Gasoline Prices: The How and Why behind the Highway Robbery

Are you surprised to hear that electric car drivers care about gasoline prices?

Don't be! For one thing, most of us still have a gas-gobbler lying around gathering dust somewhere (for longer trips). For another, higher gasoline prices mean that the price of everything goes up - even the cost of electric cars themselves. They (and their parts) have to be shipped from somewhere on gas or diesel guzzling trucks. And for those of us who are still waiting for our electric dream car, we're very interested in the price of gasoline in our neighborhood because, well, we're still pinned to the pump.

Next, we care about gasoline prices because as Americans, we're addicted to oil. GW said it, but it still happens to be true; ) Whether we personally use gas in our cars or not, we're affected by gasoline prices because our country has let its economy grow dependent on oil, and increasingly, on foreign oil...

...and whether we like it or not, we Americans are all affected by the strength (or weakness) of our economy.

Why are gasoline prices going up?

• The price of crude oil has gone up.

  And why is that? Well, the biggest reason comes from the biggest producer: OPEC has set limits on the amount of oil produced in their countries per day...

  ...and the international demand for oil has skyrocketed over the last five years. The largest new markets are India and China, who alone put over 1000 more cars on the road every day.

  As any first-year economics student could tell you, when the supply stays the same and the demand increases, the price goes up.

• Hurricanes are bad for oil rigs, refineries, and pipelines.

  When Mother Nature blows down an expensive oil drilling or refining contraption, you get to pay higher gasoline prices at the pump.

• Wars are bad for shipping.

  Geopolitical tensions make it hard to get people, supplies, equipment, and tankers safely in and out of the tense zone. Expensive things get blown up, workers get kidnapped, injured, and killed, and corruption is even worse than usual. Under these conditions, the cost of doing business goes up for the oil companies, and again - the consumer gets to pay higher gasoline prices at the pump.

• Seasonal fluctuations.

  Americans take more car trips in the summer, so the demand for gasoline rises; when the demand rises, so do the gasoline prices.

Reference: The Energy Information Administration website

From region to region, other things cause the price to vary, such as the cost of shipping to remote areas and local competition among stations. This fluctuation has made websites such as gaswars.com (designed to help people find cheap gas prices in their state or even around the world) suddenly very popular!

How can you tell you're an addict?

• You spend money you don't have. For the United States, this means getting into wars we can't afford.

• You're playing "lets make a deal" with folks from the other side of the tracks. Perhaps you've noticed lately the way we Americans have been prostituting ourselves diplomatically to oil-dictatorships.
• You pretend some other, mysterious force is causing the destruction in your life. AKA denial. Think of the parade of Bushite Republicans looking for any excuse to deny the signs of environmental damage and global warming.

...and you do whatever you have to do to continue using your drug of choice, even while it kills you.

More and more people in America are tired of the addict lifestyle! We bought our SUVs because car salesman convinced us we HAD to for safety (and other, less understandable) reasons, but are now regretting it for so many reasons - we're feeling mugged by the oil companies, disgusted by the oil-dictators' policies, frightened by global-warming related weather disasters, and choked by fume-polluted air.

We don't want to be pinned to the pump anymore, so we look for alternatives.

Your interest in electric cars is a big step towards breaking the national addiction!

He who gains victory over other men is strong; but he who gains victory over himself is all powerful.
- Lao-Tzu

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