Gas Prices Fall Below $2 In 20 States - Can This Plunge Damped EV Adoption?

Somewhat at least until the next gas crisis. However politicians' greed will even the playing field thru higher gasoline taxes.

That is what has happened in NJ. Went from being one of the lowest priced states to now we’ll over $2

yes, keeping the air and water for children clean, is socialism

Yep. $4.00/Gal or $.99/L here in Canada. And yes we tax gasoline quite a lot. Along with booze, beer and cigarettes. But property taxes on a $1M home are only $3,600/yr in my area. A similar home outside of Boston is likely $15k. Easy to stomach "sin" taxes and sales tax than paying $1,000+ to live in your home. And yes the taxes we pay fund a social safety net for all Canadians to a degree. And I don't think we would change that.

@Aspy11 The difference in price between those 20 states and SoCal is not just taxes; on average California taxes are about $0.15/gal higher than the national average. The price level for the liquid stuff is just plain higher in California. The industry claims that California's clean air regulations require it to produce a special and more costly blend (called CARBOB) which they cannot sell in other states. Critics point out that the California wholesale market is an oligopoly because of refinery consolidation which has greatly reduced the number of refineries, 55% of which are owned by only two companies. The remaining refineries operate at capacity nearly all the time, so that when there is a spike in demand, the supply lags, causing a spike in prices. (E.g., see, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gas-prices-20150401-story.html)
An odd, and not well understood, artifact of this is that prices in the San Diego area are always higher than in Los Angeles; in my experience the prices can differ by $0.20 to $0.40 per gallon depending on the retailer.

The EV's will be a long term play. Gas prices will always fluctuate, consumers are tired and now that EV technology is becoming more of a reality the market is going to take off. All major manufacturers are putting money into EV r&d, and its about time. The United States should lead the world in EV's, and we will.

My next car will absolutely have a plug. can't say yet if it will be a PHEV or full EV, but I'm tired of paying for fuel at our rates. I drove my daughter's new Pacifica Hybrid last week, and that is sweet. A big 3 row minivan running in EV mode that's quiet, powerful, and is only costing them about $80 in electricity and a tank of gas per month. It's less than half what they were paying in gas for their old Routan, and the Pacifica is a much nicer drive.

If it wasn't so cold that the engine has to run for heat, they'd be using almost zero gas during the month. And the majority of the electricity on our state is hydro, wind, nuc or nat gas. There's a little coal, but it's being phased out within the next 5 years or so.

Until the major suppliers put BIG money into new Electric Generation Plants - we simply do not NOW have enough generation capacity to cover a huge number of EVs. In some large cities - the utilities often Brown out portions of the city in the summer because of insufficient supply.

Not even close here in Washington state. RUG is usually around $3.65 or more. A few discount stations might get into the lower $3s, but I don't think I've seen anything below $3.30. I just checked Gas Buddy, and there is one station in my town at $3.09, but I haven't used ARCO in decades. And Walmart (used to be a Sams Club station) is actually showing $2.89. Everyone else is $3.30 or higher, with the average showing $3.49.

And I believe our wonderful governor is raising our state fuel taxes again. We pay close to 70 cents per gallon just in tax.

Imagine the future when everyone has solar panels on the roof of their homes (California) with battery storage capacity to charge the multiple EVs effectively for free.

Now what do you think is going to happen when all that tax revenue is gone from gasoline, and electricity? You really didn’t think the government wasn’t going to find new sources to replace the lost revenue did you?

Politicians would tax the air we breath if they could. Recently read my water bill thoroughly for first time in a long time and the water itself accounted for less than half the bill with the remainder accounted for by city, county and state surcharges. One reason why for example, the police chief in my small village with just 23 people on the entire force makes more in salary than the chief of police in New York City that has 15,000 officers under him. Shameful and shameless.

IF you think that is wrong - in Central NJ - there is a Town that has a FULL PAID Board of Education - and Has NO schools - they have so few students that they bus them to the next town.

As far as EVs- I have said before and will again - the infrastructure is simply NOT THERE for a major shift to EVs. A few Dozen Charging stations in Brooklyn for several million people doesn't work either. And there will still be people like me who cannot make an EV work. That there are no charging stations for people who live in walk ups in NYC that have no parking other than the street - or Apartment complexes that have no charging stations or assigned spots. How can you depend on a charging station to begin with - if you might be the third in line for a 4 hour charge too.

Of course this will slow EV adoption, as well as PHEVs and hybrids. That's what history has clearly shown us when gas prices were cheap in the past.

Mind you, this is all temporary. Humanity didn't leave The Stone Age because they ran out of rocks. They found a better way to do things. And so it'll be as we gradually migrate away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

Unfortunately, due to a number of factors (geographic land mass, past decisions to suburbanize, weak mass transit infrastructure in most of the country), other countries are far ahead of us in getting off fossil fuels.

Canada's Prime Minister said it well when he was in their "oil province," and he was accused of "talking out of both sides of his mouth" when he spoke of the importance of getting off fossil fuels, AND the importance of Canada's oil industry. He explained it well (paraphrased) like this:

- There is no doubt that humans burning fossil fuels plays a major role in pollution, toxicity, and in creating the greenhouse gasses that are a big part of global catastrophic climate change.

- The FUTURE is one in which humanity virtually abandons fossil fuels and uses primarily renewable energy sources.

- TODAY, there is no way to "turn off oil" and go green. So for now, we need to ensure that we can continue to rely on fossil fuels as we gradually migrate away from them.

What Trudeau said of Canada applies to the US as well.

What a great day it will be when no fossil fuels are burned and the air is as pure as the Garden of Eden, that is until one volcano erupts and spews more toxins into the atmosphere than all man made pollution... ever!

Total hoax... and a tool of arrogant ideologues to control and repress the masses.. or in the case of America, the citizens. All based on modeling with zero conclusive proof.

Venice a city that is sinking was recently flooded and frequently floods “seasonally”, which was blamed on “climate change”... then why isn’t it permanent? The flood waters have subsided. Zero facts all theory based on computer modeling

Ahh the grammar failures of the union kissing public education system: "...can this plunge [damped]..."

Jeezis

My state is still close to $3 a gallon for regular. I smell a scam operating here.

Californication? I'm over $3.50 a gallon.

Hydrogen/fuel cells is the future.

Nope. It never was. It takes at least 3x as much electricity to create the hydrogen fuel to drive a car 100 miles as it does to charge a typical battery powered EV. And in the USA today, about 70% of all electricity is generated by burning stuff, including garbage.

So if you get your "clean electricity" from a nearby coal-fired electric generating station to charge your EV, an equivalent diesel powered vehicle has about 20% fewer emissions. The electricity source matters in a big way.

Some simple math tell us that using today's power grid, and counting the electricity used to make that "clean" hydrogen fuel, we'd generate more pollutants than using equivalent gasoline cars.

Hydrogen fuel only makes sense ENVIRONMENTALLY if you can secure a source of abundant, cleanly generated electricity. That excludes 70% of today's US electricity. Hydrogen fuel only make sense ECONOMICALLY if you can get electricity prices way down, and that's unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. Right now, hydrogen costs more that double per mile as compared to using gasoline for fuel.

So no, hydrogen is nowhere in sight as a viable fuel for mass transit. Not even in the foreseeable future.

Are you pro-nuclear? Nearly limitless supply...

The national media, Hollywood and car industry have combined forces to try to rid the U.S. public from ICE! Weird effort too! Over 95% like ICE!