don’t regret that decision one bit, but I still resent that fact that I’m handing over part of my raise to the oil companies. Let’s start a petition for that Patco station.
Steve said:my VW fell apart</p
hahahahahh! Wow, that makes you at least hte 10th person I know who has owned a VW and maintains a consistent 100% “it fell apart” rate.
Steve, if you’re spending $250 a month on gas, why not just trade the thing in for a smaller, more gas efficient car? Surely, you can get an auto-loan that would have cheaper payments, especially with interest rates where they are. You’d end up with a more ethical ride and you’d be paying considerably less.
I’ve thought about it, John, but the trade in value on my car is shot because of a litany of problems it has had. It runs and i got it for practically nothing, which is why I have it. I needed a car to keep my job and didn’t have the capital so it was just an opportunity I grabbed out of necessity.
The benefit of getting it from my dad is I paid him flat, and don’t have to make monthly payments — something I’d likely have to do if I went for a new ride, and almost certainly couldn’t afford even with a boost to my MPG.
The short-term solution is trying to play union leader in the newsroom to lobby for better mileage rates, since they’re about half the federal rate right now, but somehow I don’t think uncle Murdoch is going to open his pocketbook.
I’ve desperately been looking for a new gig in Manhattan so I wouldn’t need a car at all, solving both my ethical and fiscal dilemmas, but the market is shit right now.
Heh, I don’t mean to be so negative and super-serious. I’m still optimistic my resume will land me something new, but this stuff has just been grating on me the last few weeks.
oh yea and Vdubs suck. Well, they’re brilliant until you hit that magical mileage barrier when something triggers a catacalysmic string of failures.
I don’t know what time that reporter was riding the R6 but I have been taking it every weekday morning for over a year and it is always standing room only by the time I get on at East Falls. I never mind having to stand because I know it’s good that people are taking the train, but I wish Septa would do something about the cost and train times and make it more appealing. I got into an argument with a man the other day on PATCO about why people don’t use public transportation, especially in New Jersey.
I used to work in the town in Wisconsin where the GM plant is closing; it’s going to be a disaster for the people who live around there. There is no where else for them to work.
I haven’t read the rest of the comments… have to get off to work in a minute, but.. Getting SUVs and other gas guzzlers off the road would be fantastic. But what about the people that are on a fixed income and have to take the bus? It is increasingly getting harder and harder for them to afford any kind of vehicular mobility at all. Plus, then Matt and I REALLY wouldn’t be able to come home for weddings! =( Plane tickets will keep going up and up too..
I was driving on Rte. 18 in the Brunswicks area and saw a BP gas station offering a cheaper gas price (for all 3 types) if you paid with cash (vs. credit). In other words, there were 6 different gas prices listed in smaller font.
paris – that’s happening all over the place here. i don’t see how it’s not a fucking scam (then again, the whole situation is). a lot of times, the prices posted on the big street sign are the cheaper “cash” ones, but you have to look closely at the actual pump to make sure it’s not the “credit” price they’d be charging you.
I’m sure $6 dollar gas would get SUVs off the road and all, but it would also get poor people no matter what they drive, truckers, and even some middle income people who can’t quite swing it.
The small gain for the environment and the consciences of people who don’t like them would be vastly overshadowed by the negative affects on (almost) all people, financially and socially.
Plus those plants closing mentioned earlier.
So no, rising costs are not and will never be a good thing.
well said evan
Paris said:I was driving on Rte. 18 in the Brunswicks area and saw a BP gas station offering a cheaper gas price (for all 3 types) if you paid with cash (vs. credit). In other words, there were 6 different gas prices listed in smaller font.
this used to be the norm everywhere, but then almost everyone stopped. now more places are doing it.
But the thing is that there’s no reason those plants have to make those big gas guzzling suvs. They could just as easily employ as many people (if not more, if the process of making them required more people and effort) if they produced efficient cars that people could drive and not have to spend an arm and a leg filling up. It’s why I’ve never understood why more environmental checks and balances would be bad for “the american worker” if it’s a more complicated, and labor intensive process. The fact is it wouldn’t be bad for the american worker because there theoretically should be more jobs created. But because corporations are still only going to spend so much money and still want to make money at the top and for the stockholders hand over fist, their goal is making more money by employing less people. So yeah, if a plant closes it’s bad for the employees either way. But let’s be sure to put the onus on that where it belongs, on the corporations themselves who choose to do business this way. If GM, Ford, etc. were really interested in what the consumer wanted they’d find ways to make more fuel efficient cars in those same plants, employing those same people. But that’s not what their interested in. So it’s not people who are concerned about the environment or $6 a gallong gas that’s costing people those jobs, it’s wealthy stockholders demanding returns on their investments and corporate heads looking to cut costs and gain productivity and get more money for less output. Which isn’t wrong and it isn’t evil, but it is what is ultimately responsible for this situation (job losses, plant closing, etc.).
i think wishing for $6 gas is stupid for a whole bunch of reason, some have already been listed above by other people, and i know the rest will be the opinion of only me, so im not even going to bother getting into that debate anymore.
besides that – steve, how many miles do you drive? maybe you should try leasing cars instead. the payments are lower, the gas mileage is better on new vehicles, and the maintenance is almost nonexistant.
also when you no longer want it you can trade it in or sell it.
some people would say that its bad because youll never own it, but unless your dealing with some sort of classic car, used vehicles are a dime a dozen anymore, they only go down in value anyway.
ofcourse if you drive alot more then say 12,000 to 15,000 miles a year then it might not be worth it because youll get hit for the extra mileage.
just throwing out a few suggestions.
i do think $6 will happen eventually anyway though, probably at the end of next summer.
i think this summer we will top out a little over 5 and then see it come down somewhere in the low to mid four dollar range in the fall. happens every year anyway.
for me, my worries about gas consumption are purely economical as i think that the earth was here before man, and will be long after. that being said, at this point the only personal choice on lowering what i spend a week in gas is to work closer to home. which i have been considering.
Leasing a car is never a good financial decision. I’m sure there’s a situation or two that would require it, but I can’t think of them and they are likely very unusual circumstances. It’s just throwing money away.
We lease one car and own one car and have for the past 10 years. It depends on the interest rate you can get on a car loan but more so for us if your car needs are going to be changing at all in the short term (under 10 years) then it makes some degree of sense. Between what you pay in interest financing a car and the value that the car loses the minute you drive it off the lot, if your car needs will change in 3 years time then it makes sense particularly since most leases now, at the end of the lease term you can get credit for what you’ve paid and just buy it anyway same as if you decided that at the outset. It just puts another option on the table. Of course if someone has the cash to pay for a car outright and not have to finance then that’s a different story. But assuming most people buying a new car take out a 3-5 year loan then a case can be made. Also depending on the car. Leasing a Honda doesn’t make much sense since they retain so much of their value. But leasing any kind of specific car (ie. sports car, SUV, van, truck, etc.) whose purpose in one’s life may cease to exist or change within 3 years time makes more sense than what you’ll likely get trying to unload a car you own during that time and likely still owe money on.
John said:Leasing a car is never a good financial decision. I’m sure there’s a situation or two that would require it, but I can’t think of them and they are likely very unusual circumstances. It’s just throwing money away.
“some people will say” was my way of saying john, by the way.
Derrick – Yeah I end up driving a lot and doing it in the most inefficient ways possible just because of the nature of my job. I’ll have to go to one part of the borough to cover something, then get called to the other side for something breaking like a shooting or something, only to have to go back again later. I think i put up 18K last year. But beyond that the bigger issue is that I pay nothing for my car right now outside of insurance and gas cos I paid for it outright. So its difficult for me to find a deal that works out better than that. I realize it probably sounds silly to be arguing over 250 a month, but I really get paid very little.
Outside of my situation though, I really have no argument against getting SUVs off the road. If you have the option, I think it’d be pretty shameful if you didn’t. I just don’t think $6 gas is the answer, regardless if it becomes a reality or not. You can argue that if a person is suffering under the weight of increased expenses, they’ll make a move to change. But gas prices aren’t the only increased expense people are suffering from these days, and is that really the path we want to go down anyways?
I get frustrated because the city I live in and the country in general could have invested in a more comprehensive mass transit system decades ago, but hasn’t. If Queens had more than 2 subway lines covering more than 15 percent of the borough, problem solved, not just for me but for the more than 450,000 in the borough that have no option but to drive.
And while we’re on the topic, where the fuck is my flying car anyways? I should sue my 2nd grade teacher who told me ‘you never know, by the time you’re an adult with the advances in science it could be a possibility.’
Fuck you Mrs. Snow. I’m 24, broke as shit and can’t even afford a cable package that would allow me to watch re-runs of the Jetsons. You owe me a personal jetpack that runs on toenail clippings and Coca-Cola.
not every person in an SUV is douche mcdouchenstein trying to mow you down in his giant douchemobile, so i think it actually makes even less sense to demand SUVs off the road. a lot of you on here are making that decision from the perspective of being responsible for transporting yourselves and maybe one other person if your married on a regular basis.
some people on the road actually have whole families that they have to drive around, and sometimes an SUV can make sense.
my other car is an SUV. prior to getting it i was antiSUV too, but since then with the child and all, i realised that hating them was silly, as it has made my life easier. would i like to see less? yeah, if you dont need it why drive it. but im not going to force someone to live that way because i dont know why any specific driver is in the car they own.
except for ’vette owners. we know your deal.
I dunno, Derrick. The rest of the world and all of pre-SUV America seemed to get along fine sans giant road hogs. They’re irresponsible vehicles that take up far more space and gasoline than should ever be required.
Good point Derrick, I didn’t mean to discount people that use them out of necessity.
Derrick said:not every person in an SUV is douche mcdouchenstein trying to mow you down in his giant douchemobile, so i think it actually makes even less sense to demand SUVs off the road. a lot of you on here are making that decision from the perspective of being responsible for transporting yourselves and maybe one other person if your married on a regular basis.
some people on the road actually have whole families that they have to drive around, and sometimes an SUV can make sense.
What percentage of SUV owners would you guess fully utilize the capabilities of their vehicles?
What is the average American family size (# of kids) nowadays?
If your primary use for your car is transporting multiple people, why do you need a truck? Why not a station wagon or minivan?
There are of course people out there that NEED their SUV. But they are definitely in the minority. The fact that sales have completely hit the wall is proof positive of this fact. If people truely NEEDED their SUVs, the price of gas would not affect sales so drastically.
jay, you kind of proved my point there. the people that dont need them will get rid of them in favor of something with better gas mileage. the people that do need them will still need them reguardless of gas prices.
also, the gas mileage of my SUV against my dads station wagon is pretty even, the difference is mine has more head room and well, his is a station wagon. now why would i buy the uglier car just because?
Perhaps station wagons will make a comeback in the large-family market.
I had a jeep for years and now we have a minivan and I can attest to the fact that there’s little to no difference in the gas mileage, tank size, etc.