When I write The Morning Dump I never shy away from politics, because cars are inherently political. I do, however, try not to be partisan. Car enthusiasm is one of the last, best ways we have to get people of various beliefs and backgrounds together, and The Autopian is for everyone.
It can be hard sometimes, and I usually have David or Jason around to do a read of what I write to see if I’ve done a good job of not making it seem like my beliefs are, in some way, being presented as everyone’s belief. They’re both out and the news is extremely political. I’ll do my best. I also hope you’ll do your best in the comments to keep it all productive.
Gas prices are elevated and, likely, will stay elevated for the near future. Americans will continue to pay more and more for healthcare and never do anything about it, but gas prices are somehow sacrosanct. One proposal is to reduce the federal gas tax which, on its own, isn’t likely to do much.
You know what’s great timing? The Secretary of Transportation went on a seven-month road trip with his family ostensibly paid by the same companies he regulates, and the message is basically: Gas up the car and go for a drive. Great timing, dude!
Maybe it’s the right time for an electric Volkswagen Golf? Nope! The electric Golf has been pushed out until at least 2028. That’s better than Mazda, which is putting out its first dedicated, non-Chinese-built EV until at least 2029.
Lowering The Federal Gas Tax Doesn’t Solve Many Problems, But It Sure Creates Some New Ones
My theory on the psychology of gas prices, which applies to eggs and milk, is that the numbers are small enough and seen frequently enough that human beings can’t avoid being upset about it. If the price of a hip surgery goes up by $30,000 you’re probably not getting hip surgeries frequently enough to know that’s happening. Unless you drink a truly frightening amount of milk, an extra $1 a gallon is probably not as damaging to your finances as $100 monthly increase in rent, but the milk feels worse. It feels like a betrayal.
One day you go to the gas station and it costs you $82 to fill up your car, compared to the $51 you spent last time. That’s what happened to me this weekend and it felt bad.
I remember going to a gas station in California a few years ago during the height of gas prices out there and I saw one of those stickers with the president on it and it said “I did that.” It irked me, mostly because I didn’t think President Biden was responsible for invading Ukraine. Those stickers have returned, this time with a different president, and under very different circumstances.
Clearly, President Trump is bothered by the higher gas prices, and both he and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have come out in support of lowering the gas tax for a bit, as CBS News reports:
“I think it’s a great idea,” the president said. “Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”
To clarify, since the early 1990s, the gas tax has been $0.184 per gallon of gasoline and $0.244 per gallon of diesel. State and local governments, though, tend to add a lot more than that. In Illinois, for instance, the combined gasoline tax is nearly $0.85 when all taxes are added up. If you managed to lower all of the gas taxes, it would, in theory, help lower some costs. Current estimates are anywhere from $0.10 to $0.15 a gallon, which isn’t a ton, but isn’t nothing.
In practice, it’s a little harder to say what the outcome will be. Energy economist Phillip Verleger calls it the “Gasoline Tax Hoax” because of how supply and demand actually works.
One can also offer an extreme example in which, say, the state of Rhode Island decides to subsidize gasoline to bring prices there down to $1 per gallon in a world of $4.50-per-gallon gasoline. Gasoline sales in Rhode Island would surge, while gasoline purchases in neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts would drop. Assuming suppliers could adjust the supply distribution to keep the tanks in Rhode Island full, there would be a minimal impact on national consumption, and consumers who could get to Rhode Island would see the price cut benefit.
The situation would be different, though, if the cut that brought prices to $1 per gallon were extended to all consumers. The resulting 75-percent decline in nationwide prices would boost national consumption by perhaps as much as six percent, based on the very low short-run price elasticity of demand.
However, a problem would quickly arise unless suppliers could boost supplies by six percent. If not, prices would quickly jump back to $4 per gallon. Refiners and marketers would pocket the government subsidy.
So not only might fuel prices not drop, we may also end up using roads more at time when the suspension of the gas tax means billions and billions of dollars are no longer there to fund road or transit projects. It’s good for oil companies, sure, but we’re just giving them a temporary handout while requiring either more debt or more taxes in the future to pay for roads, which just creates more problems down the line.
I think the appeal for both Congress and the White House is that it at least gives the appearance of doing something. Oh, hey, speaking of doing something. I wonder what the Secretary of Transportation has been up to lately?
The Secretary Of Transportation Launches Road Trip Reality Show At Basically Worst Time
Full disclosure: I always seem to have a trouble with the current Secretary of Transportation, no matter who that is, and it generally has nothing to do with their politics. If you asked me to tell you the last time we had a good, Senate-appointed Secretary of Transportation (I’m excusing acting directors), I’d maybe have to say Rodney Slater, way back when I was 14. If you’re gonna argue for Norman Mineta… I’ll maybe also accept that argument.
I think we need to fundamentally fix and improve our national transportation system, which would require a kind of strong vision that helped create the interstate system we associate with President Eisenhower. In this way, I’m usually disappointed, because most of them accomplish very little.
Our current Secretary Transportation, the former reality TV star Sean Duffy, has at least found a way to make many, many people mad.
As you can see in the trailer above, the Secretary of Transportation and his TV host wife, as well as their kids, have been making a reality TV show around going on a lot of road trips for, as the Department of Transportation calls it, “an unforgettable civic experience as they rediscover the people and places defining our national identity for America’s 250th birthday.”
I’m not entirely sure that the initial instinct here is entirely bad. Road trips are awesome, and for the 250th, taking a road trip or two in order to promote American tourism seems fine. I’m dragging my own kid, via car and rail, out to various historic places and national parks.
It’s the extreme, reality TV version of it that seems to be making people mad. There is no Secretary of Transportation in history that I’d want to watch spend seven months going on road trips. Well, maybe William Thaddeus Coleman Jr., but even then it’s a stretch.
Clearly, the timing is not great, and you can see it in the comments of the YouTube trailer, which include gems such as:
I’m Retired Navy. I’m lucky I have enough gas to get groceries.
And:
While planes were crashing, air traffic controllers and TSA not getting paid, airport lines in chaos, airlines going bankrupt, and gas prices exploding, our Transportation Secretary was on a SEVEN MONTH LONG road trip with his family filming a reality show?
To Secretary Duffy’s credit, this thing has been filming so long that gas prices were probably way lower when he, say, drove out to hang out with Kid Rock, which is something every Cabinet member has to do for some reason. Also, the government did not foot the bill for this, according to the Department of Transportation. Who did? NPR has some details:
Those involved say production costs were covered by a nonprofit by the same name, The Great American Road Trip Inc. Its public list of sponsors is stacked with travel-related companies — like Toyota, Boeing and United Airlines — with ties to the Department of Transportation, raising more questions.
On Monday, the nonprofit government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, accusing Duffy of violating federal gift and travel rules, and calling on the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General to investigate.
“You have everyday Americans who are struggling with the price of gas, struggling with the costs of everyday items, and you have the cabinet secretary announcing that he is going on a trip with his entire family, which appears to have been funded by the industries that his department is overseeing,” CREW president Donald Sherman tells NPR.
The interesting conundrum here is: Is it worse to have taxpayers pay for the vacation, or worse to have companies regulated by the Secretary of Transportation pay for the vacation?
Volkswagen Confirms The Electric Golf Isn’t Coming Soon
It’s been a wild ride for the electric Volkswagen Golf. Early last year, the conversation was whether or not the electric Golf GTI should have fake shifts, and by the end of the year the discussion was whether or not Volkswagen could even afford to build it.
According to CEO Thomas Schäfer in this Autocar article, it’s gonna be a hot minute before we get the electric Golf:
Schäfer told the FT’s Future of the Car event in London this morning: “We have a fantastic line-up now that we do not need an electric Golf in 2028. We are well set with what we have in our portfolio with our vehicles.”
Volkswagen’s existing EV line-up will be joined this year by a new range of electric models that include the new ID Polo, updated ID 3 Neo and incoming ID Cross. Schäfer’s comments suggest the Golf EV’s later-than-expected launch is partly tactical to give these new arrivals some market exposure before the first electric version of its most popular and well-known model is launched.
However, another reason, he hinted, was a further delay to the SSP platform that will underpin the Golf EV. The new architecture will form the basis of the next-generation of Volkswagen Group vehicles and Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume previously claimed it would bring price parity between ICE and EV models.
The first SSP cars will probably be Porsche and Audi, but until Volkswagen gets the scale it needs, the math just doesn’t work.
Mazda Doesn’t Have To Take An EV Write-Down Because It Didn’t Spend That Much
Mazda, smartly, did not put too many eggs in the EV egg basket, and is now delaying its global EV plans to 2029 while it focuses on hybrids. It’ll still sell Chinese-built EVs like the Mazda 6e, but it’s seeing more growth in hybrids, so that’s where the money is going.
Also, as Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro points out (via Automotive News), by being late Mazda didn’t have to take a multibillion dollar hit to its bottom line:
“Did we have to impair or write off any facilities? We have not,” Moro said May 12, while announcing the Japanese carmaker’s financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31.
“We made the decision before we started. For battery EVs we were always careful.”
Mazda Motor Corp., a self-described “intentional follower” on EVs, trailed global rivals in developing the technology, partly because of its limited R&D budget and partly out of prudence. But being late allows Mazda to sidestep the billions of dollars in wasted investment claimed by such rivals as Honda Motor Co., General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis.
Decade of the Hybrid, et cetera.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
There are a lot of incredible MTV Unplugged performances, and it’s hard to pick out a favorite, but “Down in a Hole” by Alice in Chains is surely up there.
The Big Question
Do you have any big road trips planned?
Top photo: Deposit Photos
I’m gonna rant about federal excise taxes in a separate post.
It’s beyond obscene that they’ve remained where they are for as long as they have. We should not only have at minimum tripled them, we should’ve used a substantial–yeah, enough to make people who deliberately choose gas guzzlers to pwn the libs cry big tears–percentage for mass transit.
But I’m not benevolent dictator of the planet nor even this puny Republic of mine.
So seriously who gives a flying monkey fornication whether Preznit Droolmouth orders this deck-chair re-arrangement or not?
TBQ: Only possible road trips this year will be not-big. Already have air tix both domestic and foreign.
The cost of petrol really didn’t factor in our decisions to fly. We’re just at the point where the domestic travel would entail two overnights each way, and that seems more trouble than it’s worth.
TBQ: No real road trip this summer, but in the fall, planning to fly out east and drive around MA, NH, and ME. I am definitely biking to work more, instead of driving, but I would do that anyway when the weather is this nice, and for our next trip back to IL we will probably take my wife’s car.
Last year, I figured my wife and I each bought about 3-400 gallons of gas. Given the current price increase of $1.20 compared to last year I expect gas will cost about $850 more this year. In that regard gas isn’t exactly like eggs or milk which even when they were more expensive, probably only cost an extra $50/year.
Yep, me and the missus are going to head out to Nova Scotia (from Montreal) in August to visit friends and do the Oak Island tour. Very anxious to see how our new EV4 GT-Line does on its first real long haul trip vs my experiences flogging the old Model 3 Performance all around the continent.
Ooh, nice. Very fond memories of a trek from NJ to Saint John; don’t know if your route will take you that way (and ferry across Fundy). But give my regards if it does.
Interesting that you mention that, I was toying with taking the Fundy ferry from NB to NS instead of the longer road route… doesn’t really save any time and def costs more, but would add a fun (fundy?) twist to the trip.
As someone who satisfied a long-simmering wish to ride what is a similar length ferry–Lewes, Delaware to Sandy Hook, NJ–I say go for it. (I’d made at least a half-dozen treks between NYC and DC metro areas before. It added a fair amount of time but it was absolutely worth it.)
This trip was a very long time ago. Mostly I remember freaking out somewhere in Delaware because I heard the Fine Young Cannibals covering what I thought was a pretty damn obscure Buzzcocks tune and had one of those “pull over onto the shoulder to finish listening” moments.
1989, I guess.
LOL, I’d have done the same 🙂
My best ferry rides were to and from Newfoundland, on bikes that time. Outbound was a 2 hour haul from Blanc-Sablon QC to St-Barbe NL on a beautiful summer day, and the return was an epic 7 hour overnighter from Port-aux-Basque NL to North Sydney NS (thankfully we had the sleeper cabin). That one was more like a cruise ship than a ferry, the bikes looked lost deep inside its cavernous belly.
Ever fallen in love?
With someone I shouldn’t have?
Who hasn’t?
That’s what made it brilliant.
Pete got inspiration from watching _Guys and Dolls_, btw.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ever_Fallen_in_Love_(With_Someone_You_Shouldn%27t%27ve)
The younger version of me absolutely did, more than a few times, sorry to say.
Must be why I identified so much with his music as an adolescent/young adult, and why I still love it today, but more as a goalpost of how I’ve evolved since then.
But, man! Listening to his stuff occasionally now will take me right back to that era of me and it always makes me smile. 🙂
I am driving our family to Florida this weekend for our annual trip to some destination in Florida (I wish we could just fly to some part of Mexico but whatever, my in-laws watch too much Fox news). Gas prices suck for sure but hotels for some reason are very pricey nowadays, anything under $150 is a bad brand or very small rooms or ammenities.
I will keep the cruise control under 75mph for sure to keep the fuel consumption above 28mpg in our pacifica hybrid.
Beyond the usual piles of miles for work, I’ve been back and forth to the next state west every other week, if not weekly, helping a sibling move/clean out/clean up and list the long-time family home, so it’s been an extra 600 miles nearly every week in the car so far this year. With the most recent set of big fuel price spikes, I’ve reluctantly switched to E85, since one of my cars is compatible. The rest of the cars in the fleet have basically been parked. With careful shopping, I’ve been able to buy E85 in the $2.15-3/gallon range in the midwest/plains states, so I’m “ahead” about 30% (half-price compared to premium unleaded, even at Costco, but subtracting the usual 20-22% hit on fuel mileage). Roadtrips for fun? There might be a few weekend sorts of trips in the midwest, but I’m not counting on it right now.
I’m also considering stocking up a bit on motor oils, as I’m guessing that prices on that are also going to start climbing soon.
Temporarily repealing the federal tax is symbolic and stupid. I saw $6.00/gallon regular in Hampton Oregon a couple of weeks ago, but gasded up in Burns with Chevron rewards for $4.49. We’re at the Oregon coast right now and grumbling at $6 a gallon premium but 8 gallons in the Fiat 500 beats 18 gallons in the F150.
Also 40-45mpg versus 17mpg.
Mazda has made smart moves, although reviews of the CX-5 hybrid said the Toyota power train was meh compared to Skyactiv. On the other hand sourcing hybrid technology from Toyota saves R&D and gets class leading tech for people who see cars as appliances.
0.18 per gallon… I typically buy 10-12 gallons of gas a week (short commute), so I’ll try not to spend that $2 all in one place.
I’m so damn tired of this stupidity…
Eastern and Western Oregon have different prices because Eastern Oregon gets their refined products from a pipeline from the plains. Western Oregon all comes through ports on ships.
I live in Bend so Costco is my baseline, and I expect gas to be more expensive in a single pump place in the middle of nowhere. I know a gasoline tanker driver in Portland so I can probably get details
I use Loves because they are on major interstates and have locations in Eastern Oregon. I’ve seen gas in Baker City as much as 75 cents cheaper a gallon that Troutdale.
I buy most of my gas at Costco but there are no Costcos in Eastern Oregon.
My wife, daughter, and sister had hatched a plan to drive my mom over 3 days to see my sister. But then she fell down and banged herself up pretty good. Still doesn’t want to fly because she thinks it will crash. It’s sort of up in the air now. I’ve slowly convinced my daughter she needs to rid of her stupid Forester and she now will accept some kind of bev mainly because my wife drives a leaf around and loves it. So will probably swap it for a solterra or niro or similar and they will use that if we go.
If I can get my Fiat in reasonable order, I’m hoping to drive 350ish miles up to Lime Rock for the Autopian members’ track day. If not, I may still go in the Maverick.
The annual family road trip to Maine is coming up soon, so that’s going to be spendy, but the reservations have been made for so long that it would be a shame to cancel. I had planned to fly back up there for another brief trip later in the year; I haven’t looked at ticket prices lately though.
I had to travel for work last month, and for the first time in the 19 years I’ve been here I found that most of the good flight options were priced out of the range set by corporate.
Friend of mine has to fly to ME this weekend for a funeral. It was definitely “hold onto your wallet”. The airlines are very obviously cutting back on flights too – my next few work trips have been PACKED even more so than usual, and fewer choices and smaller airplanes.
TBQ:
I have two on my radar right now.
Solo Asheville to Cincinnati to Huntsville to Asheville. Pretty manageable legs, and am thinking of camping out of my Jeep in Cincinnati. Plus the Huntsville part is for work, so some of it I can expense.
Then later in the summer, I’d like to do AVL to Cincinnati to Chicago to the UP then back to AVL. That is less defined right now, but around 30 hours round trip. I would like to do the Chicago to UP leg in my Dad’s 73 Corvette, but it depends on when he finishes the garage at his lake house. That would be a rough 5.5 hours. It runs about 3000 rpm at highway speeds, and went through about 3/4 of a tank of premium in 130 miles when I drove it over the weekend. It also vibrates quite a bit at those speeds, but we might be able to calm those down some.
TBQ – I have several.
Driving from SC to WDW and back at the end of the month, with a roof box on the Explorer. The 3.5EB is a gas hog, I expect 14-15mpg in this configuration.
We are also planning a trip to WI – round trip flying is looking about break-even from CLT–>ORD than driving the Explorer if It was a solo trip. But with a wife and two kids, flying is 4x the cost of the fuel in the Ford.
Also planning a cruise in mid-October, which requires a repeat of the WDW drive above. I also also try to get up to Vermont annually – that is falling to the wayside this year…
Big road trip plans this summer. Flying to Utah for a wedding, then stealing a car from a family member and taking it to either Washington state and then up into Canada, or to Monterey CA and then up the coast and hitting all the national parks in the area ending in Oregon before heading back to Utah. Still TBD whether we can afford the gas for these though so it might not happen. Both would be about 3k miles, and we were budgeting like $800 for gas. It’s now looking more like $1500…
My wife and I are currently planning a European motorcycle trip for September. Pick up a BMW K1600 in Austria and then hit some of the passes in Switzerland and Italy before turning East and looping into Slovenia, Slovakia, and Czech Republic.
TBQ: I was originally going on a weekend trip to drive around SE Ohio, but work priorities have me coming in Saturday Morning instead. I will still be road tripping to Indy for the 500 and Mid-Ohio for that IndyCar Grand Prix. An 800-mile round trip to take the kiddos to see Gigi and Papa in Wisconsin will be taken in July. I’m sure at some point I will be doing a day trip to Tail of the Dragon too, just waiting on my friend to finish fixing his car first, since he and I try to go at least once a year.
The raise in fuel prices sucks, however last year I went from commuting 150 miles a day to just 3 miles a day. So, I’m lucky this spike isn’t hurting yet. What will really suck is to see the second and third order effects on everything else getting exponentially more expensive as the year goes on since transportation prices directly affect everything, not to mention all of the oil that is used to make everything.
My usual annual migration to Maine in July. Though given my new house here in God’s Waiting Room, FL is supposed to finally be done sometime in July, it will likely be just a couple weeks. I have to be up there for a week for a work event in MA, so work is paying me what a flight and parking would have cost for driving my own car.
Bringing yet another wagon-load of stuff south, and hopefully, in my 328!, which will be moving to it’s new southern home, while my Mercedes is sold off in New England.
Ultimately, there is a heck of a difference between the gas price spike under Biden and this one under Trump. Biden really had nothing at all to do with the pandemic recovery spike, but this one is 10000% on Trump being an absolute moron. I am fond of saying there is no gas price knob in the Oval Office – but there absolutely is one in the Pentagon called “let’s start a war in the Middle East” that has a DIRECT effect on gas prices. But oddly enough, “rich” dude doesn’t care.
It really is time to eat the rich.
Rich dude who doesn’t even drive, no less. I don’t think he drove before he was president either.
No, he did, when he was younger and not decrepit. He even had a Lamborghini Diablo at one point, as every rich douchebag about town seems to.
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/2018/01/11/tbt-when-donald-trump/7783157007/
Even pumped his own gas!
There might not be a gas price knob in the Oval, but there certainly is a knob in there.
He’d have to get a lot better to merely be a knob.
TBQ: My wife and I were planning a road trip through CA and OR this Summer, but ended up switching to an all-inclusive beach resort and plane tickets for about the same price. Fuel costs and lodging would tip the scales in favor of the latter.
You know what the common factor in both these scenarios is? A high ranking government official taking a vacation paid for by someone else. It shouldn’t have happened, period.
I’m seriously concerned about my usual road trip later this summer. I hitch up my camper, tow it halfway across the country to a campsite in the middle of nowhere and enjoy having no cell service for a week. It’s a fairly fuel-intensive trip because of the towing, although normally the cost savings of camping over a very expensive (and very crappy) hotel in a remote area easily offset it.
I’m in the fortunate financial position to not worry about the cost, but I do have some concerns about pure availability of gas. We’re not getting any shipments from the Middle East anytime soon, and eventually supplies will start to run low. Will there be a gas shortage? I can’t rule it out, and that makes me nervous. And pissed. Mostly pissed.
When your boss drops a few mil every weekend to go golf, roadtrip doesn’t seem so bad. Plus in this environment, I’d say any day you can keep one of his appointees from doing anything related to the US public is a win.
Fair point. Can we pool our resources and send the entire administration on a road trip for the next 2.5 years?
The way this works is the industry and the consumer will split the little amount saved in federal tax. I don’t think a nickel or two a gallon is going to do much.
It will certainly make our crumbling infrastructure that much worse, and/or add to our staggering national debt though. Yeah?
TBQ:
Planning to drive my antique Crosley speedster from Wisconsin to the Speedster Rally along Route 66 in El Paso, IL in June. Prob 900 miles. At least it gets 30mpg-ish.
Family camping trip to Mackinack around July 4,
I love your speedster. How fast can you expect that to go? Can it be driven on a highway?
Thanks. It will do 50-55mph all day long. That’s also its top speed, except for downhill stretches or a good tailwind. I stay off the interstate and enjoy the two-lanes. It is licensed and insured.
I finally wrote up my 900-mile Speedster trip from last year, though I still need to add photos…
https://itisgood.org/the-long-way-to-wauseon/
It’s so cool that you’re able to use it like this! My dream is to build a brass-era Model T speedster, with some concessions to modernity (like electric start, electric light conversion, better brakes, etc.). I built a scale model version of what it could look like: https://www.diecastxchange.com/threads/custom-brass-era-ford-model-t-speedster.242084/?post_id=4404394#post-4404394
Wowza, that’s cool. Speedsters are easier and more affordable to build than other antique cars. You’re throwing away most of the body, so you can start with something pretty scrappy. Go for it!
Here in Canada the government eliminated the federal gas tax from beginning of May to Labor Day. Our prices went down initially, but then they all went back up again (can we say “gouging”?). So given that the US federal gas tax is so low and gas stations love to increase their profits, I wouldn’t expect any relief at all.
I have no road trips in the near future, but I had a short one to Seattle about a month ago. Probably won’t be taking any more for a bit, except if Telo starts production. Then I might fly down to pick mine up and road trip it back. Assuming they make something close to what they’ve claimed and I still feel financially stable enough to buy it.
No road trips, and we cancelled our trip to Japan/Korea later in the year. Plane tickets were more than double what we paid for the same flight last year. The vehicle that’ll get the most use this summer will probably end up being the exercise bike in my living room
Was considering going to British Car Field day in Sussex WI but other plans have come up. Would’ve been 28 gallons of gas, which with midgrade being at 4.60 around here, would be $130.
Have you been to the British Car Festival at Harper College outside of Chicago? Depending on where you’re coming from, that trip could take a few gallons less gas.
No, I haven’t. I think I’ll try to make it down there this September. My car is just on the inefficient side, it tops out at 24mpg at 70mph, that’s the main issue. Thanks for the heads up about the festival.
Our family is flying to Vancouver Island this summer to see the in-laws for a couple of weeks. We’ll be using the FILs old F-150 on the island which is a gas guzzler and probably be paying 2 something a liter. We live on the East Coast so driving there is always out of the question. That said, I’d like to do it someday when I’m retired and take several weeks getting there with the Vanagon.