Gas prices - OUCH!

[HP_Cuda]

As folks have already heard gas prices are up everywhere in the world not just in the US.

This will mean that folks will have to think first before making that trip. The days of cheap energy are over.

[Mopsquad]

All my cars use premium which in California, the price is close to you Canada folks.   I'm not going to drive any less with these prices but I'll eat out less and cook and prep more food at home.  A dinner out with my girl is an easy $80. 

[7E-Bodies]

I made a trip into Missouri from Illinois for family reasons about a week ago. I intentionally left home in Illinois with a half tank in my Ram as that's about what it takes to get to my Missouri destination. Gas was $4.75 in IL and $3.75 as soon as I crossed into MO, where I immediately filled up. On the way back (yesterday) I stopped at the same station to top off at the still $3.75 price and filled up with another $200 in all the empty 5 gallon cans I'd been carrying.
Gee, will high gas prices encourage the electric market? Think, people. The "Big Guy" has a plan.

[torredcuda]

Just took the cuda out for the first decent drive of the season - $5.19 for Super at Irving which is cheaper than Mobil, Sunoco etc.    Guess it gives me motivation to get another distributor fixed up that has a vacuum advance and swap out the locked one in the car now.

[7212Mopar]

For some reasons my gas mileage actually went up. I am at averaged 12 mpg. Sometime even higher. May be driveline is finally loosen up. I try not to look at the gas price and take mine out whenever I want to. Not getting any younger. Crazy CA might one day ban these cars from the roadway.

[70 Challenger Lover]

I made five cross country trips moving with a heavy car trailer. Thankfully all the trips were completed before the presidential election. I paid $1.69-$1.89 consistently everywhere outside CA. When Bush was President, gas prices were around $2.00 a gallon. Obama had it up around $5.00 for much of his time in office.

People have very short memories on stuff like this.

[JH27N0B]

I have a pretty good memory and I don't recall gas here in the Chicagoland suburbs ever being over $4 until now.
Back in the summer of 2014 I recall regular being 3.99 and that sucked.  Factor in inflation that probably translates to $4.29 or $4.39 today possibly? 
And Illinois has one of the highest gas taxes in the nation, so at that time gas was probably $3.69 or 3.79 in neighboring states like Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin.
I was out and about yesterday and regular was $4.89-$5.19 in the west and northwest burbs. In Chicago I'm sure it's well over $5 in the whole city as they are always 25c or more higher than the burbs.
California always seems to have the highest prices, .75-1.00 more than any other of the lower 48.  I suppose a California transplant to another state might see $5 gas as nothing new, but to locals who never saw over $4 or even less before it's pretty shocking.
Diesel is even worse and shortages are pending, some truckers are parking their rigs due to the cost of fuel.  That's really going worsen the shortages of materials on store shelves.

[dodj]

In 2008 we dragged the 5th wheel to DC to check out the Smithsonian. Diesel at that time averaged around $4.25/gal. At the time I thought it was crazy. I'll settle for it now! But hope for better....

[70 Challenger Lover]

I recall that too. Right after Obama took office, it went really high and stayed high until Trump opened up drilling in the US and eased regulations. Democrats love regulation and the oil companies are in business to make money so all costs get passed on to the consumer.

CA has its own unique problems because they insist on having different blends for different seasons and of course they don't want refineries in their state so these special blends get trucked in at extra expense. As I understand it, there is some refinement in CA but regulations and special CA standards have them operating at a much lower capacity most of the time.

Gas prices started increasing the day Biden used his powers to undo all of Trump's reformations. Ukraine certainly doesn't help but I blame that on Biden too. Every world dictator like Putin felt suddenly emboldened when Trump was replaced with a puppet. The Democrat party desperately wants electric cars so why should they care about gas prices. It plays into their goals. Almost as if they manufactured the problem.

[JH27N0B]

I wonder how bad the negative effect is going to be on the hobby this year.  I've followed some threads by racers on other car forums and several posters say they are going to sit out this drag racing season due to the high cost of driving their rigs to tracks, others say they will only go to close by tracks and skip further away events.
I probably won't get motivated to head to further away cruises and stick to the ones within maybe a 15 mile radius of my house.
It will likely cut attendance at big national shows like Carlisle, Nats and Moparty.
As most know I am very involved in MCACN and am starting to worry that some people will not want to tow their cars here, and it also might hurt attendance.
I am "hosting" a display this year for the first time and excited about that, so far a number of interesting cars signed up for my Malaise era muscle display.  Now I am worrying some might decide it's too expensive to come, and drop out.  I'll hope for the best, but as I attend local cruises I will look extra hard for appropriate cars to sign up, because at least local guys who only have to go 10-30 miles to bring their cars will be less likely to drop out than someone from 1500 miles away!

[E74cuda]

I read that they pulled drilling permits in Alaska and off shore. Paid 5.76 for regular yesterday in CA. I'm expecting by the end of Summer $7-8 per gallon.

[HP_Cuda]

Since I've lived in CA for 50 years I think I can talk about the pain of gas prices here.

1) California has some of the highest taxes on gasoline. Last I checked we have a dollar or more tax per gallon. After May 31st I think with the new tax this will go even higher.
2) There are refineries here like Chevron and many others out of Richmond as well as many in SoCal. There is a game the refineries like to play and they have done it for decades. In the winter the formula changes where they add more O2 to the gas. In the summer they change back. The fun part is where in the summer they reduce capacity for "maintenance" and jack up prices hence magically making more $$$ when more people are driving during the summer. How coincidental is that?
3) Adding Ethanol to the gas is also another great screw up as I have seen decade long studies which shows there is no marked improvement in Air Quality. Some say it's actually worse. Either way it's just another debacle which does not help gas prices.

Again, gasoline is a world wide energy problem. If one Nation decides to cut back production like OPEC did in the late 70's then we all feel it no matter what. It doesn't matter how much drilling you open up you will still have problems because of lag time.

Anyway, I am about to rid myself of this problem (somewhat) soon as I am moving away.

[worthywads]

Since I've lived in CA for 50 years I think I can talk about the pain of gas prices here.

1) California has some of the highest taxes on gasoline. Last I checked we have a dollar or more tax per gallon. After May 31st I think with the new tax this will go even higher.
2) There are refineries here like Chevron and many others out of Richmond as well as many in SoCal. There is a game the refineries like to play and they have done it for decades. In the winter the formula changes where they add more O2 to the gas. In the summer they change back. The fun part is where in the summer they reduce capacity for "maintenance" and jack up prices hence magically making more $$$ when more people are driving during the summer. How coincidental is that?
3) Adding Ethanol to the gas is also another great screw up as I have seen decade long studies which shows there is no marked improvement in Air Quality. Some say it's actually worse. Either way it's just another debacle which does not help gas prices.

Again, gasoline is a world wide energy problem. If one Nation decides to cut back production like OPEC did in the late 70's then we all feel it no matter what. It doesn't matter how much drilling you open up you will still have problems because of lag time.

Anyway, I am about to rid myself of this problem (somewhat) soon as I am moving away.

Finally someone pointing the finger at the oil companies themselves that are reaping the profits and won't stop no matter where it comes out of the ground.

[JH27N0B]

You have no clue whatsoever how markets work do you?
Commodities are not that different than the vintage car market. The market sets the price and if you are selling a car, your car will sell for either less than you have in it, what you have in it, or more than you have in it depending on what the market price is. Sure you can be nice and sell it cheap, but no one would. You can be greedy and price it high, and no one will buy it, so if you sell, you sold it for market price.
If greedy corporations are responsible for todays out of control inflation, why did they all decide to do this now at the same time, after decades of mostly low inflation? Why not 2 years ago or 10 years ago? As far as the oil companies, if they are so greedy, why was oil briefly worth less than 0 two years ago, why were those evil oil executives cutting their own throats and hemorrhaging huge amounts of money back then?  They weren't evil and greedy then, but they are now? People really believe that? That doesn't even begin to make sense.
But it must be, our favorite grandstanding politicians and their media mouthpieces are saying that's how it works, so gosh darn it why would anybody question them? 
Maybe anyone who has ever worked in industry, invested in stocks, and/or ran a business, that's who.
I've owned some Chevron stock for some time now, and other than a nice dividend yield it has been a mediocre performer until recently, their profit margin, EBITA etc are just a fraction of what that is for many other stocks I have like Microsoft and Apple.  Word to the wise, if you are want to start a business and want to make big profit, go into tech.  I'm not sure why anyone would try to make money drilling a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere, or in the ocean, or try to build stuff in a big noisy expensive factory to return a paltry 4-6%, when tech companies get 25-30% profit margins?
Well at any rate, I've been kicking myself about 2020, I did buy a few stocks in March when the market was plunging, but for some reason in April or May when the price of a barrel of oil was sub 0, and oil stocks appeared to be heading toward worthless why didn't I buy more Chevron?? I am not a trader, I buy on rare occasions things seem obvious that things would turn around, and surely energy would, it was obvious,  I could have cleaned up! 
Oh well at least I hung on to what I had and didn't dump it. 
How is it though, that in the last 10 years greedy CVXs stock is up maybe 70% plus dividends, and they are greedy, while in the same time period my nice woke stamp of approval certified APPL and MSFT are up 600 or 700 or 1000%, I stopped even trying to keep track, and yet few if any, ever call them greedy?
I don't think oil will be a good long term moneymaker like your techs of the world, I won't buy more energy now.
Oil will eventually come down, I'm sure.  But I doubt it will be in time to salvage this years car and other fuel burning activities sadly.  2022 is ruined. 

[7212Mopar]

I think oil companies do better than 4-6% profit. CVX at todays price still has a dividend yield of 3.48%. The dividend payout and share price appreciation should help a long way to offset gas spending. Don't forget a good % of the price you pay is in taxes.