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On the environmental front, people concerned about greenhouse-gas emissions should be cheering today's oil prices. Expensive motor fuel is the only thing that will lead consumers to use less and make the switch to hybrid vehicles, smaller cars and public transit. Higher oil prices are persuading automakers to change their fleets.
Last week, Nissan Motor Company announced that it will begin selling an electric car in the United States and Japan by 2010. Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Nissan, made it clear that fuel prices were a factor in the company's decision to build electric cars, telling The New York Times that "the shifts coming from the markets are more powerful than what regulators are doing."
- Talk back: Do you wish gas was $7 a gallon?
A gallon of gasoline in the U.S. is also dirt-cheap compared with gas in other countries. British motorists are paying about $8.38 per gallon for gasoline. In Norway, a major oil exporter, drivers are paying $8.73. In 2007, out of the 32 industrialized countries surveyed by the International Energy Agency, only one (Mexico) had cheaper gasoline than the United States.
Last year, drivers in Turkey were paying three times as much for their gasoline as Americans were. The IEA data also show that in India -- where the per-capita gross domestic product is about $2,700 (about 6% of the per-capita GDP in the United States) -- drivers have been paying more for their diesel fuel and gasoline than their American counterparts.
(Gasoline is also cheap compared with other essential fuels. A Starbucks venti latte costs the equivalent of $23 per gallon, while Budweiser beer runs $11 per gallon.)
The simple truth is that Americans are going to have to get used to more expensive gasoline. And while they may continue grumbling at the pump, they need to accept the fact that even at $3.50 or $4 per gallon, the fuel they are buying is still a bargain.
This article was reported and written by Robert Bryce for Slate.com.
Published May 20, 2008
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