Statistical navel gazing

[digitaldiscipline]

(I blame perspicuity for some of the extra attention to this today. :-) )

7y 11mo: ZIM passes 83,000 miles || 875 mi/mo || 10,500 mi/yr¹
2,570.5 gal @ $6,218.68 ($2.42/gal)
Average MPG: 32.275
TCO: $.117/mi (incl. maintenance)

Gotta love watching the trend line of gas prices on my TCO spreadsheet.

Lowest: Late spring, 2003, New Orleans: $1.29
Highest: Midsummer, 2008, Tampa: $3.96

February 15, 2011, Tampa: $2.99
March 7, 2011, Tampa: $3.51

Admittedly, this is a difference of all of five or six bucks for me on a twelve gallon fillup; the constant media attention to people's "buying habits being affected by the price of gas" is more emotional reaction than economic event (in my world? This means going out to Subway for lunch once less per month)

Attention commodities speculators: GO FUCK YOURSELVES. Libya produces under 2m BBL per day, and there is more than three times that capacity currently unused in Saudi Arabia alone. You're being profit-grubbing douchebags at the expense of people who are actually feeling the squeeze. I will pimp-slap you with the invisible hand of the market, you cockbites.

¹ This figure is slightly misleading as far as my usual driving habits, as there is, typically, one thousand-mile trip taken each year; during our time in New Orleans, this was typically to see friends in Houston, and in Tampa, it's a similar distance to Atlanta. There was also the 2004 trek from NOLA to TPA. My non-vacation driving is probably closer to 9,000 miles... which is still way too far to walk.

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

oh yes?

"soon" i'm going to drive to TN for giggles, via ATL

i'll likely be in cruise control most of the way, as the system seems to be super good at maintaining hypermile awareness. hah. way to easy to stomp gas at the wrong moment and ruin the curve.

speaking of, garmin's new GPS can speak to ODBII ports now (with a dongle), and display 24 gauges, and chart usages, esp gas.. providing an option for eco-miling where it can ALSO route you the cheapest by gas... huh.

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[etcet.livejournal.com]

I hyper the old-fashioned way: I keep it under 60, tailgate, coast, and turn off at red lights.

When will you be in ATL?

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

you turn the car off at red lights?

tailgating is drafting ;)

atl for blade show 2011 - june 10 weekend

http://www.blademag.com/bladeshow/

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[etcet.livejournal.com]

I do. hell, because i am familiar with my commute, i frequently turn off on the coast to them when i know that i'll be stopping (or slowing way down), and then I can re-engage the clutch to restart without turning the key.

the joys of the manual transmission are many.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Wow. I never turn my car off at red lights on the off chance that if it doesn't start up again, I'd rather not be blocking the intersection. But perhaps your car is more dependable. :)

[ubiquitous-a.livejournal.com]

OMG, I have never EVER paid more than $50 for a tank of gas before. Until this last week, that is. Jeez.

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

I have changed my driving habits a little bit recently. Mostly on weekends I have the flexibility of schedule to deal with transit taking longer than it does on weekdays, but I don't like waiting for the next train, I'd much rather walk to the next station. Now that it's a bit warmer, I've been doing that instead of driving as long as I don't have to lug unwieldy amounts of musical instruments.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

That $4 mark seems to be the breaking point for a lot of people. Hummers and Durangos vanished from the roads in 2008 here, when gas peaked.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I can understand why; psychologically, it's exasperating to put $50 into my small car's gas tank, and I don't even need to use anything but 87 octane (it only tops 15 gallons when i'm sucking fumes).

a big gas tank that needs frequent filling, due to large displacement, automatic transmission, excessive weight, and no sense of driving competence... yep, that sounds like the stereotypical full-size SUV driver.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Ow. I haven't needed to get gas again since before the gas prices shot up. That's going to be a psychologically annoying fill-up.

[sloot.livejournal.com]

a tank of gas in my truck (yes, truck, but I have uses for it [motorcycle transportation] that let me justify it in my head, and I use the motorcycle as much as I can in the summer)

anyways, where was I?

a tank of gas in my truck runs damn close to $100 these days (the last bottom to top fillup I recall was $93) and I use almost an entire tank to go from Ottawa to Toronto (360km / 223 miles)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

ouch. good thing you have the bike.

[sloot.livejournal.com]

Our gasoline is currently running just above $1.20/L. At 3.79L/us gal, that's just north of $4.50/us gal. We'll consider the dollar to be at par.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I haven't been paying attention to the CDN/USD exchange rate (since I no longer live in Buffalo, it's not as need-to-know on a meaningful daily basis); last time I looked, it was running just a bit over $1.00 CDN = $1.10 US, IIRC, so you've got $5 USD/gal shit up there. Ugh.