Everytime I hear the whining about expensive gasoline prices in the United States, their switch to hybrids when in europe 50 mile per gallon sedans run powered by modern diesel engines.
In Chile, the price of a liter of regular, medium, and super unleaded were 1.34, 1.40, and 1.42 respectively.
Multiply into gallons and that gives you 5.41 cents per gallon.
Of course you see far fewer Durangos, Rams, Suburbans and Cayenne Turbos, and those you see are owned by the type of person who doesn´t really care if gas were 10 dollars a gallon (as it is in Eritrea).
Most cars are 1.5 to 1.8 liter 4 door asian sedans. That get upwards of 30 miles to the gallon.
The depreciation is interesting too. Large american pickup trucks take the biggest beating, and now, with the price of diesel right up there with super unleaded, those pickups have taken a hit as well.
What is the it car?
Just like in the states, where a 1994 Geo Metro was auctioned on Ebay for 5000 dollars, it´s the cheapie citycars. 45 mpg, 50 mpg, all achieved by 1.0 liter Corsas, 800cc Daewoo Ticos, Hyundai Atos, and the like.
My bet? That the cost of fuel will have to even out sooner, as the risk of higher fuel prices brings political strife in europe and the US will make the big governments take measures. The alternative cost of other forms of energy has dropped, new solar technologies may actually be for real.
As the alternatives become more feasible, the oil producers will quickly give back the ¨drug¨at a better price, so it keeps being the top choice. They know they can only rake it in for a given amount of time before all these factors turn against them, but they also know the cost of conversion is extraordinarily high and that oil has very strong advantages, transportability, concentration of energy per volume, and the benefit of transportation is so large we don´t even think about it most of the time.
Interesting read... Hypermilers
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2 comments:
schadenfreude: me, walking to work (10 minutes) when there's a big traffic jam downtown.
Good analysis.
The truth is as you say, changing the infrastructure is so costly, but the day the market moves, there will be no turning back.
Most of us supersize the vehicle we need for the once every few months trip, a rental would be so much more economic.
How do you rate my 98 Tercel? Nunca le he medido el rendimiento, solamente noto que hay una enorme diferencia entre kilometraje de carretera y urbano. Tambien, lo que es obvio, es que uno puede mejorar el rendimiento enormemente, anticipando que hacer. No es necesario convertirse en un estorbo público como el hypermiler del artículo.
...and BTW, la bencina regular en Chile sale como a USD 1.34/lt, es decir about USD 5.41 a US Gallon, about the same price as in Montreal, not 5.41 cents a gallon!
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