Filling Up These Days

My lawn needed mowing last Monday, but I was out of gas. In early April, I emptied what was left in my five-gallon fuel container into the mower, and it was almost empty.  So, I headed to Thorntons, a gas station in Ottawa.

I don’t go to gas stations much these days because my car is a plug-in hybrid.  I go for long periods of time just recharging its battery.  Charging is done with a cord from a 110 outlet in my garage.  When the weather is warm, I can get 22 miles out of a single battery charge.  I don’t go out of town often and when I do, it’s in my wife’s car.  The last time I put gas in my 2014 Ford C-Max Energi, there was snow on the ground.  I don’t think it was long after Christmas. 

When I pulled into the gas station, I checked the Ford’s gas gauge, and it was just under half.  I only use gas when I use up all the juice in the battery.  So, I decided to top off the tank while I was there. The C-Max gas tank holds eleven gallons.             

It was the morning of May 11^th.  I pulled up to pump #19 and saw a white receipt flapping in the wind, left behind by a previous customer.  I put it in my pocket and began filling my red plastic gas container.  I picked the cheapest regular gas.  It was $4.999 a gallon.

After I pumped out five gallons of lawn mower gas, I switched the hose to the car and let it run until the pump stopped.  Altogether, I bought 11.2 gallons of gas.  Five for the mower and just over 6.2 gallons for the Ford.  11.2 gallons times $4.999 came out to $55.98.  I don’t think I have ever paid that much for gas in this country.  It’s a sobering thing watching that much money get sucked out of your bank account through a chip in a plastic card. 

A couple of days later, I found the receipt I’d taken from pump #19 before I filled up.  That person, who left before I got there, had an even more sobering experience.    

He or she purchased diesel fuel.  Diesel fuel on May 11 was selling for $5.799 at Thorntons.  The pump ticket shows a purchase of 21.555 gallons.  The tab on that visit was $125.00.

Can you imagine?  If you drive a petroleum-fueled vehicle, you probably can.  I was shocked.  I know diesel costs more than gas, but I didn’t realize how much more.  I was not only shocked by the price per gallon of diesel but by the idea that a vehicle under the canopy at Thorntons could hold that much fuel.

I think I know what that diesel-buying customer who came before me likely did.  He or she went into the station and paid beforehand.  It’s damned hard to stop the gas pump exactly on the dollar.  Pre-payment is an old concept. 

In 1968, before self-service was a thing, this happened.  Four farm kids from Danvers, in a cheap used car, drive to Bloomington.  They are itching to circle the Steak and Shake and Dog and Suds drive-ins repeatedly for hours on end.  But before they start, they stop at the WARECO gas station on Empire Street. The driver tells the car hop, who is required to wear a white shirt with a silly black bow tie, to put $4 worth of gas in the tank.  They each kick in a buck.  The driver likely comes out ahead.  Gas cost an average of 34 cents a gallon then.  That’s $0.34.  But 1968 was fifty-eight years ago.  That qualifies as ancient history in America.

These days, how many of us drive a vehicle with a tank that holds more than 20 gallons? Of the 297 million registered vehicles in the U.S., 90-110 million personal vehicles have fuel tanks of 20 gallons or larger.  That large number is driven by the popularity of light-duty trucks and large SUV’s, which make up 60% of the U.S. vehicle fleet. 

In contrast, sedans and compacts that make up traditional passenger cars have fuel tanks between 12 to 16 gallons.  The kicker is, sales of sedans and compacts have shrunk.  They now make up only 40% of today’s U.S. vehicle fleet.

 Large crossover SUV’s such as Chevy Suburbans, Ford Expeditions, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee have tanks ranging from 21 to 31+ gallons.  Full size pickup trucks like the Ford F-Series (150, 250, 350), Dodge Ram 1500, and the Chevrolet Silverado feature tanks from 26 to 36 gallons. 

 Who knows who bought those 21.555 gallons of diesel on pump#19 for 125 bucks at Thorntons on May 11?  It could have been anybody.  Let’s make one up for the heck of it.  How about the driver of a white 2026 Ford F-250 Diesel pickup truck?

 Give it a crew cab with the short bed and some modest upgrades, including a towing package for a boat or camper, and that vehicle will cost you just about $70,000.  Here’s what you can expect from your investment in terms of fuel and its consumption.

 A Ford F-250 diesel with a crew cab and a 6.75 foot bed has a 34-gallon fuel tank.  If the driver on pump #19 at Thorntons filled up his or her F-250 diesel when it was completely empty, at $5.799 per gallon, it would have cost $197.20. 

 

The F-250 diesel’s stock 6.7L V-8 engine typically averages 17–22 MPG in mixed highway and city driving.  But, highway fuel economy drops significantly when towing heavy loads, usually down to 10–13 MPG.  Let’s split the difference on the miles per gallon range on the truck and make it 19.5 mpg (miles per gallon) in mixed highway/city driving and 11.5 mpg if you’re towing your boat or camper.  

 

Let’s say you used your truck to tow your boat to a vacation lake, and the lake is 150 miles away in Wisconsin.  Your round-trip cost of fuel, with diesel prices today, would be $151.28. 

 

And if you used that F-250 diesel to commute to and from work, say 25 miles from home, five days a week, it would cost you nearly $76.30 a week.  If you make that commute for fifty weeks, you’re looking at $3,815.13 just to get to work.

 

I’m ignoring the cost of monthly auto loan payments.  I assume few Americans pay cash for vehicles that expensive.  But I don’t want to get into that.  The math on the fuel wore me out. 

 

What’s my point?  The cost of the vehicles most Americans buy and drive, the cost of the fuel they use, and the lack of alternative public transportation outside of our cities will have an unavoidable negative impact on the incomes of all American wage earners, but especially those of us in rural America.  If, but mostly likely when, the fuel prices we’re experiencing now remain at these levels, not only will individuals suffer, but so will America’s overall economy.  It would be smart of us to plan for that future by changing both the types of vehicles we buy and the kind of fuel they use.  I can’t see a downside. 

 

Can you?