Ha ha ha, yeah right. That being said you would think that they might notice the air is a little bit cleaner and fresher after almost no ICE running for a few days. If they're lucky, Harvey may have swamped all their "smokers", and they are forced to purchase new or newer used vehicles. And don't hold your breath, by newer vehicles they'll probably want CUVs, SUVs, and trucks. The smarter ones may learn from this and get hybrids. Unsupervised!
I heard maybe 500,000 cars need to be replaced. It bodes well for auto manufacturers who will need to ramp up plants. Same thing happened for Trop Storm Sandy. That should increase Prii sales but perhaps not as % of car sold. Believe it or not, I am still sticking to $1.00 per gal gaso projection by Feb_2018 (in some lower gaso tax places), although I am assuming we can bounce back from Harvey and there will be no further disasters. If so (like in 2017 with OPEC meddling) I might have to postpone my projection to Feb_2019
Apparently EPA has approved shift to winter blends due to Harvey, but this is giving pipeline problems because the gaso is off-spec to what the end customers ordered. Colonial pipeline refuses to ship off spec product unless the buyer on the other end agrees to the spec changes. Might have been better to stick with summer specs. Now we have a mess. But if the mess gets resolved the winter blend idea works.
with all the 'news' stories about monster truck rescues, that will probably be the vehicle of choice down the soggy road.
I bought my Prius in 2012 when gas prices were touching $5. I just filled up at $2.64. this is far from crazy. Crazy was when a single refinery went down and prices shot up >$0.50 in a single day. And then when the refinery was back up the price stayed there and didn't come back down.
Regular is $2.79 near Lancaster, PA. Those giant SUVs and pick up trucks everywhere are going to have some high gas bills. I remember when we got our Prius back in the day and gas was over $5/gallon. My car before that was getting 14 mpg premium so the Prius definitely made a difference.
I would also add the one guy, one pickup, one flatbed trailer, two helpers, contractor. Some historical data points: Katrina took a bite out the Louisianna refineries but left Houston alone. The Colonial pipeline break and fire pretty well starved the East Coast. Inventory was sucked down. Even though the pipeline was brought online within a week or two, prices took awhile to settle down. Bob Wilson
It's easy to calculate. Figure out your rate for electric per kwh, multiply by about 9, and that should equal your cost per 25 miles (0.5 gal gas equivalent for simplicity). Now figure out what a gallon of gas costs and divide by 2. That's the break even point. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
i get 15 miles around town for about 85 cents, and 15 miles of gas at 60mpg would have to be $3.40/gal.
I was lazy and did not fill up the car until yesterday so it cost me an extra $1. On the other hand, I get gas every 6 weeks or so. I'll live. In other news, my electric miles from home PV continue to cost about 0.5 cents a mile
I think the flood will cause an uptick in 4 x 4 vehicles due to their ability to drive longer in adverse conditions.
You'll get different percentages of Gulf Coast refining capacity depending on where you draw the lines, but about 45% of total U.S. refining is done on the Gulf Coast. About 20-25% of the total remains off line. Keep in mind that it isn't just the refineries that flooded, but the pipeline pump stations, the homes of the workers, the ship terminals---it is a mess that will take a long time to correct. Think of the motor rewind shops all over the country getting motors from all types of companies where the machinery was flooded and now needs to be rebuild. Electronic control panels for the machinery is now wet junk. Insulation around hot machinery is soaked and destroyed, and the machinery can't run without the insulation. And more.... Which comes first...water treatment, wastewater plants, food processing, refiners....
I would be interested to know what percentage of those 500,000 "flood vehicles" are really a total loss. I once had a 54 Oldsmobile that was under water when I was living in Taiwan. I took it to a repair place, paid them a couple of hundred dollars, and they replaced all the fluids, took out the carpets and seats and cleaned them, and pressure washed all the mud away. It was fine after that, except my gas tank fell off on the test drive because they hadn't properly secured it. I know that modern cars have more electronics, but I wonder if they are really un-repairable.
todays cars have more computers then the space shuttle so ANY water is bad. a 50's car can be rewired and put back on the road using old extension cords and paperclips
My brother's 2000 Accord was flooded to nearly the side windows. He continued to drive it afterwards for some time before the transmission needed its second round of major work. He might have gotten lucky and the water level didn't reach any of the electronic parts, nor any spot into the lubricants. That was a quick flood, and the water had receeded in hours. These are going to be cars stuck in water for days.
This is the largest Colonial pipeline map I could find: It is important because it shows the area subject to gas shortage price hikes. Unlike the 2016 pipeline break, this is a shortage at the head. Bob Wilson
