Imatk

Hey man... I live in SoCal too... LA... what kind of mileage are you getting with the blower?

I'm about to put a Saleen on and was wondering the difference.

Bullitt995

How many times do I have to say it? Crude costs more now, it takes more technology to get it to gasoline because of higher standards. The prices didn't change for awhile because the increased technology allowed us to yeild more gasoline from a barrel of crude. About 20% more. You want more environmentally friendly? You're paying for it. They make money because they're good at what they're doing.

Even if they are raising the prices unfairly...What are you gonna do about it? Go and start your own rival oil company that sells gas for 99 cents? Have at it. It's a free market like you said. And to answer your question, supply is the problem. Supply is steadily going down which means price is going to steadily go up, demand fluctuates and balances out in the end.

DynamicmustangGT

Yeah paying for it bites but if we dont the economy will probably collapse and we will all be hurting from it. Gas in the 60's was wicked cheap, now its wicked expensive. How much more do we all make now compared to then. Not really sure I was born in 85. My dad tells me he made 15bucks a week working in his fathers store as a kid my age. I make 650 a week working a dept supervisor of a store.

LBJay

1972 I made $80 bucks a week ($69 take home). A Mustang Mach 1 was $3003 and gas was about 36 cents a gallon. Crude oil was $3.00 a barrel.

DynamicmustangGT

if you made that now and tried to get a car loan everyone would laugh at you. My dad's Mach 1 brand new in 71 (he paid it all of in cash) was 3150 but fully loaded.

DynamicmustangGT

You would also be getting welfare and living in a nicer house than me because of that

ttbit

Gas was up .20 from last week. Filled with 87 and loaded Doug's 87p tune. I was running 93p tune. It still just rocks. I just don't need the extra hp going to work right now and am so impressed with how the 87 tune can do this and not have detonation. Heck with talking about oil prices...I am just glad I can drive a car that can run 87, gets over 300 at the flywheel and gets just over 20 mpg with my driving.

Thanks Doug! ...well, ok... and Ford.

DynamicmustangGT

yeah a good tune will help, so will a v6 daily driver pos that gets me mid-upper 20's and my fiancee's 4cyc honda that gets like 33-25 highway mpg. But hey the stang is way more fun

Fords4Ever

You have not answered the question: How can they say the reason for raising the price is due to increased demand one day and then use the excuse of decreased demand the next?

And hasn't supply been going down, well forever?

My point is that the price isn't going up steadily at all. It's taking giant leaps. One month ago I was paying $2.75 gal. and now I'm paying $3.49. Are you tellling me that in the last 30 days there has been some market event causing a 27% increase?

05GT-O.C.D.

Supply of what? The middle east is buried in crude. Don't buy the BS that the news portrays of OPEC cutting production to raise price... OPEC cuts production so they don't have so much to store.

65sohc

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em: Profound Oil and Gas fund, ENPIX, up 30% in the past 4 months.

Von Bek

The station I work at went from 2.96 to 3.05 after the second comp shop. (@2pm) We had stayed at 2.93 for about a week and a half, then went up to 2.96 on tuesday. All day I hear people crying about the price, going so far as to tell me it's illegal to change it after a certain time. Luckily enough I get two or three delivery trucks a day, so I can say the price went up on the docks.

kevinb120

If you want to think of something scary as far as supply goes, look at the rate India and China in particular are adding more and more vehicles. In the not so far future we are going to be big oil customer #2 or #3, not #1. And we're paying for China's blooming economy.

WhoMe

I dont care what the rationale is...or how much money you have. NO ONE wants to pay more, no one likes to pay more. When prices double or triple over the course of a few years people just start to wonder. And quite frankly when you see the palaces and metropolis like mega cities springing up in the deserts of the middle east, its hard to sit here and go..."Oh well thats supply and demand for you".

LBJay

Yea, you may feel it sucks but that's the way it works.

Gold
Jan 1972 $45.75/oz
May 2007 $659.80/oz

RRRoamer

Yeah. They have the supply. We have the demand. Until that balance chagnes, we will ALWAYS be at the mercy of OPEC.

But, until the people in this country decide that we actually need to take oil independence seriously, we are going to be stuck at the mercy of OPEC. Of course, they don't want to do the things that have to be done:

Build nuclear power plants to produce electricity (burning hydrocarbons to make electricity is one of the stupidest things we can do in my opinion)

Develop cost effective methods of converting oil bareing shale into oil

Develop alternative energy resources like solar and wind power (of course, anyone that has actually SEEN a large scale wind farm will realize that they destroy the visual environment like nothing else does and if we used enough land area for solar to produce the power we need, well, the land wouldn't exactly look "virgin" anymore)

Develop our geothermal energy. We have enough geothermal energy close to the surface in this country to provide all of our electricty needs now and in the future. It would be clean and reliable (unlike wind or solar). But we have not really looked into using the energy sitting litterally right under our feed.

Develop much more efficent methods of converting hydro carbons into motivational power. The IC engine at it's best still wastes 2/3's of the power from the fuel. Fuel cells? Different engine designs? Who knows...

Increase production of our own oil and gas reserves. Especially off shore. The off shore rigs are some of the RICHEST environments in the ocean. Life congregates on and around those rigs.

As for the "hydrogen economy", the problem is hydrogen in this sense is really nothing more than a batter: It stores the energy produced some other way (nuclear, solar, geothermal, oil, natural gas, etc) and releases it when it is burned in an IC engine or a fuel cell. But you can't drill a hole in the ground and pump out liquid hydrogen. The stuff just isn't available in it's molecular form in nature. It has all bonded with something else (oxygen comes to mind. aka: water) and you MUST use a LOT of energy to seperate it before you can use it as a fuel. It's just a battery and until we have a clean, reliable supply of energy to produce it, it's not viable. Not to mention the fact that a hydrogen powered car is just a bomb waiting to go off. Hydrogen IS one of the most reactive elements on the planet...