Featured Are you a gas 'superuser'? U.S. state wants to get you to stop

i like it. perhaps gas should be sold with tiered usage pricing

 

I haven't read the article, but are those "super users" using more gas because they drive more, or because they drive a very inefficient car? Depending on the answer, the solution would be different.

 

Rural mail delivery drivers?

Bob Wilson

 

If it is a distance thing, especially for rural areas, then yeah, I don't know what can be done. There is no public transportation in the rural USA cities. The nearest store is 15 miles away for me. When I have to run any errands, yes, 25 miles on PP is never quite enough for me.

 

The government had a graph of all vehicles #of cars going a particular # of miles each day(I linked to it somewhere)

There was at least one moron driving 900 miles a day every day in the metric

How or why that is possible I don’t know But I have alluded to the fact that a vast number of cars drive extremely small distances on average every day while a small number drive exceedingly rediculous distances that in effect mess up the entire average by a large amount

This is why the EV tax stating everyone drives 25,000 miles annually is extremely flawed when the mode distance driven annually by a car is only about 8000 but the high average distance reflects very few cars.

All this said unless you have millionaires with mental problems practicing cannonball runs everyday the folks glued to the seat must do so for reasons that likely are incompatible with driving an EV
I would also guess they don’t have much of a choice not to do so.

 

If there is anything that the pandemic had taught me, one thing I know now is that we all make the unnecessary gatherings that made our economy thrive. Pre-pandemic I used to drive ~15K miles/yr. This included ~40 miles/day commuting and occasional short and long-distance trips both for pleasure and business, as well as running errands including shopping.

I now drive ~8K miles/yr. Cut down on the number of days I have to commute, over 90% working from home, don't make unnecessary long trips pleasure or business, do most of my shopping online, reduced the number of errands, and consolidated to do more things on a single trip. Still, I have to drive ~8K miles a year. I think that is just about the bare minimum of transportation for someone with an extremely flexible work schedule and very little leisure travel short or long. That's what it takes to live in the rural US.

 

The Seattle-Tacoma metro area has plenty of tech workers commuting from distant rural homes. Before retirement, I worked alongside a significant number of them.

If not a data error, that just has to be a courier with a fixed daily point-to-point route along an Interstate.

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For those lacking time to dig it up, here is that particular legislative budget item (please forgive the cut-and-paste formatting):

(13) $450,000 of the motor vehicle account—state appropriation is24
for the joint transportation committee to conduct a study to assess25
opportunities to encourage high-consumption fuel users, including26
users of diesel fuel and gasoline, as well as in consideration of27
fleet usage, to switch to electric vehicles, where any zero-emissions28
vehicle is considered an electric vehicle. The purpose of the study29
is to significantly advance policymakers' understanding of the30
dynamics impacting consumer decisions to transition from a fossil-31
fueled vehicle to an electric vehicle, and to evaluate potential32
policies to help encourage this transition, including related to the33
availability of electric vehicle recharging infrastructure. A report34
on the study must be submitted to the transportation committees of35
the legislature and the governor by July 1, 2023. The legislature36
intends for the study to result in the collection of data to37
determine, at a minimum, the following:38
(a) Which high-consumption users of fuel can switch to electric39
vehicles for a high percentage of their driving needs;40

p. 19 ESSB 5689.PL

(b) How much money can high-consumption fuel users save by1
switching to electric vehicles;2
(c) How many gallons of fuel are displaced by high-consumption3
fuel users switching to electric vehicles;4
(d) What policies, including related to electric vehicle charging5
infrastructure, would encourage high-consumption fuel users to make6
the switch to electric vehicles;7
(e) What high-consumption fuel users' attitudes and perceptions8
about electric vehicles are;9
(f) What barriers, concerns, and viewpoints are held by high-10
consumption fuel users in relation to electric vehicles; and11
(g) What messages are most effective for transitioning high-12
consumption fuel users to electric vehicles.

 

Any such animal as a hybrid pickup? from Toyota?
The new FORD Maverick is pretty decent MPG.
Virginia certainly has the rural half with F150's and going longer miles.

 

That pretty well describes the SuperCharger network. There once was a gap between Little Rock and Tulsa/Joplin. But there were +7 kW L2 charging at RV park and a truck stop near Ozark AR and Fort Smith. Last year, two new SuperCharger stations opened along that segment.

Bob Wilson

 

Well, that proposal is then blaming the gas engine cars even if it is a fuel-efficient hybrid. The proposed solution would not reduce the miles driven on a car, just replace it with electric fuel. Not saying that is bad or won't work. But as in my own case, if commuting and unnecessary leisure and business travels can be cut down by ~50%, the consumption of gas would drop by that much. Which I think is a much larger drop than the small number of people buying BEVs. And a whole lot cheaper for the country and for the individuals.

 

I know of a number of real estate agents who were early Tesla adopters.
One I know personally told me he drives 35-40k miles/year. This was a big reason for the switch to an EV for him.

 

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5888d6bad2b857a30238e864/t/60ff036e15db6a1139195020/1627325296710/Coltura+Gasoline+Superusers+Report+July+2021.pdf

The full data. Average super user is likely to travel over 30,000 miles a year and drives a pick up or SUV. A 200+ mile Bev or a 30+ mile phew would save a lot of gas. The highest 20% of gas consumers, consume 48% of the gasoline in the US.

 

I see a lot of my neighborhood in these numbers: lots of contractors and property maintenance guys whose days are filled with surprise calls to fix this, go back to that supply depot to return the wrong part and get the correct one, go back out to last week's site to find out why that client is complaining etc etc. Mostly smaller contractors who are generally keeping up their end of routine business bargains.

But because they are the guys on the ground, the last in the chain, "the buck stops here." Maintaining their reputation means scrambling to get stuff done, and solving your problem today almost always means driving somewhere, maybe several somewheres. This is why they are the fuel superusers.

The banks aren't likely to say no to growing businesses looking to buy work trucks and SUVs from the local dealers.

You can probably already see a few ways to improve this, including some that have nothing to do with cars.

EDIT, adding:

I wonder what the same sort of report would look like if run on a population with a very different business culture, where the work is done more... "mañana style."

My theory is that we could utterly slash petro usage by eliminating "same day response" or "delivery within 48 hours" from most types of businesses.

 

Take a look at the often highly touted 100k, 200k, & 300k miles threads here on PC and see how and why these folks rack up such mileage so quickly. Here in Texas, a 45 min-1 hr highway commute + trips will equal 25-30k/yr (BTDT).

This is why chargers are sorely needed in rural and/or remote areas where they will not likely ever be very profitable and not just concentrated along main travel corridors and cities.

I think the EV charger rollout strategy is following the cellular tech industry. Concentrated in mass urban areas, sparsely populated areas get it.... eventually.

 

Yeah but keep in mind the cellular roll-out was driven by mapping the recoverable revenue, not the need for communication.

If they use the same plans and pacing for chargers we will still have troublesome coverage gaps well into the 2050s.

 

Yup