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US gas prices hit an average of $4 a gallon again
- petcat 3mo agoCrazy how cheap gasoline is in USA. $4 is still basically half as much as anywhere in Europe even when there isn't a war.
- VWWHFSfQ 3mo agoWell the US could just pump their wells and outproduce the entire rest of the world in crude oil and refined products like gasoline if it wanted to. Or if it was forced to.
- dgellow 3mo agoIsn’t that what it already does? At least in 2025 the numbers I see have the US as the top producer
- throw-qqqqq 3mo ago> Well the US could just pump their wells and outproduce the entire rest of the world in crude oil The US is already the largest producer of crude oil in the world. They took first place around 2018 and is currently ~30% above no. 2 (Saudi Arabia). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_extraction#Countries_by_rank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_extra...
- atif089 3mo agoIt's cheap but you also travel a lot in the US. Specially in the southern states because everything is so far. Anecdotal reference, my children's school is roughly 3 miles, so I spend a gallon of gas every day with 2 round-trips. That number was zero in Netherlands because all schools are either walkable or bike able. Supermarkets and restaurants are 5 miles away easily. Heck, my neighbor (door to door) is 0.4 miles.
- TxFkdZ 3mo ago[dead]
- dgellow 3mo agoFor context, the US is the top oil producer in the world. I also don’t know what you’re trying to say, none of the money you spend on gas goes to politicians
- tokai 3mo agoIts an international market, so that doesn't mean much. US producers can sell their product where they want. Its mainly taxes making it more expensive.
- TxFkdZ 3mo ago[dead]
- hilariously 3mo agoDepending on how much the oil lobby is donating these days that's not exactly true.
- xn7 3mo agoThe iPhone is priced exactly like that. And so are most consumer products. See Steam games, cars, Netflix, …
- TxFkdZ 3mo ago>The iPhone Apple asks the same amount of money afaik, the difference in EU is the tax, so...politicians.
- swiftcoder 3mo agoI suggest you not lookup the difference in price between an iPhone in the EU vs the US, then...
- giacomoforte 3mo agoTrue although a big component of the energy prices in Europe are due to policy driven taxation. There is a huge difference in intra EU petrol prices from around 6$/gal to 10$/gal.
- sajithdilshan 3mo agoyep, that' like 0.92 EUR per liter and in Germany average price is around 2.3 EUR per liter
- KingOfCoders 3mo agoYes, taxes. This is more a philosophical thing, high taxes, high cohesion society, low taxes, everyone on their own. Germany especially after WW2 made the decision for a high cohesion, compromise society (which looks to be at it's end - not society, but high cohesion and solidarity, many want lower taxes).
- sajithdilshan 3mo agoLately it feels like in Germany people are paying high taxes, but still everyone is on their own.
- masklinn 3mo agoA big part of it is taxes, European countries tend to tax fuel pretty heavily. If heating oil is still a thing where you are, compare its prices to diesel (especially historically). They’re nearly the same product, the difference is almost entirely fuel taxes.
- consp 3mo agoWe used to have red diesel for agricultural use which was tax exempt. So they added a coloring agent which would make your tank red and thus noticeable if you used it in a regular car.
- OtherShrezzing 3mo agoIn the UK, farm vehicles use a specially dyed Red Diesel, which is the same liquid with a chemical added to it to turn it red. It’s taxed at a much lower rate, so you’ll sometimes pass petrol stations selling two Diesel from two different pumps, one of which is around half the price of the other. If you’re caught running red diesel on a normal carriageway, the penalty can be steep.
- walthamstow 3mo agoApparently cat litter gets the red out and nobody ever gets dipped anyway
- fifilura 3mo agoWhat could possibly go wrong :) Filter your diesel through cat litter in your garage and fill up your £60k mercedes. Feels like extra work I would really enjoy doing and also the wonderful smell. And I can probably re-use the cat litter for pesticides, so i don't need to worry about disposing of it. But otherwise i would probably recommend against it.
- walthamstow 3mo agoThese are poor rural people so it's less a 60k Merc and more like a worthless Volvo that is somehow still running in 2026 AD
- laszlojamf 3mo agoAmericans also drive A LOT more than Europeans on average, and generally (is my suspicion at least) with a lot bigger/less efficient engines
- Lwerewolf 3mo agoNot too sure about the engines as of late. Bigger and heavier vehicles - yes, but still mostly rural/highway, and at way lower speeds than the EU. Overall, IMO it's just the distances involved.
- ponector 3mo agoLot's of European cars have 3 cylinders instead of American V8.
- cpburns2009 3mo agoThe majority of American ICE vehicles are 4-cylinder, not 8.
- etempleton 3mo agoThere are almost no new vehicles in the US that still offer a V8. They exist, but make up a very small part of auto sales.
- etempleton 3mo agoNot so much the efficiency of the engine but the weight and size of the vehicle. Almost all new cars in the US are turbo charged 4 cylinders if not hybrids or pure electric, but US consumers do prefer larger vehicles which are less aerodynamically efficient wnd heavier, which is really a direct result of the distance and reliance on the vehicle Americans have.
- Tade0 3mo agoDriving isn't nearly as important in Europe though. American households spend 16% of their income on transportation, while European 11% on average. https://itdp.org/2024/01/24/high-cost-transportation-united-states/ https://itdp.org/2024/01/24/high-cost-transportation-united-... In absolute numbers the gap is considerably wider due to differences in salaries. And all that while cars and fuel are significantly cheaper in the US. In the co-working space I rent there are around 50 parking spots and half as much bicycle stands. In the warm period between the solstices the latter is packed and I have trouble finding a stand. I started cycling mostly because they removed the free gravel parking area not counted in the usual spots, but I've found I don't miss driving as much as I thought I would.
- wasfgwp 3mo agoThe majority (60-70%) of Europeans still commute by car. Distances might be shorter and their cars might use less fuel but on the whole its still more appealing option for most people (despite quite a few countries trying to actively change it by making it more expensive and leas convenient). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Passenger_mobility_statistics&stable=0 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- Tade0 3mo agoIndeed they do, but out of convenience, not necessity. And I get it - I much prefer driving if the distance is more than say 7km or when it's raining or really cold or really hot. That being said I estimate that in Europe people who genuinely need a car in their day-to-day lives are closer to 40-45% of all commuters. It was noticeable in the first days of the Hormuz Strait crisis, when the government fuel subsidies didn't kick in yet.
- ZeroGravitas 3mo agoThere's a Jevons Paradox type thing where they ended up spending roughly the same to travel a mile due to Japan or the EU pushing for efficiency due to needing to import the fuel (might be visible in California too due to them fighting their geography that causes smog). Possibly the EU is pulling ahead on price per mile now with the shift to EVs.
- hobo123 3mo agoWait until you hear about German electricity prices... (household elec is about 30-35c/kWh, public charging stations for electric cars often charge 60-70c/kWh, no joke, although I think some vendors now offer 40c charging with a subscription)
- ZeroGravitas 3mo agoThose household prices should still put a German EV substantially ahead of the average new US vehicle in fuel cost per mile. If they did all their charging at 70 they'd probably lose on cost to a US car (or a German diesel) but be equal to a German petrol car. I think Germany has a cultural thing with smart meters which are mandatory for the ultra cheap charging available in many EU countries but it appears that you can get still those rates in Germany and pay about half what you quote, expanding the gap with the average US cost per mile.
- nozzlegear 3mo agoYou're comparing EV charging prices to US fuel prices though, that's not a fair comparison. I live in the US and have an electric car, which I charge at home on my municipal's grid. The rate is a whopping 10.5¢ per kw/h.
- trescenzi 3mo agoThat’s what I pay in Connecticut for electricity. I believe most of New England and California are in the price range. I’ve got a Prius Prime and only at around $4+ a gallon does it start to become cheaper to charge than just use gas since the gas engine is so efficient.
- SirFatty 3mo agoAnd your point is what exactly?
- stasomatic 3mo agoIt's not cheap when your budgeting depended on how much it cost before. Americans are mostly poor, however else we look to you across the ocean. We don't have cool trains and double-deckers that you guys are accustomed to. Different can of worms, I know. Our own doing.
- throw0101a 3mo ago> Crazy how cheap gasoline is in USA. 1 USgal is 3.78L, and so US$ 4/gal is a little under $1/L. Convenient comparison page: * https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/ https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- throw8394498383 3mo agoIt should be $200 per gallon, we need to reduce depenency on petrol!
- vitalyan8184 3mo ago[dead]
- TurdF3rguson 3mo agoYeah but just think how fast those electric trucks would roll out. I can live on what's in my pantry for a few months.
- packetlost 3mo agoI don't think electric trucks are actually ready for the realities of long haul trucking, especially in a country as expansive as the US.
- TurdF3rguson 3mo agoThey're not ready, that's the point. An incentive like $200 gas is what's missing.
- packetlost 3mo agoNo, I think the technology fundamentally is not there and a decade away even with stronger financial incentives (of which there are already plenty). Between range, charge times, and worst of all: weight. A huge percentage of loads are operating at the limit of what is legally allowed on highways and it's strictly enforced. If you increase the baseline weight of the vehicle substantially, as you must with current battery energy densities, you decrease what can be carried by a single truck proportionally. What will actually happen is literally everything will get more expensive.
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- accountofthaha 3mo agoThat is 0.923 Euros a Liter according to Google. That's dirt cheap.
- fabian2k 3mo agoHow many liters per 100 km does a typical US car consume?
- accountofthaha 3mo agoI have no idea, and what do you mean by 'typical US car'? Like a US car model or just the fact Americans drive more? A lot of Europeans do drive as much as Americans do, like me and truckers etc. Having 2,34 a liter here in NL makes that a pain in the arse. Also: using more fuel on average doesn't invalidate that American fuel, compared to Europe, is dirt cheap. Edit: also wanna add there are many 'American' cars on the road here, like Ford F-150s etc. They are imported, but have the same fuel consumption as the US variant, as being the same as the US variant.
- seszett 3mo ago> there are many 'American' cars on the road here I'd say the Netherlands is the exception here, almost all such cars that I see on the roads (mostly in France) are from the Netherlands, along with some from Belgium. They are also mostly driven by maniacs apparently.
- stasomatic 3mo agoMy wife drives a VW that's built locally in Tennessee. The engine is from Mexico, the transmission used be from Japan. I think it's a Korean unit now produced on a license. Optimistically, it drinks about 11L per 100KM. Stop and go will severely increase consumption. It's a large car to you, but it's kind of midsize here.
- accountofthaha 3mo agoI looked it up, and that car isn't being sold here and would indeed be in the 'big SUV' range. About 3% of cars here are those cars, while in the USA it's about 10-20%. But question: why drive that car, with that milage, while you could have a slightly smaller car with better milage? I just don't get that.
- hnfong 3mo agoStill cheaper than Cola
- inigyou 3mo agoWhere are they getting it? Four weeks ago, the president said that in four weeks the country would run out of oil. Russia already ran out of gasoline.
- muzani 3mo agoMuch of the time, these estimates are just extrapolated. Someone out there must be producing more oil when there's a shortage.
- Xalutiono 3mo agoIts China. They slashed oil imports massivly. They use their reserves (as a lot of other countries also do) to help asia.
- AlfeG 3mo ago> already ran out of gasoline A bit of exaggeration there.
- 999900000999 3mo agoGood thing we have a subsidy to encourage people to buy EVs. Ohh wait… I suspect the price will be directly subsidized to keep folks happy. Since we’re in wacky world this subsidy will be inconsistent depending on where you are. Blue States will be left with gas going to 6$ or more and Red States will probably have prices subsidized down to 4$.
- tencentshill 3mo agoThat has already happened. Lower state gas taxes and friendly to refineries on their land = cheaper gas. Oil is already heavily, heavily subsidized: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/republican-spending-bill-fossil-fuel-subsidies https://e360.yale.edu/digest/republican-spending-bill-fossil... That one alone is over $100 per person per year, so we all paid extra, even those who don't drive. Even with all that we're still at $4/gal.
- 999900000999 3mo agoHere’s a more direct example. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/08/trump-freedom-fuel-stations-in-person/90848379007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/07/08/trum... Looks like the gas stations are selling at cost or taking a small loss.
- amelius 3mo agoAs long as memory prices stay low. Oh wait.
- blitzar 3mo agoThe price increases will continue until morale improves.
- master_crab 3mo agoI wonder what happens to that gas price once the SPR can no longer be drawn from? https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W...
- cucumber3732842 3mo agoThey become volatile. The SPR is a short term buffer.
- impure 3mo agoSnatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Also will be interesting what happens when the SPR runs out.
- ambientenv 3mo agoA somewhat related discussion on this topic [1]. [1] - https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-oil-price-mystery https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-oil-price-myste...