I took a nice drive today on a rare sunny day in the Seattle area, out to the Pacific Ocean and back. (Got 31.3 MPG MkIV 2006 GTI 1.8T w/ about 4K miles) Then I went to gas up at my usual place... but they were out of gas! I'm old enough to remember this sort of thing from the 1970's, and I know the price has been going up ($3.27/gal premium where they were out) but I hadn't heard of shortages so far.
I heard about it on the news about a week ago. They said it's not a major issue...it's a temporary thing as some places are switching over to summer-formula gas (vs. winter formula) and in the meantime there's a few small shortages.
Hi, looking at the actual receipt from the place I found gas (Shell) it $2.299 for premium here in the suburbs north of Seattle, WA. It was a 76 station (Phillips66/Conoco/76 doing business together now-a-days) that had no gas yesterday. That 76 station is right across the street from the Shell, and the gas prices were within a penny of each other. I haven't seen the price today though!
It's not about luck. You folks pay that much because the government levies high taxes. If enough people over there let their elected officials know that they didn't want those taxes, things would change. We don't have such high taxes because our elected representatives know that if they ever enacted such taxes, they'd never be re-elected.
You know, it's not that easy. The market economics in the oil industry simply does not work. If you wake up tomorrow morning and all the taxes are canceled, you will still see the same prices. You know why? Because there is ZERO competition. The whole market is divided among two-three mega companies and they have absolutely no reason to compete.
Heck, they even don't allow their own gas stations to compete, even thou most of them do exist on franchise basis (i.e. don't really belong to the oil company). The prices of gas in the whole country network (I am speaking of Germany, which is not exactly small) are set from the single central place, which is in the HQ of the oil company. And the owner of the gas station has absolutely _no_ influence.
And not only set, they change it two or three times a day. Bump it up by some 5%. Then go down 3%. Them bump up again. Down again. And so on. Every single day. So, you have absolutely no idea how much will it cost. You just can be sure, it will slowly crawl upwards, no matter what happens. Actually - very clever.
It would be damn easy to win elections then :) Unfortuantely it isn't.
If that were the case, then fuel should cost the same in the US as it does in Europe. This is quite obviously not the case. The difference between our prices and yours comes primarily from the taxes, which are not set by the oil companies, but by your elected officials.
And the gas price is only part of it. On a new car we pay about 40% tax for just buying it. The new Golf will cost you between US$ 24.000 for the basic 1.4 Trendline and US$ 58.500 for the R32. That is basic prices without any optional extra's... TDI's range from about $30.500 for the
90bhp 1.9 PD-TDI to around $47.000 for the 170bhp 2.0 PD-TDI.
Additionally a new Golf TDI (105bhp) will cost you about 1300 US$ on road tax each year...
And to really mention a nice priced VW :) The 6.0 W12 Toareg will set you back US$ 170.000. The 5.0 V10 TDI goes for about US$ 136.000. Road tax for the V10 TDI is about US$ 2700 each year.
So there you have the reason why most people in Europe drive such small vehicles :)
But electing different official will never change anything overhere. There is NOT A SINGLE political party which claims to lower fuel prices. If we would lower the tax on fuel, then we would have to make it higher somewhere else. The money has to come from somewhere. We are partly compensated here in Europe by our regulations for healthcare, unemployment, etc. Because the countries are quite overpopulated on this side of the pond the government discourages driving cars by making it ever more expensive.
Well, not necessary. Ok, the Netherlands is the special place where you are allowed to own the car only in exchange of your arm and your leg :) Together with Denmark and Finland where you must donate your kidney as well :)
But not the whole europe is like this. In the most of the european countries you just pay the usual VAT (=sales tax) which is somewhere between 15 and 20% and basically that's it. But still, no big cars. For example, I spent today 30 minutes searching for the place to park my Vento/Jetta3. Will I buy something bigger? Hell no. It would mean renting the garage, or moving outside the town which I wouldn't like anyway. The fuel or the car itself would be no problem. It is the size of the car itself.
Because they don't control the prices. It would be just a lie. It's not china (yet :)), you can't just set the prices. Lowering the taxes would not lower the prices unless there is some real competition. I am so sceptical, because it would be not the first time something similar happens.
For example, look at the oil price development and compare it to the fuel prices you see at your local gas station. Every surge of the oil price is immediately reflected in the price of the gasoline. And every decline goes almost unnoticed. A year ago a barrel of oil was about $55. By the autumn it reached $65+, and the fuel price here rised some
25% too (which is already much more than influenced by the oil price). Then the oil went back to $55 in december, but the price of the gas didn't. It certainly would if there were at least some competition.
Don't bitch about the prices then :) If the prices were lower, the TDI's would not be produced :) And your average car would still be powered by the carburettor consuming twice as much as it is now :)
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