Tim rolls out the latest version of the SUV fill up index; Note that many of these high end trucks require premium fuel, which in NY is $3.59/gal:
>
Ouch!
No wonder the polls for the WHite House and Congress are so low: No matter how many speeches, people fill up more than they can get spun. (I’ll get some polling data up later).
>
Source:
Can’t … Keep … Up
Tim Iocano
The Mess That Greenspan Made, Wednesday, April 26, 2006
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2006/04/cant-keep-up.html
don’t worry, congress is gonna give us $100 rebate checks and/or suspend the federal gas tax for 60 days! rather than address the true problem they’d rather subsidize overconsumption and continue to bankrupt the country in the process.
Freightliner Coronado–Tank (gallons) 300 (cost) (diesel) $930.00
Ditto to emd.
Suspending the gas tax and handing out rebate checks is precisely the wrong solution to the gas price problem. The last thing on Earth we need is subsidies to encourage waste and overconsumption of gasoline. If anything, they should raise the gas tax (to pay for the war in Iraq — gas tax unpopular, then end the war!) and provide incentives to develop alternative energy.
Oh, and one more thing — about that SUV fill up index: as a RAV4 owner, I think Tim should include the Toyota RAV4 in the listings. Give the Little Guys equal time, too!
All I can say is that these prices make me exceedingly glad I drive a Ford Focus. Costs me about $30 to fill up right now, and I do that about once a week. In a month, I’ll be moving within 1 mile of my work, and fillups should drop to once a month (or less!) As gas prices rise, the higher rents look more attractive (if you can save a comparable amount on gas.)
Kawasaki KZ 650. Ten bucks to fill when it’s down to reserve. Twelve bucks if you screw up and run it out of gas completely :)
Holy cow – who would have ever thought it would cost ten bucks to fill up a friggin motorbike?
My commute is 3mi. Gas here is 2.80. My 4cyl jap-mobile car gets about 23mpg in town, 27hwy. Weekly gas bill is about $15-$20, depending on the season (i.e. how much driving I’m doing to go fly fishing).
Can’t say it’s hurting me much. Just means I eat one less restaurant meal a month than I would at 1.50/gal.
Hummer drivers get that nice $100,000 write off….hmm….
A SIMPLE solution would be to further target that ugly Republican demographic with write-offs for the gas as well. One good obscenity deserves another….(burp)
To encourage the purchase of lighter more feul-efficient cars we should tax new cars at the time of sale based on excess weight.
Pick a standard maximum weight such as 2 tons and tax each excess pound. Most gas guzzlers would have a significant weight tax, while lighter cars would have no weight tax.
A tax of about five bucks per excess pound should have some impact on buying behaviour.
This is not directed at you, but rather at Tim… This is the stupidest chart I have every seen. It is basically just showing that cars with bigger tanks need more fuel thus it costs more to fill them up. Lets suppose that gas was $2 a gallon. I have a car with a tank that holds 15 gallons of gas, thus filling up costs $30. My friend has the same exact car except he got his a year before when the company only put in a 10 gallon tank. It only cost him $20 to fill up. But is it really any cheaper? NO! A better chart would be one that shows the COST PER MILE driven in each of these cars/SUVs, which compares fuel economy-NOT TANK SIZE!
The “SUV fill up index” doesn’t reveal the issue that people are actually focused on, viz., how quickly a vehicle runs through gas, measured in . . . miles per gallon. Indeed, while tank size may be interesting, the list doesn’t begin to show the true extent to which many of the vehicles on the list burn through gas.
Stuart, J. Cameron: Why do you think do these vehicles have larger tanks? Because they can? Or to achieve a certain driving range?
“Why do you think do these vehicles have larger tanks? Because they can? Or to achieve a certain driving range?” . . . Let’s clarify then. . . If the point of the chart if to reflect the mileage efficiency of the vehicles let’s use the actual measure of this, which is miles per gallon. Why use an inexact measure which may or may accurately portray gas mileage, especially for comparative purposes, when the actual number is available. In addition, stating that the Ford Excusion gets only 12 mpg creates far more of an impact than stating it has a 44 gallon tank.