Along with sharply rising gasoline prices across the nation,ethanol economics and a patchwork of state laws have caused thecosts of fill-ups to diverge widely this summer.
As a result, a frugal driver who carefully plans fuel stops canshave perhaps $30 from the $500 required for fuel for such across-country trip in a mid-sized car, based on the accounts ofdrivers who have recently made such trips. Most said they noticedsharp differences, even if they didn’t usually take advantage.
Consider the route from Long Beach, Calif., to Long Beach, N.Y.,a 2,800-mile haul that requires about seven full tanks of gasoline.Filling up along the way in Riverside costs an average of $4.53 pergallon, according to data from AAA and the Oil Price InformationService. Compare that to an average of $4.32 per gallon in the LasVegas area.
Stations in Davenport, Iowa, were charging an average $3.94 onThursday, while those across the Mississippi River in Illinois werecharging in the neighborhood of $4.17, a difference of 23 cents,according to AAA.
Chad Dowling, of Woodland, Wash., said he has gotten a feel forthe cheapest and most expensive fuel stops after several annualvisits to family in Carlsbad. So when he came up on Medford, Ore.,a couple of weeks ago, he made sure to fill up the tank of hisChevrolet Tahoe for $4.37 per gallon before driving over the hillinto California, where it was going for $4.55 or so.
Lena Griffiths, on the other hand, got a few nasty surpriseslast month on the way from the Salt Lake City area to Hemet, whereshe took her children to spend the summer with their father.
Near home, she filled up for $4.09, which already seemed like alot. Her eyes bulged when she paid $4.34 at a station in ruralsouthern Utah. And then she got whacked for $4.98 at a station inBaker, Calif., about 100 miles south of Las Vegas, where she foundherself running low.
“From Baker to the next town, it’s a long way,” she said. “I hadall three of my kids with me.”
State laws and market forces are responsible for the largedisparities in prices, analysts said.
On the legal side, drivers and gasoline refiners face a crazyquilt of state taxes and air-quality regulations. California, forexample, requires cleaner-burning fuel blends in summer, asituation that partially isolates the state from outsidecompetition. And the state’s sales and excise taxes on fuel are thehighest in the nation — some 50 cents per gallon — compared tothe 25-cent excise tax that Oregon drivers must pay on each gallon.An excise tax is a fixed amount levied on a certain quantity of aproduct.
Add to that the market forces at play: A refining company isfree to sell at a different price to each of its affiliatedgasoline stations, depending on market conditions in each state andcommunity. And state lines often cut across remote desert areas,where a lone gasoline station can — or must — charge 50 cents pergallon more than stations in the closest city.
Ev Nienhaus and his wife slipped through such a trap at theColorado River last month en route from Carlsbad to their summerresidence in Ellsworth, Mich. The tank of their Subaru Outbackwagon was approaching empty as they drove through Needles, Calif.,but they cringed at the thought of paying $4.89 per gallon. Theyheld out for another few miles and filled up for $3.97 per gallonin Arizona, saving about $10.
In Springfield, Mo., Nienhaus said he got away for $3.72 pergallon. The prices crept back up as he drove north, finally hitting$4.29 in northwestern Michigan.
Several recent cross-country drivers said they saw the cheapestgasoline in Missouri; the auto club showed St. Joseph, Mo., andWichita, Kan., as having the cheapest gasoline on average — $3.85a gallon on Thursday.
Lower Midwestern states tend to have lower tax rates on gasolinesales, according to the American Petroleum Institute, whichrepresents oil and gasoline companies.
The economics of ethanol also help to push down the price by afew pennies across the corn belt, said David Hackett, a gasolineanalyst with Stillwater Associates in Irvine. California and manyother states require ethanol, a combustible alcohol, to be blendedinto gasoline at a ratio of 5 percent to 10 percent as anoxygenator. Corn fields and ethanol plants are clustered in theMidwest, and ethanol shipping costs account for 2 or 3 cents ofeach gallon of gas sold in coastal states, Hackett said.
Steve Rodrick, who drove through Missouri while relocating fromNew Hampshire to Carlsbad, said his main goal was to avoid runningout of fuel — diesel fuel, in his case. He typically filled up hisrented truck before getting down to a quarter tank; late at night,he tried to keep at least half a tank to compensate for fewerstations being open.
Michael Cochrane said he uses a similar strategy: At aquarter-tank, usually after about 320 miles, he starts looking forthe cheapest gasoline. Cochrane and his wife, Delores, drove fromtheir new home in Mountain Grove, Mo., last month to visit friendsin the Pacific Northwest and their children in San DiegoCounty.
Cochrane recalls passing on a Shell station in Willits, about120 miles north of San Francisco, where gasoline was $4.19 pergallon. He thought better of it and turned around a couple ofblocks down the road, after seeing another station advertising$4.57. Even that wouldn’t have been the worst of the trip, hesaid.
“As soon as you get into California, it goes sky-high,” Cochranesaid. “We had never paid $4.89.”
Contact staff writer Chris Bagley at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 5444,orcbagley@californian.com.
