Monday, June 06, 2005

The Price of Gasoline

No, I'm not going into some esoteric rant about the true cost of gasoline to society, in terms of pollution and resource depletion and yada yada yada. I'm talking about the U.S. dollars and cents it costs to purchase a U.S. gallon (3.785 litres) of gasoline. Here's a recent photo of my local gasoline station, right here in the United States of America, taken April 3, 2005. I have not retouched or altered the photo in any way (except for adding the way-studly copyright notice).

$6.11/gallon
San Francisco, CA, USA, 2005-04-03, about €1.30/litre

Yes, that's $3.40 for regular, $4.50 for mid-grade, and $6.11 for premium, and the actual prices on the pumps matched the sign.

Apparently this particular station decided to make some sort of political statement, because the price across the street was only $2.79 for regular, and an extra dime for each step up in grade. The political interpretation is up to you.