agarcnyc

I've only ever put 93 (91 if driving thru Canada) in my Golf R and Q5. Especially when fuel is so cheap now, it makes no sense to use lower octane fuels, regardless of top tier status.

cakasky

I feel old when I hear this. I still remember when gas was .91 cents a gallon.

i was in Dubai recently and gas there is about.20 some cents a gallon.

markcincinnati

When I started my undergraduate work, regular was $.49.9 -- I thought that was outrageous. But my university didn't permit undergrads to have cars, so I walked everywhere anyway.

But I know what you mean about feeling old.

stuven

OK, I'll take a shot at the old guy contest that's running on this thread. When I was a grad student at UC Berkeley in 1971, a typical price for regular gas was 35 cents per gallon. However, those were the days when we had the occasional "gas war" among stations. At one point, there was a gas station across the street from the university selling regular for 25 cents a gallon, and (I know you won't believe this, but it's true),if you bought 6 or more gallons, you got a free car wash! Unfortunately, I had a '65 Corvair at the time (a wonderful car) that took premium gas in its high performance 110 HP engine (0 to 60 in about 12 seconds), so I had to pay for premium at 30 cents per gallon. Bummer.

atc98092

I'll pitch in as well. Working at a gas station my senior year of high school (1971-72) I remember regular under 30 cents. And full service (remember that?) was 2-3 cents more. My friends and I could scrape up a couple of bucks in change and be set for cruising all night.

Using my Kroger fuel points at a local Shell, I did pay 29 cents a gallon for diesel last summer. For some reason, that one station would double the Kroger discount and I was getting $2 per gallon off.

agarcnyc

Well, late 70s.

I also remember when gas was under $1 USD.

But compared to what most of the world pays, we have cheap fuel, especially compared to a few years ago. Arabian countries don't count.

stuven

Old folks (like me) pine for the days of cheap gasoline. But, here's an amazing statistic: In today's dollars (that is, taking inflation into account), the current national average price for a gallon of gas is virtually unchanged from it's value 45 years ago! Here's the reference for this claim: Gas Price History Graph (historic prices)

If you're old enough to remember the tremendous inflation we had in the '70s and to a lesser extent in the '80s (if I remember correctly, the inflation rate hit about 15% in the mid-70s), it's not so hard to understand how the price of gas can be the same now as it was in 1971 (in constant dollars). The national average for a gallon of regular went up from about 32 cents to about $2.30 in that period, up by a factor of 7.2, but that pretty much matched the increase in the consumer price index over that 45 year period.

Ron.S

Gas is actually cheaper adjusted for inflation but taxes on gas are much higher.

stuven

Taxes on gasoline in the U.S. are certainly much higher than they were 50 years ago. However, federal taxes on gas have lagged way behind inflation and haven't increased since 1993. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_t..._United_States). Fifty years ago, in 1967, they were 4 cents per gallon; now they are 18.4 cents per gallon.

On the other hand, some state taxes on gasoline have gotten out of hand. Pennsylvania is the champ here, adding 58.2 cents per gallon to the federal amount. And you really hurt if you use diesel fuel in PA; the combined federal and state tax adds about 93 cents per gallon to your bill! (Alaska has he lowest tax rate for both gasoline and diesel fuel.) Of course, these tax rates pale in comparison to those of almost all European and Asian countries.