'You're working for gas now' insanity on cnn

[Jamesqf]

Luxury car consumers make up roughly 10% of buyers^1. Say 50% of those are Escalade-type drivers, who you think should be buying Volts. Small market fraction, not going to have significant effect on demand.

Humm... A quick search finds that the average price of a new car is running over $30K (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2012/04/car-prices-hit-record/1 ),  That makes the Volt not all that far out of line for a large market segment.  Other cars with good mpg come in quite a ways below the average: Prius models start under $20K MSRP, and there are other hybrids and non-hybrids that get upwards of 35-40 mpg and sell for less than the average new car price.

To obtain such a large reduction in demand for gasoline, you need to include a bigger chunk of the car driving population, namely the average non-luxury car driver.

So you see I'm not talking about ONLY luxury car buyers purchasing fuel efficient vehicles (except to the extent that buying ANY new car should be considered a luxury).  I introduced the Volt/Cadillac price difference simply to demonstrate that the Volt's price is well under what a large segment of the new-car buying public is willing to pay for the cars they choose to drive.

Hybrids have been viable for several years now, but not only until the last couple of years have they approached the average buyer (and even then, still with decent length ROI) instead of the early-adopters and for-the-environment buyers.

Again, you're missing the point, which is that more than half of new cars sold have even worse ROI than hybrids, if ROI is even meaningful here.  They cost more to buy, and more to drive, so the ROI argument is pure BS.

Either way, couldn't avoid CA's spike due to disruptions in supply.

Sure we can, the same way I'm probably going to avoid feeling this price spike.  Put $20 worth of gas (enough for 350-400 miles of driving) in the Insight just before the spike worked its way over the hill.  Won't need to put in more for another couple of weeks at least, by which time prices should moderate again.  If I do have to put more gas in before then, that'd be $25 every few weeks instead of $20.  Is that going to break anyone's budget?


1: http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/01/us-auto-sales-by-brand-2011-year-end.html
2: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html#autosalesD
another source of statistics: http://www.nada.org/Publications/NADADATA/default.htm
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[strider3700]

I'm not sure what the point of arguing about gas prices is.   I decided to do the math.   Today Gas here is $1.359cdn/litre  that works out to $5.04us/gallon.    Our prices have been pretty stable here for the last few years.  in 2007 the spike hit 1.489/litre  which works out to $5.56us/gallon at current currency coversion rates.

The interesting thing is The spike did almost nothing to change driving habits or vehicle choice.    Temporarily people changed. Smaller cars became popular, people drove less, but after a bit of time The cost difference has been absorbed.   To be honest I have no idea where people have changed their budgets to compensate.  Perhaps it's just a few more bucks collecting interest on their credit cards each month.   

Anyways  I seriously doubt this spike in california will be the breaking point of most people.  The price can stabilize there and people will simply accept it and continue on.   Those that make the right choice and are in a position to act on it  can save themselves a ton of cash with vehicle choices.   Most people that are in that position won't make a change.  Nothing is going to permanently change the price of gas lower so those that aren't in that position are screwed so long as they insist on owning a vehicle.

My point is this is out of anyone's control.  Make your choices within your means and do the best you can at coming out ahead.