Diesel prices in U.S. top $6 a gallon for first time(cbsnews.com) |
Diesel prices in U.S. top $6 a gallon for first time(cbsnews.com) |
Treasury has already tried to reassure markets and failed
Add to this other trade war nonsense...
The real question is what happens after the elections. There is a lot happening in Iran and nobody can figure out which factions really are gaining power (we know who is the public voice of power, but not if they have real power)
This was the desired effect though, as higher oil prices means more profit for US based oil producers. I'm sure that will trickle down any time now.
Honestly, I think you're giving far too much credit to the current US government.
I am unsure its by design or just idiocy. (Probably a mix of both).
That's giving the Trump administration too much credit. Before the war there were pieces about how oil companies were doing worse under Trump than under Biden[1]. Of course, you could argue that the Iran war is Trump finally responding to oil companies, but given that it only started more than a year after he took power, it really makes you wonder whether Trump is bumbling along, or playing some 5d chess with the global oil market. On the flip side there's plenty of evidence that he doesn't want high oil prices, for instance lifting sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil.
[1] https://www.economist.com/business/2025/02/06/donald-trump-l...
Still that makes very clear why Venezuela had to happen before Iran.
As someone who drives a 2003 Golf TDI, I'm currently looking at CAD 2.40/L: EUR1.49/USD1.73 per L.
He also said he "will end the endless wars" and stressed there were "no new wars" under his first presidency in the 2024 campaing.
And on election night he said "I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars."
A lying politician is nothing new but he's doing it more bigly than most.
I think saying he's lying is too generous. It implies intent. I think he's just not capable of separating truth from fiction anymore.
Is there any reason why Diesel costs more? I was always under the impression that it was a less-refined fuel therefore cheaper.
Instead of tracking cost increases of fuel, I try to conceptualize prices for all things in equivalent fuel or metered energy.
The fed can overlook energy and food in their "preferred metric of inflation", but that's 90% of what I care about as an individual. Very interesting to track your purchasing power in MWh
I am not interested in nominal new highs.
You can complain about what you don't have, or you can work to produce it.
Then again, Americans are sometimes called workaholics, working far more hours. So in some ways this is just a lifestyle choice.
The problem is that they didn’t move the needle at all, politically - the Oct 2025 protest, for example, was followed immediately by the embarrassing capitulation by the Dems on the shutdown. This is the real reason protest in the US is relatively rare: the political class has thoroughly insulated itself from it.
Rule of Acquisition number 35: Peace is good for business.
Really wish I had a better memory so I could memorize these as a lot of them would be really fun as everyday quips.
That said, the patriot is a lot cheaper replace than the things it was defending so it was a good investment even if expensive.
Losing at war is universally bad. And long stalemated forever wars can be just as bad for both sides.
I think cost per kilometre/lightyear/rod is close
Diesel at the local garage I passed at lunchtime is £1.89 (57% more). The web [0] suggests that is more expensive than anywhere in europe other than France and Denmark for some reason.
So nowhere near "half as cheap". Throw in poor American average mileage and I suspect the price-per-mile is quite similar.
even if you do not drive, it affects every delivery
imagine this pattern through 2029
800 more days, even just a penny increase per day
we're out of $4 Million dollar tomahawks and the iranians have endless supply of $50K drones
strategic oil reserve is about to experience permanent catastrophic damage from being drained too low
Apparently salt domes have a life span, you pump water in to remove oil. The water wears at the domes and removes more salt creating a larger cavern. It's not that we pumped out so much oil lately, it's because we were pumping out little bits over the last 5 decades constantly wearing at the domes. They were created at the time to only be used in a catastrophic situation, not when ever you want to control the price of oil......
Either way, you are correct in that their life has come to an end, we will require more expensive above ground storage going forward or we can electrify.
Inflation is high ... but not that high
There is nothing stopping US refineries from producing more diesel, you can use both sweet and sour, this is speculators squeezing the markets.
What a great time it should be to electrify heavy transportation. If they can do it in mining and construction, why can't transportation...
Or are you saying the Ukraine drone strikes have not affected the output at a scale where it matters globally?
24 years ago, I recall diesel being $1.25/gallon, and hamburger meat at a little local grocer for $1/pound any time they had a sale.
Now, even going to Costco, their ground chuck is $6/pound.
If you look at the timeline, and the demographics of voters who lost enthusiasm for Biden between 2020 and 2024, it looks like a whole lotta the Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck decided to vote their pocketbooks.
Vs. back in '72, when Biden was just getting elected to the Senate, Pres. Nixon was a noisy anti-inflation zealot. (Not saying Nixon was sane, nor legal...) Since Nixon was re-elected with >60% of the popular vote - in spite of negatives like the Vietnam War - I'd say that the Dem's failure to follow a so-obvious winning reelection strategy was exactly what handed Trump the opportunity to make the decisions which you so strongly dislike.
Incompetence or malice? Both is also possible...
The main caveat is that available models are heavily weighted towards “compact” (RAV4 sized) SUVs and larger. There aren’t many little Prius/Fit/Soul type town car models around which is a bit paradoxical with that being the use case that EVs have been well suited to for the longest time.
It's lost 60% of its value, has only done 57k miles and has a battery state of health of 97.4%. I paid £22k.
I still maintain that new cars, especially new electric cars, are not worth the money but secondhand ones are a bargain now... relatively speaking.
We have a staggering number of people that live in apartments so charging is out of the question except at public charging points and the cheapest I've seen is £0.40/kWh. Most of the fast chargers are £0.92/kWh.
When I get my home charger fitted I'll be paying 6.9p/kWh between midnight and 6am but I have a driveway.
Not everyone can give up ICE cars. The logistics don't add up for many people plus the entire world runs on diesel - every truck, earth-mover, factory etc. relies on diesel in some fashion.
If gas prices go up, expensive public EV chargers will be more appealing. I hope you get better infrastructure re: charging soon; here in California (not known for low energy prices nor for infrastructure-building capacity) most fast chargers are between US$0.50 and US$0.70 (£0.37-£0.52) per kWh, so it is definitely possible. (You also need non-fossil-based electricity generation to truly decouple from oil/gas prices.)
I share your worries about industry, though — although trucks, earth-movers, etc could theoretically run on batteries or hydrogen or something, industrial processes using petroleum and natural gas may be around for a lot longer.
Pivoting agriculture from feed grains supporting the livestock industry to crops that humans directly consume would also improve the fuel consumption picture, but people are reluctant to reduce or eliminate meats from their diets.
China has destroyed oil import demand the equivalent of annual UK oil imports in the last six months, for example. Push those oil and diesel prices up, hold them up as long as possible. Several countries have banned internal combustion vehicle imports to push the needle on the EV trajectory (Ethiopia, Laos) because they are fossil fuel poor. Global EV sales have spiked, and already exceed 25% of total annual vehicles sales (~90M units/year) [4] [5]. We're just discussing how long until we reach tipping points that further accelerate the transition.
How much fossil supply chain infra must be impaired to further move the needle? Hard to say, excited to find out. Electrify or get wrecked. To not to is a choice.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49479229 (citations)
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647405 (citations)
[3] Gas car sales fell 40% in August in China [Charts] - https://carnewschina.com/2026/09/08/gas-car-sales-fell-40-in... - September 8th, 2026
[4] Global sales of combustion engine cars peaked in 2017 - https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/global-sales-of-com... - May 21st, 2026
[5] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
(as of this comment, China has enough EV manufacturing capacity to satisfy global demand; they are currently export constrained and cannot ship fast enough to meet demand)
While diesel is less refined, the difference isn't much. These days both are heavily refined products, and the cost to refine gasoline isn't very much per gallon.
The real answer: supply/demand is the key factor in the price you pay. Cost to create/build a product generally sets a floor on the price you pay: a business that isn't making money will stop making the product (loss leaders exist, but not a factor here).
[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120422634/breaking-down-the-...
That's the problem with hindsight theories, especially if only using a limit horizon into the past.
This started, I believe when fracking became a major thing (the late 2000s), because shale oils tends to have less heavy hydrocarbons then the old wells.
And the ethanol makes the fuel less valuable (energy reduction per litre) moreso than biodiesel.
Jet fuel and diesel fuel come from similar parts of the barrel. Refineries can largely choose what kind of fuel they produce for a given unit of input. One barrel doesn't always split into the same fractions. There is configuration involved.
In the US diesel taxes are often different from gasoline, but polluting is generally not a factor.
EDIT: meaning "less taxes"
No. That's not correct. It got more expensive than gasoline since the attack on Iran.
But then it also makes Chinese EV including trucks extremely attractive replacement. So China making a profit as well.
Ukraine strikes to impact the world price. However most of the impact is in Russia, elsewhere the effect is less. Iran is larger effect because the middle east as a more significant share of global oil. (both have an effect, but Iran is larger)
Aren't they already producing as much as they can? Which is not sufficient given that globally a significant fraction of refining capacity is offline.
Because supply side. Can't have our oil barons losing out.
Cattle herds are at 75-90 year lows, and roughly half of US beef consumption is driven by 12% of folks. They'll be fine with alternate protein sources. US cattle trajectories are locked in due to climate change induced supply cost inflation, meat packing consolidation, and cattle ranchers aging out (there are more farmers over 75 than under 35, average age of a cattle rancher is 58).
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/29/nx-s1-5719511/beef-cattle-her...
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/21/nx-s1-5719815/how-rising-beef...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/20/beef-usd...
By draining aquifers, for one:
* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06879-8
* https://unu.edu/inweh/news/world-enters-era-of-global-water-...
Certain desalination exists, but can get expensive and energy-intensive (and they it may be necessary to transport the fresh water great distances).
If one can make due with an ebike instead of an EV, certainly, that is of course an option that should be considered.
The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars - https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-280-million-electric-... - November 16th, 2026
If you drive a car then EVs should be your first choice, and they should be worth a premium over other types. However in the end used car buyers are limited to what is for sale now.
The climate doesn't care what is and isn't worth the money.
We know Ukraine is working on a not a patriot interceptor that can do ballistic missiles, but so far there is no word on progress. (this seems to be intentional - they are not saying why but experts have some good guesses)
Like any senile octogenarian you want to do something, brainwash them to do your bidding and make it think it's their own choice
I did find a few eGolfs and leafs for $5k-8k, but in my experience if a car is that cheap there is a reason for that, so I assume they are unacceptable. There is a chance OP has a diesel truck because he needs a truck which in turn means they wouldn't work even new (the F150 lightning perhaps would)
The reason is: no one wants them. Three years ago we sold an OG Leaf my spouse’s coworker for $3500. Battery was about 80%, but otherwise the car was flawless. All the buyer needed was an around-town car, and the old Leaf fit the bill. Leafs didn’t go very far on a charge, ergo they won’t have a whole lot of miles in them, and they were otherwise reliable. If it’s all you need, I’d recommend one for cheap.
I used to be dead-set-against electric cars but I just bought one and am loving it. The maths is staggering. It's secondhand though as I don't believe new ones are worth it.
Now if OP's car is worn out and needs replacing anyway the economics are different.
Someone else suggested they see $85/bbl as the ideal price. I don't know if that is true, but it seems reasonable.
This is a really complex optimization problem, but slowing EV adoption, which low gas prices help, is likely the better course for a few more years. Eventually just gouge the petrol users left is the most profit, but I don't think that has been reached yet.
A US administration sympathetic to Russia stands to benefit from higher oil prices.
(if one is some combination of unsophisticated, irrational, and vain, and in a position of power, they will eventually be exploited by someone more rational and sophisticated, imho)
A 250 mile round trip to the beach becomes unthinkable because the gas station mindset dictates that they will have to spend 30-40 minutes at a charger on the way home.
The reality of course, is that you charge on L2 while at the beach, or stop for a quick 5-10 minute buffer charge to get you home.
So everyone is all "I need 350-400 mile range or its totally a non-starter". Its just all around confused thinking.
My numbers may a bit out of date but for example, depending on the trim and mileage, the Nissan Ariya can be be had at between $15-$25k (with MSRP being over double that) and they only started selling those in 2023. Ariya’s thus far have shown great battery degradation too, with high mileage drivers (Uber etc) reporting 99% capacity.
And that’s just one model. There’s also Kia EV6/EV9, Hyundai Ioniq 5/9, VW ID.4, Mustang Mach-E, and several others of a similar vintage that are similarly deeply discounted despite low miles.
It’s thanks to the many lease deals, tax rebates, etc bringing down their market value.
Ariya builds buffer in to mask early degradation.
All but one Ariya in my area are $20k+. A well specced is $30k.
The math does not work if you own a functioning car unless you are willing to substantially downgrade.
EV batteries last longer than drivers feared - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49613527 - September 2026 (3 comments)
Retired EV Batteries Scored a New Gig: Bolstering Texas’ Grid - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47143967 - February 2026 (0 comments)
Most EV batteries outlast their cars, real-world data shows - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47083580 - February 2026 (0 comments)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Your second link. Texas takes batteries no longer suitable for car and makes grid.
Neither of those is a decade old car running on its original battery. And I also said degrade which we know is true.
What’s your point?
I suspect (know way to know) Isreal would have been better off attacking Iran alone - they could have sent a message "back off - we can do more harm to you than you can do to us", but sending that message is hard. They tried to send a clearer bigger message, but the problem is the message getting through ended up being "this is the worst that you will do to us and we can endure". The reality is Iran knows the US and Israel won't invade, and so long as that option is off the table Iran can do anything it wants knowing things won't get worse.
Compare to how Bush handled Iraq - months of convincing the world to help him invade (not always successfully, but enough that many people were sending troops). If conditions were sent such that troops really were on the table I would expect Iran to back down (I give it about 60% odds, which means 40% an invasion happens!). Israel would have won in that case, but it wasn't handled like that (there are reasonable odds that the US would refuse the propaganda to invade if that was tried though which means Israel would be back to the previous status quo...).
You probably have to read that last paragraph a dozen times to understand it. I'm not the best writer and it is a complex subject.
Very similar to Putin (73 years old, as of this comment) making his move against Ukraine when he did. Light cone of potential outcomes and path dependency.
“Old men pulling triggers out of ideology before they’re too weak to.” I argue that, in many ways, extended life expectancy has been a curse in this context. It has allowed unscrupulous people positions of power where great harm is incurred with limited repercussions (if any!), positions of power they would not be in if they had aged out sooner. You can only wait to vote them out, or wait for them to die if you cannot vote them out. Very unfortunate.
Can systems be changed to expose these folks to the appropriate incentives that will improve outcomes? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not seeing where the downgrade is, though. Even the cheaper trims of Ariya are nicer, better equipped, and more powerful than any new car in the low-mid 20s price range and the used ICE car market is entirely nonsensical, with some 1-3 year old used entry level models selling for almost as much as their new counterparts and popular 10 year old models that already have half their lifetime miles selling for north of $20-$25k.
EV Batteries Are Defying Expectations After Hundreds of Thousands of Miles - https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/ev-batteries-are-defying-... | https://archive.today/2RFo3 - July 4th, 2026
> Industry experts think newfound knowledge of battery durability is a game-changer for consumer confidence in EVs
> Richard Symons recently took his five-year-old Tesla Model 3 on a 260-mile road trip across England without having to stop for a charge.
> A new electric vehicle could make the trip no-problem. But Symons’s car—which he has affectionately nicknamed “Miles”—has logged 247,000 miles and is still up for frequent long-distance drives. “They are proving themselves to be exceptionally reliable,” Symons said.
> After five years on the road, the average EV will still be able to drive up to 95% of its original range, according to Recurrent, a data-science company that provides a battery-monitoring tool for EVs—better than many in the auto industry expected.
> When early EVs hit the market, buyers’ concerns were well-founded. Roughly one in 12 EVs built from 2011 to 2016 have had to have battery replacements. But new data shows that more modern EVs are doing better so far. Among EVs built from 2022 on, 0.3% have had battery replacements, according to a 2025 study from Recurrent.
EV Battery Health after 250 Million Electric Car Miles - https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/lessons-in-electric-c... - May 17th, 2023
> 250 million is a lot. That’s how many miles Recurrent vehicles have driven since they connected to our services to monitor their EV performance and health. There are some optimistic, high level takeaways in all this data. For most EVs, the lithium ion batteries are in quite good shape and only 1.5% have been replaced in Recurrent's community of 15,000 cars. Battery replacements due to excessive degradation are very rare. Heat, high voltage, and extreme state of charge degrade batteries the fastest. We generally see 1-2% range degradation per year.
(my 2018 Model S with ~150k miles on it has ~7-8% degradation after 8 years of aggressive use, the majority of charing done at fast DC Superchargers across the US; the only maintenance it has needed has been tires, wiper blades, wiper fluid, and a replacement battery pack heater to condition the pack for fast DC charging, which has been obsoleted in newer revisions)
I said batteries are degraded at 10 years old. Your 8 year old car is 7% degraded. How is my point false?
And to quote you
> We generally see 1-2% range degradation per year.
10% degradation is material and noticeable.