You’ve taken the statement out of context. The point of the paragraph was perhaps it’s not as inelastic a market demand as it appears. At some price point the industry will begin evolving methods and technologies to accomplish the transport using less fuel. Cost up will equal demand down.
No comment was even made about cross country trucking. However I suspect that all facets of the industry will be seeking more efficient ways to accomplish the job, including cross country trucking…whether it be point-to-point or modular units transferred from truck to truck at regional centers.
Every estimate I’ve seen only predicts a few cents of difference due to ULSD. I assume that diesel and gasoline will end up about the same price again when it finally stabilizes (probably significantly higher than the current price of either).
In NH, maybe but not MD. I can’t recall when diesel was less expensive than gasoline here. It was 10 cents more than pemium up until about 6 to 12 months ago, but now it’s way more.
Yeah, where I’m at in MD diesel averages about 50 cents more than premium per gallon.
Diesel was cheaper once upon a time, pre-Katrina (or is that pre-9/11?). Ever since then, diesel rocketed above gas and has stayed there. Before that you could reliably find diesel for 10 cents less than regular.
I do not remember ever diesel below regular. OK, one or two cents per gallon.
USA is only country with diesel more expensive then gasoline. Now, June 2008 the difference is absolutely incredible.
My opinion? If you have garden and you are growing carrot and potato, and if your expense is equal for both.
You can put carrot on the market for free, charge for potato twice, and you stay in businesses.
If you prefer to make potato costumers happy, you put on market potato for free.
Most people is running on gasoline, so make them happy. They will pay for more expensive diesel in all products with out the whisper.
Diesel used to be 10 to 15 cents lower than gasoline Pre-911. Post 911 it was close to equal to regular gasoline. Post Katrina it’s been higher. It was about a quarter to 30 cents less than gas last summer for some reason, but this past fall it shot up and stayed up, something along the lines of Ultra Low Sulfur diesel causing it. BS, it’s called big companies squeezing out the independent truckers and others who have little power to control what they pay. The Railroads and large trucking companies are still paying less than gasoline for theirs. They do not pay what’s showing on the signs at the stations, they get a significant price discount.
Skipper
The people that came up with these diesel regs including the pollution garbage on the engines that’s causing trouble for the owners came up with all kinds of estimates that were as full of crap as they were when they mandated this stuff. Living in the real world and in Barbara Sue’s environmentalist stupidity capsule is 2 different things.
Skipper
I’m waiting for the price of diesel to get higher so the price of old diesel cars will go down and I can buy some more to play with.
Seriously, the price of gasoline will more than catch up with diesel pretty soon.
The people that came up with these diesel regs including the pollution garbage on the engines that’s causing trouble for the owners came up with all kinds of estimates that were as full of crap as they were when they mandated this stuff. Living in the real world and in Barbara Sue’s environmentalist stupidity capsule is 2 different things.
Lets see…Cars that pollute less then 1/5 what they did 30 years ago…They get BETTER gas mileage for the same size/weight vehicle…Air in many cities that wasn’t breathable 30 years ago you can now breath safely…YUP this is one big communist plot to destroy America.
as a truck driver that owns a truck i see a lot of good replies as to why diesel is more expensive and they are all plausable,but the one thing i did not see in the discussion was about the speculators on the commodities market that are driving the price of a barrel up by 50-75 dollars
Cars are not getting better mileage choaked with all this pollution garbage than they were before. The newer cars are lighter and have smaller motors. Yes, a Carmy will get better mileage than a 1977 Olds 98, but it darn well ought to. Does it get better mileage than something from the day that was equivalent to it in size and engine size such as a Ford Tempo? No it doesn’t. In the early 80’s before this horse hocky came into existance in a big way 350 chevy pickups got 20 mpg. The same truck today with a smaller v8 probably gets around 15 or 16 mpg. My Dodge Cummins gets around 20 on average. In 1990, the same engine with mechanical injectors and a whole lot less bull got 27 mpg.
This is a fact: Buning fuel is a chemical reaction. You can do whatever you want to the exhaust, but for x amount of fuel burned, y amount of biproducts or pollutants is produced. Burning more creates more pollutants. If they are stuck in the engine or in the catalytic converter, they are still there not eliminated.
We’ve cleaned a lot of things up, but I’m not sure it’s the result of cars and emmissions trinkets. I wonder how much it has to do with Factory jobs moving to China and Mexico? Scrubbers on utility plants. and other things that have come along and changed over time.
Skipper
Mike. the US imports 9% of its diesel and 13% of its gasoline, for reasons already stated by other posters. US refiners would love to make 100% of the fuel used in order to, as you say, make more profit. Overseas refineries are definitely more modern and many countries like Saudi Arabia, have built export refineries; all the output is shipped overseas.
US refineries are finally expanding and modernizing, mostly to produce more ULSD and also to process the heavier crude oils from Canada. This time around, the margins are sufficient to justify the typically $2 billion that a new refinery costs.
When refining capacity comes in balance with demand, the price of diesel will likely be slightly below that of regular gasoline. The old syle diesel was cheaper to make, and normally sold for quite a bit less.
European countries such as Italy, put a much higher tax on gasoline than diesel, so that it really pays to buy a diesel. Forty percent of new car sales in those countries are diesel.
Hallo,
I’m very surprise, no body see simple facts. Toyota, Nissan, now even Honda (http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/07/2009-honda-accord-diesel-to-hit-52-mpg/
is manufacturing excellent clean, fuel efficient cars. Do not mention European companies, Renault, Peugeot…
My '96 VW Passat is making 40 miles per gallon.
If you make price of diesel right and open border for this import, can you make prediction about General Motors sale?
A week ago, on NPR:
Congress passed the biodiesel tax credit in 2004 to encourage U.S. production and consumption of this alternative fuel.
About 1 dollar per gallon.
And now:
Here’s how it can work: A tanker with a shipload of, say, Malaysian biodiesel, stops at an American port. The foreign-made fuel is then blended or “splashed” with a token percentage of U.S. diesel and “dashes” off again.
You can read about at:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/05/21/splash_dash/
And please stop telling me about demand and production capacity.
It’s NOT just NH…MA…NY…ME…VT…OH…FL…I was in all those states about 2 years ago and diesel was selling LESS then regular. I guess MD is SPECIAL.
US refiners would love to make 100% of the fuel used in order to, as you say, make more profit.
In order to expand gasoline production they refineries would then have to meet the new EPA and safety regulations. But right now the refineries are GRANDFATHERED in. It’s cost prohibitive to spend MILLIONS in updating their refineries. Cheaper to just import the extra gas needed. You should have seen the news article Front-Line did about a year ago on refineries. It was about the BP accident 3 years ago. The conclusion of engineers who studied that accident and other refineries…it’s not a matter of IF an accident like that will ever happen again…but WHEN it will happen.
Cars are not getting better mileage choaked with all this pollution garbage than they were before.
WANNA BET…Every car I owned in the 60’s and 70’s that’s equal to in size and weight gets worse gas millage then any vehicle I’ve owned in the past 10 years. My 72 4-cylinder Vega only got 29 mph highway…My wifes Lexus ES-350 6-cylinder is heavier…bigger…FAR MORE POWERFUL and gets 31mpg.
This is a fact: Buning fuel is a chemical reaction. You can do whatever you want to the exhaust, but for x amount of fuel burned, y amount of biproducts or pollutants is produced. Burning more creates more pollutants. If they are stuck in the engine or in the catalytic converter, they are still there not eliminated.
You haven’t a clue skipper. Cars that get the SAME gas mileage as cars of the 60’s put out 1/5 or LESS pollutants. THAT’s a fact.
We’ve cleaned a lot of things up, but I’m not sure it’s the result of cars and emmissions trinkets. I wonder how much it has to do with Factory jobs moving to China and Mexico?
Not too many factories were in the Downtown areas of cities. There are many mid-size cities that didn’t have a lot of polluting industry…The MAJOR air pollutants were from cars. Ask anyone who lived in those cities about air quality.
Skipper,
Emissions gear did reduce fuel mileage for a while (quite a while). The manufacturers are now able to coax excellent fuel mileage from a car using variable valve timing and fuel injection control. I get better mileage on a midsized car than I used to and there is a lot more power available.
Speculation can only be blamed for a short period of time, the length of the contract…Sooner or later, speculators must SELL those contracts to someone who can actually take delivery of the fuel…In recent months, they have been able to sell those contracts for more than they paid for them. That’s because retailers can not buy fuel anywhere else…
Saudi Arabia has announced that they will increase production significantly. The market sold off sharply on that news. But today, the market is again climbing as speculators call the Saudi’s bluff. Many think Saudi Arabia is at peak production and has NO ability to increase production. We shall see who is right. As long as people are willing to buy Diesel at $5/gallon, the price will not come down…
It is all an inconvenient truth: did you also notice that diesel fuel has been more expensive since the early 80s during the last fuel panic and we had a major change in national politics? Just as back then we had a conservative president and a majority of liberals in the house and senate. It is all a combination of political treacery at the expense of the people and self-defeating environment regulations. I gurantee that this time next year the prices of fuel will be close to pre-panic prices.
Self-defeating environment regulations have demanded that the producers add special chemicals to cut down carbon emissions and sulfer output. And all because of the errosion of about 1% to the environment annualy. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s atmosphere has been changing for millions of years and man has been adapting to that change very succesfully (otherwise we wouldn’t be here). If the envoronment was as critical a situation as the tree hugging hippies are saying wouldn’t Al Gore find some other way to go around the world to protest other then burning hundreds of gallons of jet fuel? Do you realize or care that the Gore mansion burns more electricity in one day then we do in an entire month? It is time to start thinking smarter and time to put glassy eyed, narrow visioned hippie politicians back in their places - in rehab.