Demand will go down as gas keeps climbing. The days of $3 gas are fairly gone. Time to start seriously considering alternatives.
I'm pretty sure people are going to switch to EVs rather than give up driving.
The median income in Switzerland is about $125k USD. That's more than twice the median in the US. It sounds like the affordability of $9/gal gas is greatly different. US politicians are actually suggesting things like a stipend or stimulus payment to help people pay for gas. Ridiculous, but that's how it is.
I don't believe this for a second and sure enough the first few sources produced by a google search show a far different situations. The Swiss office of Federal Statistics says the median income is 50,120 CHF per year which is $53,880 USD at current exchange rates. Even the top 10% of the country's earners are only in the mid $90k, nowhere near $125k.
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/economic-soc...
So it sounds like this isn't gross income.
Here is the explaination.
"It is measured by the median equivalised disposable income, after adjustment for differences in price levels between countries. This means that despite the high price levels in Switzerland, the population's financial situation, after deduction of obligatory expenditure, was in 2020 more comfortable than that of its neighbouring countries and countries in the European Union."
So the disposable median in Switzerland is about the same as the gross median in the US. It looks like the equivalised disposable income for the US is not calculated, so we can't compare that. Having a median disposable income that is about the same as the gross median of another country still seems to support my implication that the Swiss are more wealthy and can better afford the cost of gas as compared to the US.
It seems it's hard to get "good" sources for Swiss median income. They do list the median monthly wage as being around 6500. This doesn't include other income sources, and is still about double the US median income.
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/work-income/...
(tdlr: US ~800, Central european countries ~500, some big countries much less eg Ukraine ~250)
Also, EVs still have such big CO2 footprints that they don't really solve the problem, to make a dent we'll need to curtil the growth of cars globally - considering the developing countries catching up and getting more cars there, this means radical changes. The emissions from EVs also pile on top of the emissions from burning all the oil we pump up, so in a way they're increasing emissions if we consider the oil supply to be limited.
In many comparable countries, mandatory inspections/maintenance force older cars off the road and into scrap heaps at a much higher rate - certainly at a higher rate than necessary.
[1] https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-truc...
I feel like we keep hearing this every time something big happens in the world and within a year or so, it's back to normal. Not that I believe either statement.
Location very much takes a role in being able to do this, I think.
I dream of a no car life. Hate driving but it’s really tough in the US. Was in heaven for a week when I visited Switzerland
Solar power doesn't do much to reduce petroleum demand.
The new 9/11 NYC footage that was recently making the rounds captured a gas station with its prices in view, they were all $1.XX/gal.
> "...captured a gas station with its prices in view ..."
Where was this footage taken from, NY or NJ? Back then NJ always had stupidly cheap gasoline compared to NY. I always waited until NJ to fill up on road trips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gBJvGMZIYA&t=332s
Which if what you say is true about the relative local prices, suggests these are above average prices for the era and still sub $2.
The Russia supply shock this month is unusual, but the mid-$3 pricing plateau over the preceding year was quite normal by historical standards.
"Inflation" is a nebulous word, if you're referring to CPI, isn't oil price (via transportation, fertilizer costs) a major contributor to that increasing?
I'd expect a historic fuel price chart corrected for CPI to be roughly a horizontal line, because fuel prices majorly contribute to it.