[onlooker]

Just posing this question because it seems to be that we are perilously close to the point when the limitation of the production and supplying of oil world-wide will have to distort the economies and economic priorities of the richer countries including the US. Taking into account the great amount of people who drive in the US and the fact that some of the driving is superfluous, I am wondering how long can US consumers/drivers continue to drive anywhere near as much as they do currently? Another way also of posing this question is when do people see gasoline prices rising to $ 4 per gallon or 5 or even more?

[jjhman]

Just looking at the news tonite I'd have to answer "never". Thousands of cars, total gridlock and everyone acting as if it's the most normal thing in the world. I talked to a buddy of mine this afternoon who stopped at a Chevy dealer. Most new trucks were over $50,000 and they seem to be selling like hotcakes.

This driving scenario is insane, people sitting on a multi-billion dollar road in a multi-thousand dollar, multi-thousand pound thing pouring CO2 into the atmosphere from burning a finite resource. EVery time gasoline drops 10% truck/SUV sales skyrocket and they give away Priuses. Gas goes up 10% they can't sell trucks and mark up the hybrids 10% over invoice.

The scary thing is that I'm starting to think I'm the boy who cried wolf. So many of us keep saying it can't last but it keeps lasting.

[PeterEV]

If you assume that we all will continue to drive internal combustion engine vehicles (ICE) and only ICE cars, the time will be "soon". But that is not what is happening. We are going to electric forms of transportation.

If you take into consideration the alternatives such as EVs, bicycles, mass transits, we just might transition to a saner economy. In other words, I think we will see a dance between the costs of FF, costs of electricity, costs of EVs, costs of alternative forms of transportation and what consumers can afford. Here is some reference material and number crunches:

One-, two-, and three-hundred mile range EVs are scheduled to be produced before 2020 where the replacement packs are paid for by the difference in PV array electricity and the **replacement** cost of the oil used to make the gasoline (or diesel). For instance, if Bakken crude needs $80/barrel oil prices to continue drilling, that translates into approximately $4 a gallon gasoline. If a PV array can produce electricity for $0.10/kwhr, a 30 mile trip costs $1.00 in electricity. If a person drives 9,000 miles a year, that's 300 - 30 mile trips with a delta of $3.00 ($4-$1) or a $900 savings in "fuel". The replacement cost of a Leaf is $6,000. The break even point is $6000/$900/yr or 6.7 years; 1.3 years under the warranty of 8 years and 40K miles under the 100K warranty.

EV producers would be smart to focus on the replacement cost of gasoline instead of the refueling station cost.

This is sort of a "breakthrough" in the PV industry:
https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/rese ... cells.html
http://www.financialsense.com/contribut ... solar-cell
a process that produces solar cells at lower temps and with less silicon. There is a press release saying the cells are 20% efficient which is what Musk's Solar City was mentioning the other day when he said his new cell were 30 to 40% more efficient than previous cells [assuming older PV cells with 15% efficient cells].

Here is a podcast on the future of the grid:
http://peakoil.com/consumption/limits-on-the-grid
It appears that the electrical utility industry can be stable with 80% renewables in the mix.

Toyota aims to nearly eliminate gasoline cars by 2050
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-toyota-aim ... -cars.html
The big automakers are signaling that we're now officially at the end of the ICE era and that the transition to a post-ICE world has begun.

When they killed the EVs back in the early 2000s (see the movie: "Who Killed the Electric Car" for a perspective on the situation) and started on the hydrogen fuel cell kick, I was really worried that they had lost their marbles. In retrospect, I think it was just a feign to let GM continue to sell more spark plugs, oil changes, and fan belts with hopes that a miracle would happen and they could eventually sell hydrogen like gasoline. Today, I think we all recognize the seriousness of our transportation fuels situation and sharp folks are looking and planning toward 2050 and beyond. We just aren't being cc'ed on their emails but every once in a while, they let us know what they are doing so.

[GregT]

One-, two-, and three-hundred mile range EVs are scheduled to be produced before 2020 where the replacement packs are paid for by the difference in PV array electricity and the **replacement** cost of the oil used to make the gasoline (or diesel).

The lesson to be learned here? If you believe the above to be true, plant your gardens 350 miles away from the cities. In reality, a four day walk away, will suffice.

[GHung]

There's plenty of oil. I'll stop driving my truck when you pry the steering wheel from my cold...dead...hands.

[frankthetank]

If you drive in reverse you use negative gasoline...

A buddy in high school had the plastic missing on his gauge clusters (old junker bronco)..i looked over one day and noticed we were on E and said "You better fill up"... he took his finger and moved the fuel needle over to F ...he goes"full tank now"...

Don't fight it ..if you need to drive..drive. This is the Titanic and there aren't any life boats. Full speed ahead.

[dolanbaker]

If you drive in reverse you use negative gasoline...

A buddy in high school had the plastic missing on his gauge clusters (old junker bronco)..i looked over one day and noticed we were on E and said "You better fill up"... he took his finger and moved the fuel needle over to F ...he goes"full tank now"...

Don't fight it ..if you need to drive..drive. This is the Titanic and there aren't any life boats. Full speed ahead.

My sister had a car a bit like that once, the fuel gauge was so inaccurate that she once ran out when it read 3/4 full!

[Outcast_Searcher]

If you drive in reverse you use negative gasoline...

A buddy in high school had the plastic missing on his gauge clusters (old junker bronco)..i looked over one day and noticed we were on E and said "You better fill up"... he took his finger and moved the fuel needle over to F ...he goes"full tank now"...

Don't fight it ..if you need to drive..drive. This is the Titanic and there aren't any life boats. Full speed ahead.

My sister had a car a bit like that once, the fuel gauge was so inaccurate that she once ran out when it read 3/4 full!

Did the odomoter work? It doesn't exactly take integral calculus to keep your eye on the odometer and fill up when the tank is likely half empty. Not sure about the car's MPG? Guessing conservatively will ensure the tank has gas.

[dolanbaker]

If you drive in reverse you use negative gasoline...

A buddy in high school had the plastic missing on his gauge clusters (old junker bronco)..i looked over one day and noticed we were on E and said "You better fill up"... he took his finger and moved the fuel needle over to F ...he goes"full tank now"...

Don't fight it ..if you need to drive..drive. This is the Titanic and there aren't any life boats. Full speed ahead.

My sister had a car a bit like that once, the fuel gauge was so inaccurate that she once ran out when it read 3/4 full!

Did the odomoter work? It doesn't exactly take integral calculus to keep your eye on the odometer and fill up when the tank is likely half empty. Not sure about the car's MPG? Guessing conservatively will ensure the tank has gas.

It did, but after that incident she just stuck in a few litres every time the gauge moved off the full mark, until the car was scrapped!

[ennui2]

There's plenty of oil. I'll stop driving my truck when you pry the steering wheel from my cold...dead...hands.

That's a pretty backwards attitude to have. Any ecological guilt over that statement?

[dinopello]

Perhaps when the true cost of the drive-in utopia gets paid by the users.

A report published earlier this year confirms, in tremendous detail, a very basic fact of transportation that’s widely disbelieved: Drivers don’t come close to paying for the costs of the roads they use. Published jointly by the Frontier Group and the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, “Who Pays for Roads?” exposes the myth that drivers are covering what they’re using.

The conventional wisdom of road finance is that there is a shortfall of revenue—that the country needs more money to pay for maintenance and repair and for new construction. But the huge subsidy to car use has another equally important implication: because user fees are set too low, and because, in essence, people are being paid to drive more, there is excess demand for the road system.

Our DOT is looking to toll more roads in the HOT method where you only pay if you don't have 2-3 or more in your car. This gets money to pay for maintenance and creates a free market based incentive (tolls go up during periods of high demand). But the drivers who are used to "Free Stuff" paid for by the rest of us are really upset

“This is highway robbery,” said Del. David LaRock (R-33rd), whose district is centered in western Loudoun County. “And while you sit in traffic, [McAuliffe will] take your dollars and use them to buy bike paths for folks [in the inner suburbs] to use on the weekend. The vast majority of people who pay this outrageous toll – folks from Loudoun, Clarke, Frederick and Fairfax – would get absolutely nothing from it.”

Nothing from it? How about the stupid road, you moron.

Lots of opposition really - the liberals don't like it because it is a regressive tax (i.e. poor people pay a greater percentage of their income) and the conservatives don't like it because they like their free stuff that other people pay for.

[dinopello]

Bike paths for god's sake What will those liberuls think of next? We have important stuff to do with our cars and trucks. We have to go to the mall and shop. We need to drag the bass boat to the reservoir. Where's my fifth wheel? I'm gonna run them down

The bike path talking point is not even true. Those people can't believe it costs actual money to maintain their beloved roads. They think the asphalt fairy sprinkles roadway over all the poor neighborhoods just for them.

[vtsnowedin]

The asphalt fairy sprinkles roadway right up their double-wide lol

A lot of those double-wides are paid for along with the the pickup truck and the four wheeler in the back.
When prices rise once again driving miles and gas consumption will drop off, First the unnecessary trips and then one trade in at a time and finally by moves closer to the job and or public transportation. Just don't expect it to happen with gas at $2.19/ gallon.
Right now most show up at work driving their own truck but I've seen times when gas was high that four guys would show up crammed into an old Toyota Corolla.
Point being that Americans are making rational decisions based on their personal conditions and will make changes when those conditions change.

[ROCKMAN]

"Drivers don’t come close to paying for the costs of the roads they use." Of course drivers (and folks whose lives depend upon vehicle delivered commodities and services) pay for road repair via ALL the taxes they pay...not just motor fuel taxes. The streets belong to the public. All the public...not just the drivers. So why shouldn't the public cover 100% of that cost whether they drive a vehicle or not? One may not drive a vehicle but they can still derive significant benefit: like the benefit a non-driver gets by being hauled down a public road in an ambulance after they have had a heart attack. In fact, the only folks that might be classified as street "freeloaders" are the ones who pay no taxes at all.

I think the politically correct term is "the commons". LOL.

[AgentR11]

Point being that Americans are making rational decisions based on their personal conditions and will make changes when those conditions change.

I'd have to second this, and also note that people make adaptions along a fairly wide range of options; but that first step of being conscious of superfluous trips happens pretty quick; somewhere in that $3-4 range folks start noticing and start weighing the cost of any particular drive. That really did surprise me. People responding to a change in price before that change in price really changed its significance in the overall cost of owning and operating an automobile. I can only wonder that a move to $5+ would drastically reduce driven miles, and in so doing wreck demand, and cause the price to collapse again; creating a kind of hard ceiling to the price of oil. I don't see that dynamic changing anytime in the near future.

[ROCKMAN]

BTW: search the web - heard on the radio this morning that US driving stats are starting to show the anticipated significant increase as opposed to when it will "markedly slow".

[dinopello]

Millennials to blame for unsafe roads.

Despite the massive government subsidies poured into the roads system to encourage as much driving as possible, millennials are not driving enough nor are they driving enough gas-guzzling big vehicles.

“In the simplest terms, millennials are driving less than older motorists did when they came of age — and when they do get behind the wheel, they are generally in smaller, more fuel-efficient cars,” according to the report.

Between 2001 and 2009, the average number of miles driven by 16 to 34 year olds dropped by 23 percent, due to young people taking fewer trips, shorter trips and a larger share of trips by modes other than driving, according to an October 2014 report by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Frontier Group.

And when they do drive, they are driving the smaller, more fuel-efficient cars that are available today — compared to the cars available to previous generations at the same age — and also taking advantage of the rise of car-share and ride-sharing programs.