Canadian Chat → Gasoline Prices Below 99 Cents/Litre By Christmas

Yeah short lived here in Kitchener. We're back up to 120.5

Yeah Hurricane Sandy.... suddenly the petrol in the underground tanks are more expensive then when delivered on Friday night.

Yea, I'm wishing that I filled up over the weekend because my car takes 91.

Astounding isn't it gas that's been delivered and stored at the retail level miraculously gets more expensive because of a bit of rain and wind for a couple of days.

It was $1.15 at Costco (Merivale/Hunt Club) at noon.

filled up at a 1.06 today in edmonton

There was a station in town selling for 1.149 today, but the rest were all 1.199 to 1.249.

I filled up *in Canada for the first time in two years* for 1.199 yesterday. Once you take the tolls into account you end up breaking even with the way gas prices are on the American side of the river right now are right now.

Quite popular with me thanks
Consistently run 1000 km per tank in my Golf tdi
Premium shell vpower was 1.23.9 last fill up

I heard rumors of a gasoline shortage because of sandy. Has anyone else heard this?

Interesting article in Forbes about gas vs diesel...

»www.forbes.com/sites/mat ··· u-money/

The cost benefit to diesels purchased and used in Canada is even greater than in the US, are our diesel is typically cheaper or the same price as gasoline, while diesel is considerably more expensive in the US.

Here's what Phil Edmonston of Lemon-Aid has to say...Not saying I agree but it is his opinion...

»www.lemonaidcars.com/ask ··· aid.html

quote:

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What about hybrids, diesel and ethanol?

They are mostly hi-tech scams.

Hybrids' fuel figures are 30-40 percent inflated and there's a $8,000 battery pack replacement cost.

Diesel fuel is being reformulated and engines re-engineered to cost more, present additional reliability problems, and diesel fuel will continue spiking. Plus, diesel emissions are highly toxic to persons with respiratory diseases.
Ethanol costs more energy than it saves. Distribution is not assured. Ethanol plants are highly polluting and have been almost all cited by US EPA for illegal amounts of pollution emissions.

Be "green," but don't be stupid

Don't get taken in by the fuel-savings and clean-air claims promoted by hybrids, ethanol, and diesel fuels.
First off, the hybrids can easily kill you from their electrical charge or toxic chemicals leaking from the battery pack, following an accident. Plus, the fuel economy is hyped by at least 30 percent. And, then there is the $8,000 battery pack for the Prius that some say will sell for "only" $5,000.
Ethanol and diesel fuel are two other scams: diesel is being reformulated and the engines redesigned to work more efficiently, with fewer polluting emissions. This will guarantee high maintenance costs in the repair bays (can you say UREA?), poor reliability, and mileage nowhere near what's promised.
Ethanol?
It takes more energy than it saves and has similar drawbacks to diesel. In fact, ethanol prices are surging and also pushing up the price of premium fuel. Additionally, increased corn production means more herbicides and pesticides to snack on, and more ethanol plants that are continually cited by the U. S. EPA for spewing forth unacceptable amounts of air pollutants.

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Prices may increase as result of supply vs demand

In Sandy's aftermath some refineries wait for electricity

some north east refinerys shut down as precaution and due to ongoing power outages

»blog.gasbuddy.com/posts/ ··· 425.aspx

Hybrids achieve excellent fuel economy when utilized in heavy stop-and-go or in-city traffic. They're no better than an efficient all-gasoline car on the highway which is why some people cry about their fuel efficiently, though - even though, for the most part, they are still better on the highway than most vehicles out there. They just aren't as good as in the city.

Diesels are the opposite. They're okay in town, but on the highway for long-distance travel is where they really shine.

People why cry about hybrids or diesel engines being scams quite frankly don't know the strengths and weaknesses of either type of powertrain and the benefits that they can provide for certain specific types of travel patterns. As a result, these people should probably just get off their soapbox and keep their mouth shut.

And for the record, anyone who claims that hybrid fuel economy numbers are over-inflated for in-city travel have no bloody clue what they're talking about.

I was just looking at a 2007 Saturn Vue Hybrid, but the reviews consistently state that the EPA consumptions ratings are overstated. Too bad, because it was otherwise an improvement over our gas-hogging Elantra.

The Vue was a "mild hybrid" and not a true hybrid powetrain like the Prius, Fusion or Sonata. The only thing electric about it was a generator that was used for starting the engine quickly after stopping. The earlier Malibu and Yukon "hybrids" were like that, too. They were poor examples of "hybrids" and not representative of the real deal as they didn't have electric motors capable of any sort of propulsion at all.

Well for the record it is Phil Edmonston founder and operator of Lemon-Aid who is claiming this... You know the same Lemon-Aid that many Canadians reference when it comes to buying cars?

I would put more value into his opinion then yours, mine or anyone else posting in this thread....

I've got a 2007 Vue Hybrid and it has been pretty good milage wise. I usually get 650km per 50L with mixed highway and city driving.

As with all vehicles its all about how you drive it. I don't drive extremely lightly and it is in 'Eco' mode probably 85% of the time.

What I really would like to see is a gasoline(or diesel)/electric hybrid, except with no batteries...

Just the engine powering a generator that would drive an electric motor directly...

Really!? That's 7.69 liters/100km, which is way better than the test drives in the online reviews got (the best they did was around 8.5, and that was on the highway). Do you have any idea what you get with only highway driving?

Feel free to PM me rather than drag this discussion off topic with our conversation.

While this is a pretty good idea, there are a ton of reasons to keep around at least some batteries - even if only used for ver short periods of time.
Main reason - acceleration. If you were to completely use something like a "diesel->generator->Speed Control->electric motor" power train, your diesel motor and generator would have to be sized to provide sufficient current without a voltage drop during long hill climbs and acceleration periods. With electric power train, around 100HP electric power would be required to do that with decent quickness (7 or 8 secs to 100km/hr, hold 120km/hr on a significant grade with a headwind, etc) - that's about 78kW. So you need a 120HP diesel engine and an 80kW generator as a rough estimate.

Now we add enough batteries for acceleration, hill climbs, and other points of extreme power usage. The rest of the time we need to be able to drive at a constant sustained speed of say 125km/hr over a highway with just moderate hills. Some quick calculations say you need around 33HP (about 27kW) to do that with a relatively aerodynamic car with low rolling resistance tires. We still install 100Hp of electric motor, but we size our diesel engine to 40HP and our electric generator to 30kW.

Now we can run our diesel engine basically at full load all the time - where it's most efficient. We don't have a 120HP motor being run at full load, 1/4 load, 1/2 load, 3/4 load etc - extra friction in a larger engine, heavier, more costly to build, more costly to maintain (larger oil changes, larger air filters and fuel filters, etc)... instead we have a nice small 3 cylinder turbodiesel operating at its designed peak - it's on all the time you're driving, but when you accelerate or need extra power, the batteries do the work, when you sit in traffic or decelerate the generator goes back to charging batteries and only providing enough power for what your drive train needs.

So this is one step removed from what the Chevy Volt does - they have enough batteries to plug in and run significant distance, and only run the engine if needed... whereas this design would depend on the engine and generator all the time, but they could be sized quite small as the batteries do the extra work just when needed. I would imagine significant fuel economy could be reached in this method (probably not as good as "plug in" for short trips, but excellent for long highway driving).

Like the Chevy Volt, The Fisker Karma is an example of a car that does have an engine driving a generator that then powers electric motors to turn the wheels, but it too has some batteries and can run exclusively on them for a time or it runs on both engine/generator and batteries when maximum power is needed......like when drag racing a 1930 Bentley driven by AC/DC front man Brian Johnson. You'll have to find Series 18 Episode 4 of Top Gear for that though.

Gas prices in Montreal are still roughly the same as they were on the 22nd. Still not seeing any evidence of the proposed price drop.

Depends on the area. I've seen some around 1.25, others remained at 1.35-1.38.

Still a good change from the 1.40+

i would think you would require batteries, even if "smaller ones"...demand for electricity is unlikely to be linear, so you would likely have peak, mid and low demand when driving...i would imagine that would be difficult to regulate using just a generator, so having the batteries supply varied amounts of power, and using the generator to charge on demand is likely the best option.

Thats cuz it's not Christmas, and Santa hasn't left the North Pole yet.

Everyone has an axe to grind, and we don't know the motivation behind his comments. I don't take *anything* *anyone* says at face value until I look at multiple sources of information and make a conclusion myself.

And, based on my first-hand experience on this issue and other information I have obtained from multiple sources, I'd say his knowledge is either out of date (like so many people's is when it comes to hybrids - this very thread has been a shining example of that) or skewed in favour of gasoline because he either likes it better or makes money off of it.

As for Canadians referencing Lemon-Aid, I haven't heard anyone other than you say anything about that since the mid-90s.

The fact that somebody has books to sell does not make their opinion more valid.

From a used car perspective I'd agree with Edmonston on hybrids, they are 'buyer beware'. But as for diesels, I do not agree with his opinion. Used diesels command a premium because in the long run they are more economical to drive, the engine wears less and uses less fuel.

I had the same info from the Quebec CAA and some Quebec Automobile Consumer group.

I even posted the Email in this forum a few years back.

The info isn't from the 90's, as someone who is pretending to be an expert is trying to claim. It's fairly recent.

The info I had from both sources were dead on with this guys.

So that makes what? 3 confirmed real experts versus a farm hand?