Bonzai: Thoughts and Expressions

Gas: Pricing and Demand

I have spoken to several people over the past few years that really want people to change their habits when it comes to gasoline and their ‘gas guzzling’ vehicles. I’m not sure where the doctrine came from but a common item that came out of several of these discussions was that, in order force people to consider other forms of energy, you have to make it hurt where it counts – in the wallet.

Well, here is an interesting phenomenon. Gas prices are way up, as everyone knows, but what about the overall sales volume of gasoline? Have the increased prices caused people to stop buying gasoline? Nope. In fact, from this time last year, sales of gasoline are up almost 2 percent according to the Department of Energy. Another interesting twist to this is that in the same period, low fuel consumption vehicles and alternative fuel vehicle sales have gone up as well. This means that the sales of gasoline had to overcome the reduction of demand. When you factor this in the 2 percent figure is actually a little low. How very interesting.

posted by Bonzai @ 11:00 AM