after a recent 1,600 mile/26 hour drive ( each way ) road trip to maine, odin says the 327 mile/6 hour drive to the upper peninsula is so short it’s almost like not even leaving at all.
and with the low diesel prices and getting 52 mpg with the jetta sportwagen tdi it’s almost like not even spending any money to get there in no time at all.
something that hasn’t happened in 13 years. any guesses as to what it is?
here’s the answer if you can’t figure it out 🙂
i expect it’ll go back to the way it was soon.
as most are aware regular gas prices are plunging which is putting the pinch on oil exporters and handing a $75 billion tax cut to the U.S. but as a long-time TDI driver i watch the diesel price which is spiking. currently, in wisconsin, there’s a $1.20 per gallon difference between regular and diesel – hence “Black-Market Diesel: Thieves Sell Fuel By The Truckload”. pop quiz, when was the last time diesel was cheaper than regular gas? 2002 which was the first year we bought a diesel.
a bit ago i asked on twitter and and facebook, “Without googling it, when was gas under $1/gallon in the US?” and received a lot of answers, many of them wrong ( in retrospect i should have asked when was the last time prices were under a $1/per gallon because there was a the whole oil crisis which raised prices in the late 70s ). the answer? in nonimal terms – 1999, which is surprising. i guessed the late-80’s. that’s the answer to the spirit of the question, when was the last time you could stare at a gas pump and see a price under $1/gallon. an economist would ask, “yes but when was the real price ( i.e. adjusted for inflation ) under $1/gallon”. that answer is equally surprising. in 2012 dollars, a gallon of gas has never been under $1/gallon and the 2011 average price of gas was just over the real price paid in 1919.