Gas Prices
I happened upon this picture I took back in 1999 the other day. So almost exactly 9 years ago, a gallon of regular could be had for about 85 cents in Colorado. Admittedly, even back in 1999 that was cheap, which is the reason I took this picture in the first place. In California, a gallon of regular was around $1.15 at that time. I just filled my tank today, and I paid $3.39 a gallon for regular (only the Porsche gets Premium). This translates to an average price increase of about 13% per year for the last nine years. However, prices didn’t increase gradually – we saw huge swings in short periods of time. For example, last week I paid 6% or 20 cents less a gallon than today. Such price volatility has become a staple in today’s energy market. See the chart below for how prices developed since 1996.
March 10, 2008 at 2:48 am
In Austria we have to pay about 4.80 Euro per gallon of regular (that are $7.4 a gallon). Diesel has reached nearly this level today and will probably get more expensive with all those bio fuel debates around.
March 10, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Euro 4.80 per gallon is expensive but I wonder what effect the more fuel efficient European cars and shorter average traveled distances have on average monthly gas bills in Europe vs. here. Also, I don’t think the current exchange rate of $1.50 per Euro should be used to benchmark prices – the true value of the Euro is much closer to $1.15, in which case we’re looking at a gallon cost of about $5.50.