As gas prices continue to rise, hitting a new record of $4.10 a gallon on Monday (June 30th), a new service called MyGallons.com allows drivers to pre-buy gas at a fixed price using a debit-like card that banks gallons instead of dollars. The Miami-based service launched in January works on the assumption that gas prices will continue to rise, with the risk to the consumer coming if gas instead becomes cheaper. Drivers who use the service pre-buy gas based on their zip code, with the rate determined using established providers of oil prices. When they go to fill up, they swipe the MyGallon card like a debit card, and the number of gallons bought is subtracted. MyGallons.com says the card is accepted at over 95 percent of gas stations in the U.S. Founder Steven Verona told Reuters that drivers usually start by pre-buying 25 or 50 gallons, but have been working their way up to 100 or 200 gallons at a time as they get used to the service. So far, about 2,000 people across the country have signed up with MyGallons.com.

I don't know what I think of this.

At current consumption rates for me, 200 gallons equates to about 8K miles and that takes about three months.

For each dime added to the cost of gas, I save one dollar. By percentage this isn't all that much.

There is a potential for about $40 savings over the three month term.

Now, if stories like this are true:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cd683aa0-4764-11dd-93ca-000077b07658.html?nclick_check =1

I've read speculation that could reach $200 / barrel = $6.00 by December!!??!!

That changes the game somewhat, pushing savings into the $100 range, over a similar time period.

I'm at the lower end of potential though. Small car, likely median driving. Anything over about 35MPG, and the big gas pinch has already occured, meaning further growth, is a diminishing hit compared to what has already happened.

For those with bigger cars, those numbers scale up, and that's beginning to look like enough dollars to make sense.

All drivers can choose to skip trips, mitigating a lot of this however.

I think that's what I'm looking to do going forward until such time as an alternative vehicle or fuel / conversion for mine makes sense.

Also worth considering:

You can do nearly nothing and capture a lot of savings just watching when to fill up, or by maintaining your own small gas reserve.

Most changes occur fairly regularly. Plan your trips so that you can get most of a tank on the day before.

If that price jumps a dime, for a small car, you saved a buck! Do this over three months and the savings could be competitive with this service, no hassle required.

(I do this now, simply watching and gambling somewhat on when changes will occur.)

And to illustrate that diminishing impact:

Say gas is $1.00 / gallon. Ok, so filling a tank costs $10 dollars for a small car. A dime increase = one tenth of the total tank cost for a total of 11.00

Now, gas is $4.00 / gallon. That same dime, is now 1 / 40 of the total tank price...

$40 -vs- $41 isn't that big of a deal. The damage is done.

Also, the price delta between premium gas and regular gas is often about a dime, maybe 15 cents.

So, call that $2.00. In my car, that's about 20 miles right now, so if I get a 5 mpg gain with the better gas (and I do), that's 50 miles traveled for the cost of about 20.

Guess we're trying to catch up with Europe where gas prices are anywhere from $6-8 a gallon.

Test drove an electric car the other day. Not the flimsy three wheeler kind, but a solid 4 door small sedan. Lots of headroom and would be for short trips near the house.

However today was another day where the van never left the driveway. Went running this morning with my neighbor then rode my bike a bit over 5 miles doing some errands I probably would have done on my bike anyway because of the good weather.

Wife and I rode our bikes to the Pearl District tonight for a meeting at the Eco Trust Building. All in all a very nice aerobic day.

Like you said Missing it's really going to get down to adjusting ones driving habits. Even with that said food still needs to be shipped and with $4 a gallon milk in the offering because of the high price of fuel, we're gonna get slammed someplace else other than the pump.

Oh big time.

And I just moved out of the city too. Some of the cost impact is higher here. Not too much, but sometimes we notice.

I suspect I can transition quite a bit of what I do to remote type services. If not, well, I'll do something else then. The delta for overall cost of living is just too large to ignore.

(it's a third of PDX!!)

Electric cars make a whole lot of sense. In fact, I think shared ones between a few families, working and living in their community would pay off too.

Where I'm at now, I would need about 100 mile range, between charges. That's gonna happen, but won't be cheap.

My biggest beef with the electric cars right now is the regulations that hobble them, and all the energy required to actually build out and get a bunch of us to own them. Initial cost is high too, but I would deal with that, given other things are balanced out.

Would really like to see conversions and sane alternative fuels added to that transition. I don't think electric will end up the one size fits all needed to fully scale them out.

There is a ton of stored energy in our existing vehicles. Freaking shame to waste it on a complete build out, repurchase cycle. It's just silly.

If we made ethonol out of better plants, (hemp, sugar palm) that equation would get a whole lot more viable. Plain old alcohol is attractive too.

Both could be grown locally and refined locally. That's key to me.

And I fear the bubble has popped for better or worse. It's not likely we will ever see lower gas prices again. That ship has sailed, never to return.

Personally bracing for $6. If it goes above that, I'll be doing a combination of things:

mod the car for 50MPG (Possible, but illegal)

deal with employment locally, or transition to remote

(I think that problem is very similar to the one you cracked for radio --maybe we can talk someday)

leverage everything local to me

obtain or build a coupla cool bikes that do all weather. I like bikes.

Heck, maybe attach a very small alcohol capable engine and use that for tough times, or loads.

I'm sure there are a ton of little gas engines that can be made to deal.

In talking with the folks at Ecomotion, highway speed electric cars are possibly within a year. But you're right...at what price?

The one we drove was under $17,000 and it can't go over 25mph because of state laws. There are people trying to change that law to at least 30 or even 35mph city, which would be ideal for us.

If I show my business license (actually two of them) I get another 15 percent off the purchase price and that's before the government tax credit. So it's pretty attractive to us.

Missing have you ever seen the 2006 movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?” If you haven't it will make you sad and mad.

We have had the technology for highly efficient electric cars for over 10 years and totally trashed the program because of the usual suspects.

When doing the math the energy it costs to make an electric car compared to the energy saved in using one makes the electric car almost completely carbon neutral. One gallon of burned gas creates 19 pounds of C02. Electric cars would serve us so much better.

There are electric cars that are 100 years old that were commonplace even before the gas engine. It's all about mind set and getting informed.

I'll buy that, though I question the carbon neutral bit where the battery tech is concerned. Probably it's true.

Drive by that store a lot! Haven't gone in yet.

There is also carbon collection we've yet to explore. This done right, could be very interesting in that we could just sequester the carbon over time, mitigating the problem at first, then cleaning up huge over the transition and beyond.

Why we are not building that out quick is beyond me. Done right, we've then got control. Something we are worried about then becomes far less of a worry.

Frankly, I would be perfectly ok with mostly electric solutions, given we can get the usual suspects to play ball, or regulate the crap out of them so they are marginalized, leaving others to play ball.

Gonna watch the movie. I'll add it to the Netflix queue and see it soon. Thanks!

***I would buy the 25MPH car, then quietly mod it for the 35. I'll bet it's not all that hard.

Did some reading and most of them will easily do that with little overall impact on the range and charge cycle. Too much and the batteries can be impacted, so there is a balance and some research to be done.

Might not be legal, but would be perfectly ethical, IMHO. The only real added risk would be to yourself! Betcha hopping on a motor cycle is worse.

You are right too. 35 MPH, particularly with the great acceleration those things have, is just sweet for most all city driving.

Weight is a big problem for us right now. All of the added regulation basically ruins newer gas cars. My old piece of crap 89 will do up to 45MPG. (This could be more with different gearing, more still with worse emissions.)

It's about 2/3 to 1/2 the weight of newer cars.

So we have huge engineering achievements that are essentially marginalized by being housed in fat ass cars. We are going backwards fast!

Recently drove the GM Cobalt. Nice car actually. Featured a real time MPG display that told me a lot of interesting data over a long drive.

A lighter version of this, with more thought put into the fuel injection curve and gear ratios used, would easily outperform my existing car... too bad.

Wonder what a newer engine would do in a very light car?

Some advocacy in this needs to be done. Ever take a trip or two to Salem?

You should. I would join you at some point because the speed / weight limitations really need adjustment. We need some options to get things going and actually allow people to do stuff and see what works and what does not, what scales and what does not.

Don't trust the big companies to do this without some little guys serving to keep them honest.

Some other interesting things going on:

Small gas / fuel powered range extenders. Basically, you can charge on the go, consuming small amounts of fuel to deal with range gaps. I really like this idea.

Prefer it over expensive and complex and heavy hybrid approaches. Never directly power the car with fuel, just indirectly, so the vehicle is electric with it's charge coming from external sources, or internally, with some clean, sustainable fuel.

(that's the key to cheap and easy highway speeds with some range, IMHO)

Also, we could use really clean fuels, and or gasses for this. I'm still stuck on fuel, largely because of existing infrastructure. Again, an energy build out thing.

Other fuels can lower carbon, and leverage the infrastructure we have. Maybe we will get to all electric. Hope so, but during the transition time, which will be a long time, fuel tech presents a lot of great choices, given we can create a market environment favorable to people developing them.

All that said, I'll bite on an electric someday with sustainable batteries that can deliver the necessary range.

I'm watching with great interest. I think the next 10 years are going to be an exciting time for new vehicles.

God, this thread just rules over the political spats right now too!

Come on people, what do you all think?

Food shipped!

Oh man, that's an ugly one. Read somewhere that your average food travels 1,200 miles!

We are spoiled big time and if that breaks down, people might actually die. I worry about that one big time. Worry enough that I think we should go ahead and make drivers pay more for gas, but keep the trucking costs lower, even with a subsidy if we have to.

The cost multiplier on necessary goods is already a bigger killer than the gas price is. Would trade $6.00 gas, if cost of shipping could return to $2 gas levels...

Seasonal foods, locally grown foods, organic or not --don't care, will all make a lot more sense going forward.

So we can't get Kiwi here often, if at all. Lots of stuff we can get!

We missed the boat big time with rail. If it were me, I would be building out that stuff huge. Where we have lots of trucks, we could transition them to shorter range electrics, stage deliveries via rail and save a ton, and the whole thing would be far more sustainable too.

One of the keys will be demand for sure. All it takes is one car company ready to risk it and be the hero.

Most of today's cars can be outfitted electric, but depending on the vehicle it can cost anywhere from 10 grand and up. But you're going to put that much at least into anything used why not? Problem is...whose gonna do it for you?

There are kits available for the person who feels comfortable in making that transition but it's a time consumer.

Check out Plug in America lots of good stuff going on. Like a plug in hybrid. That would rock and would be a great stepping stone to all electric.

There is a ton of money to made within the new tech industry if you're smart. There in lies the rub. But with 5 and 6 dollars a gallon on the horizon, getting smarter is certainly in vogue.

I agree the next 10 years will be exciting however hold onto your seat belt because the next 1-3 could be huge too.

Agreed.

Well, pure electric conversions don't make a lot of sense. Might as well buy new. I'm with you on that one.

Alternative fuel conversions for existing cars does make more sense in more practical cases. Those are likely less. Maybe $2 to 5K, depending.

Some of the bio-diesel stuff is really great. For that amount of money, one could darn near produce a lot of their own fuel from their own property. That's very sustainable and interesting to me personally. Hate technology dependence.

Given we can make fuel from bugs, who says it has to be oil?

It's that next 1-3 that I'm really worried about. Litigation and poor regulation / leadership could make it far more painful than it needs to be. Having that choice makes sense in the short to mid term.

People are modding the Prius to be a plug in right now! That pissed Toyota huge, but they are following the trend and will be introducing one soon.

Combine that with rapid advances in solar, and we've a short term winner for many parts of the world. One downside to plug ins is the cost of power in many places. Solar can address that, and it's very sustainable in that it's essentially off grid, if used to just power the car and maybe heat water.

Little smart guy 1, Big auto 0

Good site. I've been to that one recently.

IMHO, smart opens up the doors. Doing the work gets us through them. When gas was below $2 / gallon, I didn't care.

Now, it matters. Thinking though just the options that don't require much in the way of spending, saves a ton. Most of what I know now to save gas is effective, and much of it is empirical. Go read how things work, then do your test, change behavior, save dollars.

It's not hard, as in takes lots of smarts, it's just work type hard to manage expectations and leverage what you have to the fullest possible.

That alone would make a dent, but people are so lazy...

"Guess we're trying to catch up with Europe where gas prices are anywhere from $6-8 a gallon."

The only way that can happen is if we tax our gas at the same rate as the Europeans pay. I'd support $1/gal increase with 50% going to dedicated bikeways (off streets) and more mass transit to suburbs (and bike racks on them).

"Come on people, what do you all think?"

I think one should be careful of the MyGallons.com type places as they may or may not stay in business. There is no way to know for sure.

I also think it's a band aid, temporarily helping some people, maybe. Where we need our focus is on solving the problem.

I'm one who is in favor of gas prices remaining high so it forces us to change habits and more importantly, brings the development of new technology to the forefront.

"I'm one who is in favor of gas prices remaining high so it forces us to change habits and more importantly, brings the development of new technology to the forefront"

I can agree with most of that. How do resolve the transportation of goods that Missing has stated? Can we lower their gas burden at the same asking them to look into alternatives and technology?

" can agree with most of that. How do resolve the transportation of goods that Missing has stated? Can we lower their gas burden at the same asking them to look into alternatives and technology?"

We don't need the endless string of 18 wheelers on the road, some pulling small trains. Southern Railway is running an ad that says they can transport an automobile 400 miles on 1 gallon of fuel. It seems it's time we began transporting this stuff across country be rail, not truck.

I agree the rail system almost has a duty to perform. Every time I see a long train going up the Gorge with 18-wheelers trailers stacked on each other, it's a reminder of how many semis’ are off the road.

Would some kind of regulation or incentives be helpful to the railways? Maybe help retrain those truckers or use some of their expertise from all those miles under their belts to help shape up the roadways.

Just thinking out loud for now.

The railroads would need a new mindset, something that comes hard for them. Most RR execs came up through the ranks, and they are sort of like General Motor's execs, stuck in the past with their thinking.

If the railroads could see a profit in transporting more goods, they would try to attract it. Until then, they won't.

I'm politically opposed to government intervention, but I do find incentives of some sort acceptable. For instance, when John McCain says we should offer a $300 Million prize to the person or company that invents a battery that will provide long range and practical power for an automobile, I think that's good government intervention.

We ought to offer a Billion dollar prize to the company that comes up with an alternate fuel source.

"It seems it's time we began transporting this stuff across country be rail, not truck."

Yeah right. Railroads don't want to make the investment to increase capacity. Things are at a gridlock at most major railway routes and junctions.

Besides, MOST trucks are local/regional delivery (retailers, factories customers, et al). Yes, more truck loads can be shipped by rail, but remember this, rail service is crappy. Need a rail car? Some time next week. Maybe. Delivery date? Ha ha. Maybe 10 days.

Railroads are NOT set up for "just-in-time" businesses.

We don't need the endless string of 18 wheelers on the road, some pulling small trains.

Lets see, 1 loaded set of triples pulling 105,500 will average about 6 MPG of diesel fuel and deliver directly to numerous customers.

The largest trucking company pulling triples in the U.S is UPS. How is UPS supposed to deliver with trains? Will the customer appreciate slow and uncommitted delivery dates?



You have to face it, the problem is people and their SUVs.

"You have to face it, the problem is people and their SUVs."

OK, whatever you say.

You betcha. Next time you see a train not moving, know this: its waiting for another train to get out of the way,

Skeptical is absolutely correct. My dad’s former employer dealt in large measure with the railroads and found their conduct nothing short of contemptible. They were expensive, hardly reliable and lacked any degree of flexibility. Putting deals together using the railroad as a source of transportation could be a deal breaker. Plus their pricing structure was always in flux -- and always to the advantage of the railroad. Many transportation firms work hardily to accommodate their customers, but not railroads. And with consolidation in the industry, things have gotten worse, not better.

Priceline use to do this, let gas stations bid for your business. You know, people laughed at it, but I saved a load of money doing this. They would send a card and you would online and bid for gas. I miss doing that.

"when John McCain says we should offer a $300 Million prize to the person or company that invents a battery that will provide long range and practical power for an automobile, I think that's good government intervention. "

FYI-That battery has exsisted for several years but has been kept under wraps because it would mean the end to fuel injected cars, or a huge dent in their sales.

However-I like incentives as motivation. Maybe in time as the old school railroad dudes retire and die off there might be a new breed that can come in and move things in a positive way.

Southwest Airlines seems to be the only airline that bet prices would skyrocket by locking into long-term fuel price contracts that are vastly lower than their competition. Once again, the low cost carrier proves itself a worthy competitor.

I don't think we need just in time business for many necessary goods.

And, if the rails are that horrible, we need to just regulate them until they simply are not.

Sorry folks, but we don't need net loss business.

When they run good again, well then we would have done them a favor.

Rail has serious economies of scale. Latency is a problem, but not that serious of a problem.

If a business can plan well in advance its production and transportation schedule, I’m sure railroads might make sense. But many industrial firms don’t have that luxury. Firms in which I’m familiar use the “just in time” formula because it saves them money in the production process and reduces the need to maintain large pre and post production inventories. When you’re using the railroad, you work on their schedule. And they don’t provide much in the way of flexibility. When you’re dealing with a group of suppliers who operate on the thinnest of margins and then you throw the cost of railroad transportation into the mix, it defeats the whole purpose of trying to be efficient because railroads are not inherently efficient.

Great thread!

If something cannot be grown or produced locally, I think that intermodal freight is the only way to go. Trains can be made more efficient and can run on biodiesel. Maintaining our railroads is a good solid long term infrastructure investment. There is no excuse to haul so much on our roadways. Especially when so much of it is not doodads, knick-knacks and gewgaws, but hazardous material.

My late Uncle was a long-haul trucker and worked hard for his pay. He was very careful, obeyed the rules and stayed in business through some lean times. Few fellows in the industry liked the idea of triple trailers in his day. They are unstable, they create huge blind spots and can be unpredictable in even a stiff wind. Trucks with multiple trailers are hazardous and though local rules are strict, not everyone pays attention to rules.

"They are unstable, they create huge blind spots and can be unpredictable in even a stiff wind."

As someone who pulled many a mile a set of triples, let me say this -- the difference? Not one GD thing. Feels the same, drives the same. We don't pull the third trailer if its really windy, and we have locations along the route the third trailer can be dropped at if weather changes.

With triples you get one driver on the road as opposed to two drivers and two diesel burning trucks.

Also, most triples drivers are the best drivers on the road, most of the triples you see in Oregon -- UPS, Fred Meyer, Reddaway, Yellow freight, et al, are TEAMSTERS. When was the last time you've seen a set of triples in a wreck or a blown over 3rd trailer? Almost never.

The most dangerous truck on the road and most likely to be in a wreck or blown over? An out of state non-union independent, most likely with a log book violation and on speed.

LS, the truck in the link is a long haul contract carrier (independent driver). Fed Ex contracts out most of their driving as opposed to UPS hires their own drivers.

Obviously the driver was driving too fast for conditions, not an equipment problem.

The truck in the video was pulling doubles, not triples. One can argue that you can just as easily lose control of a long semi trailer on ice as a set of doubles. Recovery with a set of doubles may be more likely as there are more sets of brakes spaced along the length as opposed to a long semi trailer.

99% of truck problems can be pointed at the driver.

FedEx, on the other hand, does not even admit that they have employees. They are "at will contractors" and at the total mercy of management.

Add -- Beat me to it!

Trucking to remote places, or to deliver in metropolitan areas makes sense.

I am surprised that Fed Ex still paints the outside of their long haul trailers with their name & logo. In this day and age of contract carriers, many firms have quit putting their names on trailers. That video is an ultra good example why.

A set of triples down to Medford for instance may serve 5 or more stores in the area. In dispatch these days, there are specialists who arrange payloads for the least fuel and labor costs -- this sort of thing has driven many oldtimers into early retirement.

In the old days, places like GI Joes ran trucks to stores 4 times a day so the customer would always find things "in stock". Now they ship 2 or 3 times a week with fully loaded trailers instead.

Sometimes, we do not know what they have in the magic trailer, so give the plain ones a bit of extra room.

The thing about just in time is that it makes the assumption that shipping is cheap and latency is low. Often it also assumes materials are always available. (that's gonna change, or maybe just get a lot more expensive as we move toward recycling more instead of mining)

If those are not valid assumptions, and with the gas prices today they are not, then just in time needs to be managed differently.

Alternatives include queuing, seasonal, and limited run options, all of which trade time for shipping dollars.

It may well be that holding some inventory makes sense, given near real time shipping costs.

Rail can make a lot of sense for a lot of goods. Maybe manufacturers won't benefit as much, but other goods would. Food can easily be handled with the other alternatives, for example.

Dealing with oil peaking means a holistic reconsideration of how we do things and why. There is also the simple reality that extreme to the max profit really comes from the energy sequestered in oil.

If that advantage is gone, things just change and we simply adapt.

One adaptation I would love to see is the move away from planned obsolescence. Way too many goods produced today are one cycle, big bang affairs that really last through the next cycle.

If we have to surrender this, I'm not gonna cry over it. Maybe we actually make investments in things again, instead of just buying one when needed, only to buy another way earlier than would otherwise be the case.

Making things better means selling fewer things and significantly more pressure to make them good things, well engineered things, THE FIRST TIME, not incrementally.

Look at computers, most portable electronics, and other things. We've got iterations of these that are sometimes very shallow and very wasteful overall.

There is also the reality that we don't need availability of everything all the time. If we focus more on locally produced goods, we can adapt to those things we can produce here, depending less on those currently constant things produced everywhere.

(and that will make jobs and bring wages up and strengthen our dollar)

on FoxNews.com

HONG KONG -- Toyota Motor Corp. plans to install a solar power generation system on its Prius hybrid car, when the vehicle goes through a complete makeover as early as next spring, according to a report Monday. The redesigned Prius will have solar panels on the roof, which will supply part of the two to five kilowatts needed to power the air conditioners, the Nikkei business daily reported. Toyota plans to produce 450,000 units of the Prius in Japan next year, about 60% higher than the vehicle's output in 2007.

that'll help a little...needs to happen with all auto makers now!

It's been mentioned here a few times..
but I watched "Who Killed the Electric Car" on youtube this weekend.

I don't know how long it will be there, but watch the 11 part version if you can....
But be prepared to be pissed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vD33UMAtBY

Kind of like the oil companies helping dismantle the transit systems in cities and towns across America. They paid big bucks to ruin American's city/town mass transit systems all across the country.