When it comes to planning summer trips, my family has been in an ongoing debate between driving and flying. Thankfully, I booked some of the flights before the War in Iran started. The rest of the trips? It seems like they’re going to be costly no matter what I do.
I suppose the silver lining for me is that none of my personal journeys are to California, where gas just shot up to above $6 a gallon. Some of that has to do with the War in Iran and the rest with some quirks specific to California. Average gas prices are up everywhere, of course, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be great for anyone.
The Morning Dump this week has been more dominated by quarterly financial reports than the war, and that includes the first-ever quarterly report from Stellantis. It’s, uh, it’s not great other than a windfall from tariff refunds. Ford’s report shows the company doing better, though it, too, will benefit from getting tariff money back.
You know who did great in Q1? Škoda! I know you’ve all been missing Škoda content.
Welcome To The New Fuel Crisis, Just Like The Old Fuel Crisis
According to GasBuddy, the average price of gas shot up to $4.31 a gallon today. That’s high. That’s the highest it’s been since the last fuel crisis that peaked in 2021 following the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
That’s a national average, though, and your fuel cost is going to depend a lot on where you live and what type of fuel you put into your car. I won’t get into crack spreads, but it’s gonna be a hard and long road for diesel owners for a while.
It’s going to be worse in California. It’s already worse in California, with prices going above $6 a gallon. On a national level, this is a direct result of the Iran War, which was started for… reasons. And while the United States has a lot oil, it’s more complicated than that.
For California, it’s way more complicated as Bloomberg mentions this morning:
California’s product supply is more challenging than for most of the rest of the US. No pipelines carry fuels into the state from the Gulf Coast, and the state has also seen two refineries shuttered since October 2025, eliminating roughly 20% of its capacity.
California is a bit of an energy island, and even if the Strait of Hormuz opens up tomorrow, prices aren’t going to immediately recover, at least according to oil market expert Phillip Verleger on his Substack:
California and the US West Coast can expect gasoline and diesel shortages soon. Extremely high prices (possibly above $10 per gallon) could be coming.
Several refineries in California have closed in the past year. The shutdowns have occurred as the state transitions away from gasoline. The transition is not expected to be easy, however. California Energy Commission Vice Chair Siva Gunda relayed this news to an audience on March 4, as OPIS reported:
“As we go down (in California refining capacity), this is not going to be a smooth transition,” Gunda said. “Demand is falling very smoothly between 1 and 2 percent. But when a refinery leaves, depending on the size of the refinery, it could be 15 percent, so you have that sudden imbalance.”
This is important for consumers, obviously, and for carmakers as well. Stellantis, Ford, and GM are banking on full-size truck sales and large crossovers to be profitable this year. Is that going to happen if $6 gas or $7 diesel becomes the norm outside California?
Stellantis Reports Profitable Q1, Large Tariff Refund
Prior to this year, Stellantis only reported half-year earnings. This means this is the first-ever Q1 report from the massive automaker known as Stellantis. Cool! Even better, the company is profitable:
“As we initiate quarterly reporting, the first three months of 2026 reflect the early results of our actions to return Stellantis to sustainable, profitable growth. The products we launched in 2025 have been well received and we’re confident that the 10 new vehicles planned for 2026 will build on this momentum. Our priority is clear: to put our customers back at the center of everything we do and we look forward to sharing more on this at our Investor Day on May 21 in Auburn Hills.”
Earnings actually beat estimates, in part due to a $450 million tariff refund that the company is expecting this year. A lot of the rest of the growth came from RAM trucks and V8 Dodge Durangos. Why did the market seem to react negatively to this good news? Automotive News explains:
Shares in Stellantis on the Milan stock exchange were down as much as 10 percent in early trading, on weak cash flows and investors’ concerns about the sustainability of the turnaround in the North American market.
Industrial free cash flow was more than €1.9 billion negative in the quarter, although an improvement from a cash burn of more than €3 billion a year earlier.
It was “more negative than expected,” Oddo BHF analyst Michael Foundoukidis said, noting that it only included €700 million in charges out of a total of €1 billion expected for this year.
Stellantis will probably have to do more than pull a rabbit out of a hat one time to move the market.
Ford Also Profitable, Expects A $1.3 Billion Tariff Refund
The biggest tariff refund winner appears to be Ford, which is reporting a $1.3 billion expected return this year.
Our strong first-quarter results and raised full-year guidance reflect the momentum of the Ford+plan,” said Ford President and CEO Jim Farley. “We built the foundation for a more modern, resilient Ford, improving cost and quality and building our world-class team. We are well prepared to deliver for our customers and shareholders as we enter one of the most intensive product, software and physical services rollouts in our history.”
Added Ford CFO Sherry House: “The path to higher margins is clear, and the first-quarter demonstrates those building blocks in action. The strength in the quarter reflects strong execution in our profit pillars, and we remain on track to deliver our full-year cost reductions. When combined with accretive recurring revenue from software and physical services and decisive actions to improve our EV performance, we are driving a fundamentally more profitable business, allocating capital with extreme discipline, protecting our balance sheet, and positioning Ford to deliver consistently higher returns.”
Ford is, comparatively, in better shape than Stellantis. Margins are pointed in the positive direction, there are fewer drags on the business, and F-150 production should be able to kick up in the second half of the year.
Škoda Is The Second Most Popular Brand In Europe This Year
For all the troubles at Volkswagen, its Czech subsidiary Škoda is thriving. Would you believe that it’s the second best-selling brand in all of Europe, behind only Volkswagen and, as of Q1, ahead of Toyota? See, I’m not (that) crazy!
The company is also profitable, and just had its best quarter from a financial standpoint in its history.
“We carried the strong momentum of a record 2025 into the first quarter of 2026 to deliver the highest Q1 operating profit in Škoda Auto’s history. For the first time, Škoda has become Europe’s second best-selling car brand — a milestone we can be proud of in a highly competitive market.
Get down with your bad self, Klaus!
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
You ever discover a musician exists and you can’t imagine how you missed them? My new obsession is the latest album from the Icelandic jazz singer Laufey. That this is a thing, and that it’s apparently a thing popular with teenagers, is fascinating to me. I absolutely love it and have listened to the extended release of the album probably 100 times in the last two weeks. “Silver Lining” is my favorite track, which is very Patsy Cline in the absolutely best way.
The Big Question
How much did your last fill-up cost? If you have an EV, how much for your last full charge?
Top photo: DepositPhotos.com
Fuel in my part of Texas went back up from 3.39 to 3.69/3.79 at our local stations.
We charge our EV at DC fast charge stations almost exclusively. Those stations actually went down a bit in price the past 8 months as more stations opened and more competition has filled out.
I’ve been averaging 3.5-3.6 miles per kWh around town. with a $13 a month Tesla membership i can get prices as low as 16-17 cents a kwh at local stations, but 31 cents in the evening or 38 cents during the day.
I never completely fill the car, but my last 20-80% charge which is about 160 miles around town cost us about $7 with the tesla membership.
so my operating costs are running between 4.8 and 8.8 cents a mile since i avoid using the more expensive chargers that cost 50 cents a kwh or more, which would push my costs to 14.5 cents a mile. but our easiest to get charging usually runs 31 cents a kwh which is the 8.8 cents a mile.
so cost per mile as good as an 75+ mpg vehicle, or as bad as a 25mpg vehicle in my area.
Are you not able to charge at home? I can generally go for ~3¢/mi if I charge at home at southern Indiana prices.
no, i do not have access to home charging, if I did, it would be a bit cheaper still, but not as cheap as what you have access to, rates like that are few and far between.
I paid $2.54 for E85 in my truck the other day, and the price is basically unchanged now even sitting next to $4.99 regular and $5.99 premium.
Kind of crazy that my truck, which will struggle to reach double digit mpg on E85, is arguably the cheapest vehicle to drive per mile that I have right now.
E85! Living the Iowan dream.
Rarely makes financial sense, but when it does, it’s a nice alternative.
Having a stable alternative sounds pretty slick!
It won’t be stable for long. Ethanol prices tend to trail regular gas prices, but they’ll eventually catch up.
Prices for ethanol are based on corn and natural gas prices because those are the inputs. Natural gas is export limited so prices will remain low until heating season. Corn prices are still under $5 per bushel (enough to make 3 gallons) because there is a record amount in storage after farmers did not want to sell last year’s record harvest at a loss. The corn market is still over supplied. Eventually corn farmers are going to plant less acres and apply less fertilizer because of higher fertilizer and fuel prices, but not this year.
There’s no way ethanol prices stay low. They’re leaving money on the table if they continue to massively undercut regular gas.
One could argue that’s war profiteering, but somehow I don’t think anyone is too concerned about being prosecuted for corruption by this DoJ.
“They’re leaving money on the table”
This is assuming that the ethanol refineries were running at maximum capacity before the price spike. They were not. Instead of running at 70% output and making the most per gallon, they can produce more to maximize profit. Even if selling more requires a slightly higher discount, the overall profit is higher.
It is the same for my brother who has a V6 Silverado that he uses to tow his boat.
Kind of crazy that the manufacturers have done a pretty good job of selling trucks that can run E85, but have done a poor job of putting that technology into everything else. The 2026 Chevrolet Trax (and other 1.2L models) can run on E85, because GM decided to turn that part of the software on this year. Small displacement turbo engines are better suited for ethanol’s high octane rating, yet the manufacturers spend more money making it work in a 6.2L 16-valve V8.
I assume they got some sort of credit for doing it on the gas guzzlers.
Yeah exactly. The credit is worth more on low mpg vehicles.
Every car sold in Brazil has to be flex fuel. It is mandatory, so if GM wanted to sell any of their South Korea or Chinese built vehicles there it has to have the software. GM probably still only made small SUVs flex fuel in the US because of the credits, but only after they decided that the cost to obtain the credits was $0.
My Wife had the felx fuel option in her old 200S, it seemed odd to go the E85 route due to fuel economy differences, but we did on occasion do it. however, it was even more odd that the car ran particularly better on E85 as far as overall feel and strangely transmission engagement. I cannot and never did figure out why, but it made for trips into Gods country, aka Nebraska/Iowa much simpler as E15 and E85 were cheaper and seemingly more plentiful at the pumps.
My last petrol top-up was €44.61 for 22.95 litres of E5 95-octane (RON) petrol, for a price of €2.119 per litre. That was about two weeks ago.
wait, there’s an effective cash discount / card-penalty when buying fuel from Chevron? that’s well bonks
Most gas stations have that, at least as long as I remember. I get the cash price with my debit card at most stations
The corvette cost about $45 for 13ish gallons of gas, and that is with Safeway’s full dollar discount. If I don’t look at my wallet I should be able to afford to drive for another 3 and a half days with how much that thing chugs gasoline.
Currently two EVs, though one will be replaced with a PHEV soon.
Today’s charging totaled 21.7 kWh. I think our rate is around $0.09/kWh, so $2.
Per my charger’s stats, our days fluctuate between 5 kWh & 23 kWh depending on how annoying our days go (3 kids).
Last “fill-up” was topping of the Bolt last night. 25.9 kWh x $0.09 per kWh = $2.33. At 3.8 miles per kWh that will take me 98 miles. That comes in at 2.4 cents per mile
Last gasoline fill-up for the TSX was last Saturday. 13.859 gallons x $4.669 per gallon = $64.71. At 28 mpg that will take me 388 miles. That comes in at 16.7 cents per mile.
The 58 gallon tank on the ambulance was filled with diesel before this whole mess kicked off.
You can guess which vehicle we drive most.
Oddly, many Phoenix gas stations are starting to come down by a few cents, but still higher than the national average, due to 40-45% of our gas coming from California. It’s quite annoying to see gas prices in Flagstaff much cheaper than Phoenix!
Central CA coast here. Three stations showed $5.95 to $5.99 today as I drove past in our 11 year old Fusion PHEV running on battery through town. The Maverick hydrid sits with a quarter tank, and only short runs when needed.
This tells me it’s only going up, so should I fill up before it gets worse?
It’s honestly hard to guess. I’ve definitely heard multiple times that there’s more restriction coming down the pipeline because various buffers are getting low, but I haven’t seen detailed data. It’s also heavily influence by international relations, which are currently unusually subject to the whims of one person whose favorite strategy is brinkmanship and unpredictability. If it goes up a bit more it could end up spiking harder due to hoarding and fears it’ll go even higher, or drop because it’s so high for so long that we see significant demand destruction.
All that said, yeah, I filled the truck up a couple days ago as a hedge since we’ve got a couple travel trailer trips planned over the next few months.
We’re low enough the Maverick needs fuel so going to bite the bullet and do a half tank. I really never considered an EV before (a hybrid or phev, ok) but they are looking pretty good right now.
My last fill up for my CNG Civic was $27.18 at $5.699 per GGE [gallon of gas equivalent]. My fill ups are usually only 5-6 GGE, the max that you can supposedly cram in the high pressure tanks is only 8 GGE. The pricing has not moved recently at the nearest CNG stations for a while (Oakland, CA airport area and Port of Oakland area). I used to fill up near SFO as that was more like $3.499/GGE, but then the price went up to ~ $4.59/GGE, so it wasn’t worth the extra miles any more. But weekly fill ups get me through my typical commute, ~34 miles round trip, 4 days per week (10 hour days), low to mid 30s on the mpg equivalent, depending on how much stop and go I have to do.
The Bay Bridge toll, now $8.50 a pop, costs me more than my fuel cost.
Gas at $4.38 at the station up the road. I work from home 90% of the time and drive a Camry Hybrid otherwise. Partner has an older Corolla still getting 33 mpg or so. Daugher owns a Prius and drives the most. The Highlander sits unless needed (PS Mercedes – thanks for the solat battery charger tip).
The most important thing – they are all paid off.
My diesel truck has been painful. With the 40+ gallon tank my recent fill ups are all over $200