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Would You Pay Double for Gas?

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Ok all you greenies, there's no excuse now, all electric consumer vehicles are here. Get to your local dealership! If you aren't driving one of these, your carbon emissions are too high! go go go! :D


General Motors and Nissan on Tuesday said they're on target to roll out some of the first mainstream electric cars in U.S. history late this year, as the auto makers seek to attract buyers who want to cut their carbon footprint.

General Motors said its new Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that uses a gasoline-powered motor to charge the battery once it's been driven about 40 miles, will carry a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $41,000.

The auto maker is quick to point out that the car is eligible for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500, bringing the possible cost of the car down to $33,500.
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Electric cars readying mainstream rollout - MarketWatch
 
I like the Nissan - but want a shorter wheel base - looks like it has a horrible turning radius!

Hopefully they will get that figured out by the time I am ready for a new car and have my solar panels installed!
 
ugabuga, gas prices in Europe are so high because most of that is taxes! Also, the price of oil today is probably less related to usage and more related to commodity trading. It seems like back in 2005 when prices of gas shot to $4 / gallon here, it had nothing to do with us using more gas. My driving habits haven't decreased enough to justify a price drop of almost 45% since then, nor have anyone else's that I know. One other little interesting note is that grocery prices increased across the board, all supposedly due to increase in fuel/distribution prices. However, when gas prices were reduced by half, the prices of all groceries remained the same.
 
I'm hearing a lot of talk about electric cars being "carbon neutral" but that is only the case if you use something like solar panels to charge the car. If you are not changing your source for electricity, in most of America, you car is basically burning coal, which isn't carbon neutral. You have to think through all steps of what people are pushing. Buy some solar panels to charge that electric car, otherwise you are ripping out mountain tops to burn dirty coal. "Green" isn't always "green."
 
good point, scooterbug44, about the subsidies. It is crazy that we reward people for buying heavy vehicles which tear up the road more than lighter weight vehicles, and basically pay for some of their gas in the subsidies.

Wouldn't it make more sense to reward people for driving lighter vehicles which cause less wear and tear on the roads? Then, we could lower the gasoline taxes because we wouldn't need to repair and replace the roads as frequently. Our country gives incentives in a backwards manner.
 
30A Skunkape said:
You are correct. Here is an article just a few days old that made my eyes cross trying to figure out what might go into oil pricing...I bet less than 1% of the population can accurately describe what goes into the pricing of a barrel of oil. Crude Oil Rises as Storm System Threatens to Disrupt Gulf of Mexico Output - Bloomberg

But I have to say, based on what happens to the price of gas and heating oil when hurricanes enter the gulf, I have a hard time believing that 'shutting everything down' would result in anything other than the price of goods and services rising uniformly to a miserable level. I try to imagine what would happen in our little SOWAL bubble...so many of our relatively low paid workers have to commute in to work and our tourism industry, which is our economic life blood, is fully dependent on regional discretionary income. It does not take much imagination to envision an economic train wreck, but hey, I have been wrong before and will be again, so who knows.
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Maybe that would be the case, but I cannot help but notice that since this multi-billion dollar screw up of BP, that gas prices decreased, and that on top of a summer season, when gas prices usually increase. If the gas prices did go up, maybe that would encourage more people to buy fuel efficient cars and trucks, and the actual prices of those other items wouldn't change at all. (I know that isn't reality, but it makes sense on paper.)
 
The pricing of a gallon of gas at the pump is indeed a very complicated business.

One thing we know: Americans absolutely hate it when gas prices go up!

The folks on this forum would be more likely than the rest of America to accept higher gas prices in return for a cleaner Gulf.

The economic lifeblood of SoWal is tourism.
The economic lifeblood of Louisiana is fishing & OIL. In one southern LA town there is an annual Oyster and Oil Festival! They're truly conflicted.

There's another thread on this forum entitled "Does the deficit matter?" Reducing the deficit requires more revenues (taxes) and/or reduced gov't services. Higher taxes on oil/gas would have the benefit of reducing use/dependence and possibly increasing revenues, thus reducing the deficit.
 
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