Gas has reached $4/gallon

Originally Posted by u8myufo

I dont know what you are all moaning about over there

check this out for the UK
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html

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Winnipeg has you beat! So far I've posted the highest price in this thread. It's insane. I don't own a car, but if I did I would be walking or taking a bus.

I didn't even look when we were out today, but last I saw, at the gas station by our house, it was about $3.35.. and several days back when I put some in my car, the place I went to was at something like.. $3.17.

We were at just under $6 the other day, I'm sure it's worse in Europe though.

Gas only accounts for 20% of owning a car. Depreciation, interest, maintenance, insurance, etc. account for the other 80%. Thus, if gas prices went up by 50% to six dollars a gallon, the gas cost of owning a car would only go up to 30%. It's just that gas prices are so visible and we tend to forget the major costs of owning a car. With that thought in mind, DW and I are taking the Porsche a hundred mile out into the country today just for the heck of it with the full knowledge that gas prices are really only a small part of the price of our expedition.

Originally Posted by Persi & Alley

Gas only accounts for 20% of owning a car. Depreciation, interest, maintenance, insurance, etc. account for the other 80%. Thus, if gas prices went up by 50% to six dollars a gallon, the gas cost of owning a car would only go up to 30%. It's just that gas prices are so visible and we tend to forget the major costs of owning a car. With that thought in mind, DW and I are taking the Porsche a hundred mile out into the country today just for the heck of it with the full knowledge that gas prices are really only a small part of the price of our expedition.

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Here's an important point. Probably the least expensive car to operate would be a used economy car, say like the Cobalt that my wife drives. Buy it used for $7,000, get 30 mpg (more on the highway), and low maintenance costs.

The next least expensive would be a cheap, used non-economy car. My MIL just sold her Lincoln Town Car for $2,000. It was 8 years old, had less than 100,000 miles on it, and got 25 mpg on the highway, 20 city. I bought a used 1978 Chevy Caprice in 1980, the last time gas got really high (in fact, gas has only now reached the same price on a time-adjusted basis). I paid $3,500 for it. It had 30,000 miles on it. I drove it another 30,000 miles in the next two years, by which time gas had gone back down and I sold it for $3,200.

If you drive a car 15,000 miles per year, and it gets 30 mpg, at current prices you would pay $1,750 per year for gas. The Cobalt listed above would only cost you $15,750 to own and drive for five years, counting just the purchase cost and gas. If you got 20 mpg, you would pay $2,625 per year, or only $875 extra. The Lincoln Town Car would cost you $13,125 for 5 years.

If you bought a Toyota Prius, which is getting about 45 mpg (I just checked several "real world" sites to find out), and costs about $22,000 new, you would spend only $1167 per year in gas, about $600 less than the Cobalt. But you would pay a total of $27,833 for five years of ownership.

All these figures assume the cars have no value at the end of five years. Obviously, the Prius would have SOME value. In checking Kelly Blue Book numbers, I would expect it to have a trade-in value of about $7,000, but it MIGHT also be due for a complete battery replacement, which costs about $5,000.

It gets really confusing, doesn't it.

We do have a Prius And currently we're getting 45.6 mpg. We do a lot of long road trips, so I'm glad we decided to get a Prius - it would be costing us a lot more in gas otherwise.

Batteries from the Prius have a 10 year warranty on them, so you shouldn't have to be changing them after 5 years, and if you do, it won't cost you.

Have you seen that the Prius has an "environmental cost" of almost $4 per mile, more than twice that of a Hummer? Most of it is involved in the extraction, shipping, processing, and recycling of the nickel in the batteries, which is a very dirty operation.

It is $1.15 here for a litre..ridiculous. I remember when it was $.56 a litre.

The lowest price I ever recall seeing was 16.9 cents per gallon. That was 1967, in Paris, Arkansas.

Gas is about $1.21/litre here. If my math is right, thats about $4.58/gallon. We can barely afford to drive to work anymore since we live in the country but work in the city. We spend about $70-80 a week just going to work and back.

Yep. We bought gas yesterday afternoon. Regular was 123.9 a litre = 4.65 a gallon. I was actually happy to see 123.9, as it had been 126.4 at the same station earlier in the day.

Originally Posted by mrblanche

Have you seen that the Prius has an "environmental cost" of almost $4 per mile, more than twice that of a Hummer? Most of it is involved in the extraction, shipping, processing, and recycling of the nickel in the batteries, which is a very dirty operation.

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You may want to do some research on that "fact". The so called research that went into that was bogus. Those figures were based on the lifetime of the vehicle - and said that a Hummer's lifetime is 300,000 miles, and a Prius' is only 100,000 miles! The article was never peer reviewed, yet all the news outlets picked it up, and just quoted that environmental cost figure without giving any of the one sided information that went into that figure.

There is no way a gas guzzling Hummer would be more environmentally friendly than a Prius.

More about it here - http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto...2220.html?pg=4

Originally Posted by sarahp

Crazy... It's reached $4/gallon for regular unleaded here. When we first moved here 2 years ago, it was about $2.20/gallon - it's almost doubled in 2 years!

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What was it last time you were here Sarah? It now reaches sometimes up to 1.49/1.50!! It's getting ridiculous!

I know!! It was about $1.40/litre when we were there at Christmas. Even Brissie which was always cheaper was about the same price as everywhere else.

I'm really nervous about these gas prices. They're out of control. Before they said it was because we were using too much. Now they're saying we've cut back too much. It's all just excuses as far as I can see. These prices are going to cripple me though. I won't be able to do anything but go to work and come home.

10 cents in 4 months!?!?!?!?!?!!?





Brisbane doesn't need as much petrol anyway, they're all slow drivers, use up less Well that was my uncles explanation when i went up for my 21st. He is from Melb originally, is back here now but he lived there for many years, and i think it's just that he drives too fast and is impatient. I just think Brissy is more relaxed than us. You have to be with 30c+ and something like 90% humidity in Summer! *falls over*