gasmileagecalculators.com » gas prices and other news

What We Avoid When Car Shopping

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:31:51 +0000

While many say that the price of gas will once again skyrocket once the holidays and election honeymoon are over, others are expressing that same fear with their wallets. The sixth annual avoidance study conducted by JD Powers & Associates shows that new vehicle buyers are increasingly likely to avoid specific models due to price or gas mileage.

The study examines the reasons consumers fail to consider particular models when shopping for new vehicles. What people avoid when shopping for a new vehicle often tells more about the current state of the auto industry and the economic and political climate of the country as a whole. This year the study says people are holding on to all the pennies they can count.

The 2008 study finds that 23 percent of new-vehicle buyers cite price as a reason they avoided a certain model during the shopping process. Gas mileage is also becoming a more important factor, both in vehicle buyers’ avoidance of some models and selection of other models. Poor gas mileage as a reason for avoidance has increased dramatically in the past four years, climbing to 13 percent in 2008 from 7 percent in 2004.

“In these tough economic times, a significant number of would-be new-vehicle buyers are postponing their purchases, but for those who are purchasing new vehicles, the market has shifted toward smaller, less expensive and more fuel-efficient models,” said Jon Osborn, research director at J.D. Power and Associates. “Although we’ve recently seen a considerable decrease in the price of gasoline, consumers will not soon forget having had to pay in the range of $80 to $90 for a tank of gas earlier this year.”

The study also finds that even as gas mileage has become increasingly important to new-vehicle buyers, only 4 percent of buyers cite environmental concerns as a reason for avoidance, compared with 5 percent in 2007.

“With the recent trend in automotive marketing centered on ‘green’ vehicles for environmentally conscious buyers, it seems that now would be the time that environmental concerns would resonate strongly with new-vehicle buyers,” said Osborn. “However, the reality is that environmental concerns are seldom mentioned as a reason to either avoid or purchase specific models. Gas mileage is now the primary factor in the new vehicle purchase decision, so it appears that buyers are looking for better gas mileage as a way to save money, rather than out of concern for the environment.”

While styling remains the reason for avoidance cited most often by new-vehicle buyers (43%), the study finds that other product-related concerns — such as long-term reliability, quality and resale value — are also very important to consumers. Reliability concerns are cited by 22 percent of buyers as a reason for avoidance, while resale value is cited by 16 percent and concerns about poor quality by 14 percent.

“The halo effect of a brand’s product quality and dependability on its models, and vice versa, is critical to brand image and consideration,” said Osborn. “A vehicle brand that has a perception in the marketplace for poor quality faces an uphill battle when it comes to winning customers, and these negative brand perceptions — whether true or not — are among the most difficult to overcome in the short term. Quite often, vehicles are avoided due to quality concerns to a greater extent than they may deserve. For instance, many buyers cite ‘quality’ as a reason for avoiding Ford and Chevrolet models, yet both of these brands earned above-average quality scores from owners in the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Initial Quality Study.”

The 2008 Avoider Study is based on responses from more than 33,000 owners who registered a new vehicle in May 2008. The study was fielded August through September 2008.

Gas Price Perspective

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 17:00:10 +0000

One month before the US presidential elections and during the worst US stock market week in more than 70 years seems like a good time to visit gas prices. The first chart (courtesy of GasBuddy.com) shows the rise in gas prices in the US (blue), Canada (red) and how they have performed relative to crude oil prices (green) over the last five years.

While there have been some pretty wild ups and downs short term, this makes clear the long term rising trend in prices. Generally speaking, the more shallow the trend, the more sustainable, indicating that higher prices can safely be forecast for the foreseeable future.

This second chart (courtesy of InflationData.com) shows US retail prices (black) against their inflation adjusted prices (red).

This view, of the very long term, going back to 1918 for the first entry. The final figure shown was of gas at $3.22 per gallon in March, making the overall average 2008 to date figure $3.08 per gallon. Since it was completed before gas topped $4.00 in June and July of 2008, the final figure shows us equal to the adjusted cost of gas in 1981 and still slightly behind the initial “gasoline as luxury” prices.

Updates on the Long and Short of Gas

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:46:39 +0000

On the short end of the stick …. Unfortunately rumors that circulated on September 19th that Atlanta was running out of gas proved to be true. However, nearly one week later, the city and environs are close to normal again in terms of fuel shipments. Whether or not the residents will be returning to their “pre-shortage” ways any time soon remains to be seen.

There were plenty of conflicting stories and a certain level of panic, but nothing too widespread. There were also plenty of people who reportedly stocked up using any available type of tank anytime they were able to jockey into position at a pump. There were also plenty of other people angry at them for taking advantage of the situation and not thinking of their neighbors in need, but no reports of deadly violence.

Elsewhere in the country, hurricane Ike’s effects were felt in the fuel industry in other ways. Some alternative energy plants were taken offline and are expected to remain so for a month or two. Gas prices rose overall, but fell again over the last week.

On the long end of things …. Two copywriters who set out from midtwon Manhatten to drive to California on a single tank of biodiesel didn’t suffer a fuel shortage. While they didn’t set the speed record they had hoped, they made it to their destination on the 50 gallons of fuel in their Volkswagon Jetta’s special tank. Since the route was approximately 3,000 miles, they were able to achieve about 60 miles to the gallon on the trip.

On the super long end of things … John and Helen Taylor, an Australian husband and wife team, who set a Guinness World Record for driving the globe on 24 tanks of fuel in 2006 are still on the road in America, but are very close to the end of their trip. They are attempting to break the current world record for lowest fuel consumption on a drive across the 48 contiguous United States. The current world record for the lowest fuel consumption on a nationwide drive is 51.58 miles per gallon. They are using fossil diesel on their trip, but are practicing “hypermiling” driving techniques designed to stretch a gallon of fuel as far as possible.

Nashville Out of Gas?

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:19:01 +0000

As I was about to hit the close button on my computer this evening, one last message caught my eye. It was the following brief report from CNN, reporting on a rumor from Nashville Tennesee. We’ll see (and report) what comes of it in the calm light of day:

Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy: an estimated three-fourths of gas stations in the Nashville, Tennessee, area ran dry Friday, victim of an apparent rumor that the city was running out of gas.

“Everybody has just gone nuts,” said Mike Williams, executive director of the Tennessee Petroleum Council.
He said he has no idea where the rumor originated that there was going to be no gas in Nashville.

One reporter called him saying she had heard that Nashville would be without gas within the hour, he said.
Hearing the rumor, drivers rushed to fill up their cars and trucks.

Are Road Trips Destined To Go The Way Of Toga Parties?

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:28:35 +0000

I lost track of how many coming of age films I enjoyed during my coming of age that included some character that vaguely resembled John Belushi yelling “road trippppp.” This summer, however, I’ve been reminded nearly every week of how rare that cry has become.

Price pressure at the pump had many more Americans enjoying “staycations” than ever before. In fact, early in the summer, official reports showed travel actually down by nationwide for the first time in over six years. The AAA motor club reports that they expect the trend to continue over the upcoming Labor Day weekend. They forecast nearly 0.9 % fewer trips of 50 miles or more will be taken. That would be the sharpest decline in nearly eight years.

However, the travel drought in America may ease a bit. It may be possible since most parts of the country have enjoyed a minor but persistent drop in gasoline prices over the past three weeks. For many of us, it may indeed be time to hop in the car and take in that last summer festival, or trip to the lake that your family needs.

There are three different online calculators that can help you determine just how much you may need to pay in fuel to take that trip. Armed with the information from any one of them (or all three) ahead of time, you can relax and enjoy the bright blue skies and open road.

BUT WAIT! Before you rush off to input your trip plans, there are a couple of caveats we need to pass along. All three of them, as you will see, will give you slightly different data. None of them alone is likely to answer your question as accurately as you would like as a result. So take their numbers with a pinch of salt and plug them in to your own ongoing gas mileage calculator at home and keep an eye on your in-car calculator to make the adjustments you need for personal accuracy.

The first site online gas mileage calculator we’d like to recommend lives at the AAA site;
http://www.fuelcostcalculator.com Using this calculator is easy enough. You simply input your starting and ending cities along with your make, model and year of manufacture for your car and they’ll tell you what you can expect to spend…sort of. Drawbacks here include the fact that you can only choose major cities as beginning and end destinations. Also, you can’t enter a car’s true age over 10 years.

Las weekend I drove my eldest daughter back to school in Columbia, MO. We live a little north of Rockford, IL and I drove a very old 1995 Toyota Camry (I love it still). I was forced to use Chicago, IL as my closest large city starting point and St Louis, MO as the end point. Unfortunately, that difference meant my trip figures fell short of reality by nearly 95 miles.

I noticed while planning my route on my favorite map site, www.mapquest.com that they now have a button on the top for “gas prices.” It showed a may of my area with a couple of local prices called out for me. As handy as that was, I liked the “gas calculator” link underneath it even more. It popped up a little window that let me input the number of miles in my trip (that I got from their driving directions) and a price per gallon. From that it gave me a total I could expect to spend. Of course, I had done all the work, finding the miles and entering the prices. Also, I wasn’t able to include my car’s mileage figures (which I know are above average).

The third trip calculator aide that’s out there is a site you may already be familiar with. It’s called www.GasBuddy.com and it will let you input the city you plan to visit and find out what the price of gasoline or diesel is there. That’s the other part of the equation I needed for near accuracy on the Mapquest calculator.

Hopefully this combination of tools will help you determine that one final summer road trip is indeed within the budget. We all deserve a little break before the prices begin to climb again, as they are expected to do as the year ends.

Cars Mileage Expressed as MPG or GPM?

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:39:29 +0000

Periodically an argument bubbles to the surface over the fundamentals of how we measure a car’s mileage. The argument is put forth that it makes far more sense to measure fuel use in gallons per mile, versus the miles per gallon we currently use.

A brand new post by Felix Salmon at Market Movers caught my eye (or rather my news alert) this afternoon that proposes just that. Felix talks about a reader who wished his car got 45 miles per gallon instead of 33 miles per gallon. We’re becoming obssessed with gas mileage figures he said, commenting that the whole emphasis is “overrated.”

If we inverted those numbers, you would discover that you burn 3.0 gallons going 100 at 33 mpg. You burn 2.2 gallons going 100 miles at 45 mpg. To Felix that’s a yawn and a “no big deal.” After all, he figures that .8 gallon savings per 100 miles amounts to about $3.00. While he agrees it’s not bad to save $3, he wonders why anyone would want to take any sort of a performance hit to do so. In a related post in June he voted for American automakers to try to build many more attractive cars in the 30-40mpg range than to strive to build one that can go 100mpg.

Unfortunately, Felix is not alone in manipulating mileage gain numbers to suit an agenda. Not only is the gain “only $3.00″ but what is .8 gallons in the grand scheme of the national total of gasoline used?

The answer is “a lot” both to the nation, and to the individuals who may not have the luxury of just driving 100 miles per month (or even week). The average American has a commute of 29.5 miles one way according to fueleconomy.gov. That means they’re burning through that 100 miles every two days. Three dollars two and a half times per week adds up to approximately $30 per month, or $360 per year.

By inverting the calculation from mpg to gallons per mile, you make a very big problem look smaller than it is.

I don’t mean to imply that Felix is not sincere or entitled to his opinion. But more than 28 years of marketing experience kicks in when I see arguments like his put forth. Gently chiding people for their efforts to control even that little cost by suggesting that they should be worried about performance or an attractive appearance more, is a line straight out of the big oil and automakers ad strategy book.

On the other hand, by concentrating on miles per gallon we make very small gains or losses look big. I for one prefer to keep the focus on every little step that can be made towards that far off goal of a car that gets 100 mpg coming out of a mass market automaker. There are already individuals who routinely top 50, 60 or 70 miles per gallon simply by using a set of driving techniques.

For the record, that would be 10.8, 20.8, or 30.8 savings over the 33 miles per gallon many automakers would have us think is “good enough.” Put those numbers in your gas mileage calculator each week and tell me if you think that savings is overrated.

Dropping Gas Prices Won't Last

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:46:56 +0000

Gas prices are down allowing many of us to breathe a small sigh of relief at the thought that our labor day weekend travel plans may not be axed the way our Memorial Day plans were. “Staycations” are no one’s idea of fun.

As a blog editor, I have to ask how we all got so stuck in the complacency boat so fast? Why does a $.25 per gallon drop in gas make us so happy? How does each run up to a round dollar price increase just soften us up for prices that settle and STAY just under that round dollar figure?

Why do I think that’s what’s happened? I watch my blog statistics. I see how many people are visiting everyday. I see what pages they go to and when and where they leave.

Granted, the Gas Mileage Calculators site is young, and traffic is going to be more hit or miss until we have another couple of years online, but similar things are happening at sites devoted to gas prices, gas mileage, and ways to improve gas mileage all across the Internet.

I would be joyful if I could say that indicated a beginning of the end for this blog and the others like it, but I can’t. Unfortunately, we all know that this price drop is temporary. We know that the world’s oil reserves are no where near empty, but that the balance between supply and demand has permanently tipped. We know that higher gas prices are in our future and that those prices are apt to be significantly higher than current levels.

So here at Gas Mileage Calculators we’re going to start marking and monitoring those changes a bit more closely than we have. We will be posting a monthly price snapshot courtesy of AAA Motor Club. While we plan on providing this at the beginning of the month, here’s the mileage chart info we grabbed today so you can see what it will look like. And yes, it will open in a new window, so you don’t need to do anything more than close that window to come back to use those figures in some of the other new (shhh…they’re not quite ready yet) calculators we’ll be offering that will help you improve your gas mileage rates.