Main page | May 13, 2008 »

Backseat Driver: Gas prices at the kitchen table, Volvos and retail cathedrals

Oh for the days of yore when gas was affordable!

Was it just over a fortnight ago that I wrote about getting sticker shock at my local gas station when the price was $3.52 a gallon for regular?

Now it’s $3.75!

And I got another shock last Friday when my American Express bill arrived and found I had spent $400 on gas last month.

Certainly I probably drive more than the average noodle – from Jamestown to Providence and back every day for starters – but that number sure set me back a bit.

In fact, it sent me to the kitchen table with pencil and paper to look over my spending patterns – and I bet there are plenty of you out there doing the same thing.

In my case, it was not a pretty picture, not disastrous, but certainly undisciplined enough wake me up and decide on some changes.

Obviously one immediate step would be to trade in my Volvo station wagon for a smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient car. But I hesitate. With a 5-year-old, I am concerned about safety and know that with him strapped into the jump-seat on the armrest in the middle of the rear seats, he is as safe as he can possibly be. And he likes looking straight out through the gap in the front seats.

If Volvo EVER got its act together and brought over a clean diesel or hybrid, I would be first in line.

(C’mon Ford, we Volvo owners are typically green, liberal and Democratic – and proud of it! Come out with a super-green car and we’d be standing in line around the block.

Instead we have the new XC70 which I mused over the other day until I got to the sticker and saw it gets a combined 17 miles to the gallon. Forgeddaboudit!)

So I will stay with my station wagon with 130,000 miles on it because I frankly cannot afford to get into a new car right now anyway. But I am budgeting for a change next year at the latest and it will certainly be a hybrid or clean diesel – and sadly probably not a Volvo.

But I will be making fewer trips to the big retail warehouses like Walmart, Target and Gosh Knows What. The prices in these places are SO cheap, I always leave thinking what I have saved rather than what I have spent.

Let’s face it, $50 for a $100 bag of stuff I don’t really need is still $50 out of my pocket for a bag of stuff I do not need – and I am congratulating myself for my financial acumen!

Am I a dope or are these halls of consumer delight just brilliant at what they do? Both!

- Peter C.T. Elsworth, pelsworth@projo.com

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 11:33 AM to commentary | Permalink | Comments 0

Toyota delays new U.S. auto plant due to economy

TOKYO — A senior Toyota executive said Monday that plans for a new auto assembly plant in Mississippi are being delayed by worries about slumping U.S. auto sales and a broader U.S. economic slowdown, according to USA Today.

The assembly plant being built in Blue Springs, near Tupelo, Miss., was to be up and running by late 2009 or early 2010, said Toyota Executive Vice President Mitsuo Kinoshita.

That has now been pushed back to mid-2010 after Toyota reviewed the plans and considered signs of a slowdown in the U.S. market, Kinoshita told a small group of reporters at a Tokyo hotel.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 10:36 AM to Toyota | Permalink | Comments 0

High gas prices mean hybrids recoup higher cost in less time

Rising fuel prices and competition among a proliferation of gasoline-electric hybrids have sliced the payback period for hybrids to two or three years in some cases, instead of five years or more that made hybrids harder to justify at lower fuel prices, according to USA Today.

At the same time, increasing interest in hybrids is driving their prices up and eroding their fuel cost-saving benefits.

An analysis for USA TODAY by auto-price consultant Edmunds.com shows that the difference between a Toyota Camry hybrid and a similarly equipped gasoline Camry was $889 Friday, up from $850 a week ago.

Assuming 15,000 miles a year, Edmunds figures just 1.7 years for the Camry hybrid's fuel savings to offset the car's higher price — slightly longer than 1.6 years when the price difference was less a week earlier.

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 10:33 AM to Alternative fuels | Permalink | Comments 0

Gas prices jump another 10 cents

Gas prices in Rhode Island have increased another ten cents in the past week to reach another record high, according to AAA Southern New England and reported on projo.com.

The average price for a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline is $3.709 at the self-service pump, according to AAA's weekly survey. That's 57 cents more than drivers were paying at the beginning of the year.

Diesel fuel drivers are paying even more, an average of $4.46 per gallon.

Meanwhile, oil prices slipped slightly, with light, sweet crude off 65 cents to $125.31 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to the Associated Press.

Oil prices surged nearly $10 last week, touching off concerns about rising prices and their effect on businesses and consumers

Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth  at 10:21 AM to Gas prices | Permalink | Comments 0