gas price discussion thread

£1.29 has 20% VAT (Value Added Tax which all "luxury" items in the UK get), so £1.075 a litre before VAT. there is also a "Fuel tax" of 58.95p per litre. Before that tax it's 48.55p a litre, £1.86 a gallon, $3.02 a gallon.

 

You argued that the price is the same regardless of taxes, and that is simply not the case. I didn't say anything about savings.

I'm not sure what you're pointing at that's a 3 cent difference. The state pairings that I listed all have a disparity on your link.

 

If your assumption was correct, there would be a drastic change of average price between North Carolina and South Carolina, which there isn't. What you might see along the border areas with different taxes per state, is the ability of one side of the border to lower the prices to draw in customers from the other side. I can see how lower taxes would allow more leeway in loss to the establishment, because they do lose profit when they lower prices below cost, but make it up by customers buying other things while they are there. Since end user stations, convenient stores for the most part, only make a few cents profit per gallon, the average price is usually close to actual cost to the gas station.

 

I'm seeing a 16 cent difference from your link, not 3 cents. According to the Tax Foundation, the difference in gas tax in those states was 13.4 cents in 2009 (NC has a weird wholesaler tax based in part on average price, which has probably gone up since 2009).

I agree completely, and that's exactly why it is the difference in tax levied that makes the price different between two nearby states.

 

Average price in South Carolina is $2.982
Average price in North Carolina is $3.129

That is a 16 cents difference?

 

as a result of more fuel efficient cars, and of course, reduced driving due to the recession, federal and state gas tax revenues are down. both levels of government are working on startegies to increase those revenues even though gasoline usage may trend down with alternative fuel vehicles hitting the streets.

 

Currently seeing prices for E10 at about $3.489

Costco has it 3.299

 

It's certainly not 3 cents.. and it's 15 cents rounded to the nearest cent, so now you're arguing over a penny.

Note that we're linking to a webpage that is continuously updated. When I wrote my post, the difference was 16 cents. Here's what it is now:

South Carolina 2.981
North Carolina 3.137
Diff 0.156 ~= 0.16.

 

hi all
just a few words about gasoline price in Italy:
1 l of 95 octane gasoline is about 1.49 €/l, that is 7.65 $/gal.
1 l of diesel is about 1.37 €/l, that is 7.10 $/gal.
In Europe fuel prices are quite the same, even if in Italy we're a little above the average.
We only have 95, 98 and 100 octane gasoline (never found a 91 octane gasoline station in Italy).
About the 70% of new cars are diesel.

 

while fuel costs are substantialy higher in europe, is it possible that development has occured differently from the states and average commutes are shorter? arond the boston area, we have people living upto two hours away and commuting into the city. and this is a pretty small area geographically.

 

I saw $3.29 at QT today. Prices are definitely headed up.

 

Here's a more detailed look at gas prices in the U.S. USA National Gas Price Heat Map - GasBuddy.com
Keep in mind that gas stations don't make their highest profits on gas, that's a pretty tight commodity, they make their profit margin on the sundries you buy inside the store.

I may be wrong, but octane might be measured differently in Europe. We have 87, 89 and 91, lower at high elevations. I remember a thread on this a long time ago, but can't remember any details.

Development is different, but mostly in that public transportation has been kept up and improved, instead of reduced and whittled away like it has been in the U.S. Also, there's fewer suburban sprawls where a car is needed just to go to get groceries or a newspaper. Agriculture is more highly valued, and cities aren't allowed to just take up as much fertile farmland as they want. But congestion is much the same, and commute time is probably not noticeably different.

A 2-hour commute here is generally the outlier cases - they exist but not as common as the 20-30 minute commute (I've lived in several places across the U.S., including central Connecticut which seemed to have the shortest commutes - in 2 hours you could be at the beach, but people just didn't do that).

 

Yes, you're right. In Europe we have RON (Research Octane Number) value, while in the US you have AKI (Anti Knock Index) value.
AKI is 4 to 5 points lower than RON, so a 90-91 AKI is a 95 RON.

 

About $1.40 a litre in Adelaide and the Aussie dollar is about on a par with the USbuck.
So we are paying about $5.60 per US gallon.
Edit, that is for 91 RON which equals 87 in the USA

 

Thanks for the report, I just add that average mileage for an typical Italian driver is around 20-25000 km (15000 miles) a year.

A brief update of gasoline price in Italy.
Today we reached 1,60 €/l that is 8.50 $/gal. A new record.

 

A new record, really, your taxes must be up on that stuff. In the US average price is now about $3.52 or something and back in 2008 hit around $4.20. You guys rely on Libya, though, so perhaps your local crude prices are very high.

 

I read an article on technical analysis of the price of oil, and it said we broke through resistance and may be headed to $120/bbl, which may be justified with a risk premium of potential problems in saudi arabia, bahrain, and iran. We never reformed futures trading for oil, so could see price jump up some more, then change drastically with the situation in the middle east.

Italy did get much oil from Libya, but there is plenty of oil on the market. The problem is the quality. Libyan oil was light and low in sulfur, it is being replaced with much higher sulfur saudi oil. Much of european refining can not handle the heavier or higher sulfur oil, so the spread in price is very high.

 

I have it on my TomTom. The prices are usually a few days old and not too accurate. I certainly wouldn't pay for it if I wasn't using their other services.