Will Gas Prices Top $4 By The End Of 2008?

Yes, it already has for many months. Just ask one of the Californian native in SF area.

In Oakland it's $3.9899 for 93 octane

Frickin rediculous! I still will not buy a hybrid car as I live close to work and I will be able to get a truck cheap!!!

Damn Republicans! How long before we can get this crazy idiot of a president out of office!?!

impeach bush

German diesels are coming for the california market .. Then gas prices dont really matter as much when someone can get 50 to 60 mpg on the highway.

Diesels don't quite compare to gas hybrids, in urban driving, where the general population does most of it's driving. And it'll be a few years before we see a mass produced diesel hybrid, diesotto, or an hcci gas engine. And because diesels aren't readily available in the U.S., and there isn't a comparable diesel fueling infrastructure, as with gasoline, hybrids have it.

actually, most people drive on the highway vs just around town. According to people who study driving characteristics, the average person communtes from 18 to 20 miles one way to work 5 days a week. This means that most people take the highway to work. Hybrids are not effect means of gas savings on the highway. There best for commuting around town. I understand the infrastructure is currently not there for diesels at the moment, but things are in place for diesels to make a large impact in the US during the second half of 2008 ... In europe diesels are more favorable due to the highway gas mileage and the cost of fuel. It wont take a few years to feel the impact. Hybrids made their impact in just over a year into the market ... diesels will be the second coming and the US market will finally see what the world has known for the past 10 years ...

hybrids are very efficient on highways. That they are only better in city driving is a myth.

They already somewhat work on the highway, but this will get much better as manufacturers increase the size of the electric drivetrain and DECREASE the size of the engine.

The theory goes like this: once you are settled in to 70mph, you only need maybe 50hp to maintain that. In order to go up to 85mph to pass someone, you'll need 10 seconds or so of an extra 100 hp.

So basically, if you had a 3-cylinder gas engine giving you that 50hp for cruising, plus another 20hp for charging up for those 85mph electric-supplied bursts, you will obviously have much better fuel efficiency than a V6 with similar power.

Short of extended cruising at 100+mph, the hybrid concept does work well on the highway. The trick is to add more electric, and start pulling back on the engine...this was the fatal flaw with the Honda Accord hybrid.

"Damn Republicans! How long before we can get this crazy idiot of a president out of office!?!"

Damn Oto60! How long before we can get this guy into an economics class!?!

Blaming bush for oil prices is rather stupid.

OPEC has a virtual monopoly on oil, they practically set the prices, and with China/India/Russia demanding much more oil, its no wonder prices are so much higher.

OPEC is not really a monopoly- they are essentially a dominant firm. They actually absorb residual demand and their production, Qo, is actually set by the fringe (the non-OPEC sources). OPEC really can't set the prices in the long term. What is happening now is the result of the rapid and unexpected development of China and India. They do however, obey the monopoly rule: Marginal Revenue = Marginal Cost. See International Energy Markets by Carol Dahl for more on this. I admit that she was my professor for the class that taught me this subject matter.

In fact, OPEC does not like exceptionally high prices- it destroys their market share. They first understood this in the 1970's embargo where they decreased production and fringe production rose to fill in the residual demand. They lost immense market power (and as a result monies) by allowing the price to rise. This is why the Saudi Oil Minister continuously says that we are not running out of oil and that everything is fine. They want people to believe that the high prices are brief and that they should not invest in new sources of oil or substitutes.

We see the countervailing forces now in the market in all of the talk and popularization of hybrids and the like. There is a very interesting Ph.D. Thesis by one Roberto Arguilera title "Assessing the Long Run Availability of Global Fossil Energy Resources". In this thesis he analyzes the cumulative supply curve for oil (which shows prices/cost as a function of cumulative supply produced to date) it is a positive slope step-wise sort of function. However, it does not include technology. This is important since it is technology that has caused all commodities prices to fall in real terms over time, despite depletion.

I bet this is rather long: sorry about that.

The point is that blaming Bush for such events is just plain irrational.

Bush as well as Opec are problems. We are OPECs bitch and President Dubya (an oil man) started a stupid war in one of the biggest oil producing nations which drove up the demand and decresed the supply. Don't you guys see the correlation of the war and gas prices. All the oil producers got rich and sent our economy into a tailspin. In addition to that there is the lack of refineries in the US to turn the oil into gas, the designer gas blends in each state and the taxes on gas. All these things together create high gas prices. Im spending 10 bucks a day to get back and forth to work thats insane.
Whew...got that off my chest.
T

So are we finally at the point with barrel and pump prices more expensive, adusted for inflation, than even in the 1980 crisis? Usually, over the last few years, when prices have spiked, some apologists have chimed in with the refrain that prices are still cheap compared to those historic highs. I think we can finally aadmit that we are in the worst energy crisis yet. Among SUVs, China and India, senseless wars, and our consumer culture, we've just been too blind to notice or care about the fact that oil prices are never going back down.

"So are we finally at the point with barrel and pump prices more expensive, adusted for inflation, than even in the 1980 crisis?"

To my knowledge not yet. In January 2007 dollars the real prices in Dec. 1979 were $100.28/bbl.

I'm reading here some of you saying high gas prices are Bush's fault.

Do any of you remember when President Peanut "Jimmy Carter was in?

People paid more per gallon of gas based on wages than today and car loans had 19 to 25% interest rates as were credit cards, and home loans were 15 to 22%!

You were saying about Republicans?

o_O

That the gas prices were a relatively higher portion of wages back under Jimmy Carter than it is today is definitely something to crow about..

BMW owners = Republicans. Bush is an idiot.All of you Bush supporters are brainwashed.

Fastonekiller, you can kiss my @$$!

I am certainly not a Bush supporter. But one way to lessen the impact of of higher gas prices is to drive a more fuel effecient car.We live in a country of choice. We can drive anything from a Cadillac Escolade to the new Smart car.New diesels are coming out from GM,BMW,Honda,VW,Audi etc.So save on fuel by using your freedom of choice.By the way I drive a Mini Cooper.

Wow something has gotta give. I filled my car up just this past Friday for a total of $67. I live in South Florida and I paid $3.05 for regular, I cant imagine paying $3.40 for regular. The highest I've paid for regular was $3.17. Um, maybe its time to trade in my 22.5 gallon '07 Ford Explorer Sport Trac for a more fuel efficient vehicle. Anyway nothing is going change anytime soon so we just have to deal w/it. Thank God I dont live in California.

Please don't complain about 3.40 per gallon, as a European paying 8 dollars plus a gallon, it annoys me.
You do not know how good you've got it.

but don't forget , the Europeans do not pay monster property taxes like we do over here , it all evens out.

Really doesn't - tax burden is high here (I speak for Britain when I say this).
We pay tax on fuel, tax on goods, tax on the fuel that is taxed already, tax on income, tax on inheritance, tax on imports, tax on alcohol, tax on cigarettes, tax when you buy a home...seriously the list goes on.
I don't know much if anything about the American tax system but I assume we pay more in Britain. Does it vary from state to state? I remember reading that in Wyoming there's no inheritance tax.

In California it will go over $5.

Nationally, I do not believe it will. However, it certainly will in California and some surrounding states plus New York and some cities like Chicago. The non-automotive press like to say the sky is falling nationally but they will be wrong.