SamHamwich

sorry just thought id point it out, didnt know the gallon was such a touchy subject for you euros :P

KriSpY-Kr3m3

Florida's hess: $1.71

Florida's mobil: $2.15

Florida's shell: 2.20 (I hate shell)

~KriSpY

USN_Squid

$1.88...not bad, but I think I better just stay home and play games anyway...

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CingularDuality

Huh ??

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

KriSpY-Kr3m3

haha

~KriSpY

jex

So how much is in a US litre?

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DudeMan

oh god jex... the litre is the same the gallon is different..

can people read the thread before we just go through the whole sharrrade again

Wolfie

Probably the best way of comparing is to compare the cost of a liter of gasoline before any taxes are applied. This is the only way to compare apples to apples.

Tax rates are going to be different but those are based on the type of government/society one lives in. A more socialist society is going to have higher tax rates than a capalistic one but the socialist one gets more "benefits" from their government....

CingularDuality

LOL! We don't have litres, we have liters.

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CingularDuality

Almost ...

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jex

LOL sorry dude but I couldn't resist that one .

So fuel is expensive and it's not coming down in price. It will continue to rise and the more you use, the more expensive it will get. The quicker it drains, the quicker the prices increase.

It's a pity there isn't an alternative isn't it?

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GhostintheShell

Top automakers aim for China

A Cadillac CTS is parked along Juyong Pass in China
by Associated Press posted Jun 9, 2004
BEIJING -- U.S., European and Asian automakers showed off their newest SUVs, most lavish sedans and priciest roadsters at China's biggest auto show on Wednesday, trying to woo buyers in the world's fastest-growing car market.

Auto China 2004 caps a 12-month period in which foreign automakers have announced nearly $12 billion in investments in China, highlighting its transformation from a "bicycle kingdom" into a country that producers say will dominate their industry.

"The models and technology we're showing here are close to what we would take to any other auto show," said Kenneth Hsu, a spokesman for Ford of the United States.

Dozens of other makers at the show range from Germany's Volkswagen, China's dominant foreign brand, to Spyker, a Dutch producer that sold just 50 hand-built roadsters worldwide last year at prices of up to $400,000 and hasn't made a sale in China. China's own small but ambitious car markers were displaying budget-priced compact sedans and minivans.

The show highlights intense interest by foreign automakers that are rushing to set up ventures in China, where car sales jumped 75 percent last year to about 2 million vehicles.

Though only a fraction of China's 1.3 billion people ever could hope to buy a car, industry estimates say annual sales could reach 10 million by 2010 -- second only to the United States.

This year, the six-day auto show -- held every two years in the Chinese capital -- is so large it is split between two exhibition centers. It was packed Wednesday with reporters from China's booming industry of auto magazines and newspapers, and opens Thursday to the public.

Car sales have been driven by Chinese economic growth that is forecast to top 9 percent this year. But the flood of competitors has pushed down prices and raised worries of a glutted market.

China issued new rules last week limiting the building of new car factories, trying to force its own small producers to merge in hopes of creating competitors that can challenge foreign giants.

Volkswagen claims some 30 percent of China's auto market, compared to about 8 percent for No. 2 General Motors. Racing to catch up, GM announced plans Monday to invest $3 billion in China over the next three years.

"It's certainly our goal that if China surpasses the United States as the world's biggest market, we would want to make China into GM's biggest market," said Phil Murtaugh, chairman and chief executive of GM's China Group.

Luxury producers were out in force at the Beijing show, targeting China's tiny but wealthy elite. Models on display included the $340,000 Continental GT made by Britain's Bentley and the $360,000 Maybach 62 from Mercedes Benz.

Mercedes-Benz hopes to more than triple its annual sales in China to 50,000 vehicles within five to 10 years, an executive of the unit of Germany's DaimlerChrysler said Wednesday.

Mercedes-Benz expects to sell 13,000 to 14,000 cars this year in China, up from about 9,000 in 2003, said Joachim Schmidt, executive vice president of marketing for the company's car group.

Out of the long-term goal of 50,000 vehicles, about half would be made in China, said Schmidt, who was attending Auto China 2004, the country's biggest auto show.

Also on display at the auto show was the new willingness of major automakers to take on the expensive challenge of creating models geared specifically toward Chinese buyers.

GM was displaying 12 cars and minivans, all made in China. The Sail, a budget sedan, was designed for the Chinese family market.

Ford was showing 21 models from its Ford, Volvo, Jaguar and other brands, though only three are currently sold in China.

Ford is a latecomer to China's auto market, opening its first factory in 1997. In a sign of its determination to catch up, the company's 54,000-square-foot display at the auto show dwarfed those of its competitors.

The company plans to survey Chinese visitors to the show to see which other models it might sell, said Hsu, the Ford spokesman.

"We're looking at every possible buyer," he said.

GhostintheShell

Finally someone who seems to fully comprehend the problem.

Now if we could fix that last line by adding a perfectly clean and renewable energy source. Oh I forgot we have one of those its called the sun (or geo-thermal, tidal, wind). But then we'll need an efficient energy storage and transportation medium, oops we have one of those too and coincidentally its the most abundant element in the entire galaxy good old hydrogen. Sounds like a solution to me.

DudeMan

performance sucks with hydrogen and to use hydrogen as a fuel you need an expensive converter... actually uoi can run diesel engines on vegetable oil which is renuable...

you need a converter and you loose like 20 mph top speed or some crap like that, bieuty of it is, you can switch really easy with an existing diesel engine...

GhostintheShell

Hydrogen is a very powerful gas when combusted. I don't have any numbers but I would say more powerful than propane from my chemistry lessons about electrolysis in school way back. I think you could be thinking of when it is used in a fuel cell for electrical conversion without combustion like here: http://www.ballard.com

There has been a lot of private commercial testing of hydrogen as an alternative fuel for vehicles, including a lot of money invested in Canada at Ballard Power by GM and in Japan Toyota has huge investments in going this route in the very near future. I'm sure there's a lot more examples but these are just two automotive applications of the technology.

In any case its just a very convenient storage medium. The real message is to get everyone thinking about perfectly clean renewables like solar, hydro-electric, geo-thermal, wind, tidal...and away from pollution. We may need some alternatives in-between "perfectly polluting" and "perfectly clean" to eventually get there though I'm sure you are right in that regard.

It's really an amazing topic to read about, between the oil and its mid-east geopolitics to the dawn of a new era of clean energy that will hopefully be more distributed and controlled on a more local level. (Perhaps even produced, and bought and sold by the end consumers themselves.) We are going to have some mind blowing changes within the next 20 years or so.