RV staffer Gail Meyring snapped this photo today, Sept. 11, in Mammoth, California. This, she said, is the highest price she has ever seen for a gallon of gas or diesel at an American gas station.
There are a lot of diesel pusher motorhomes out there that get six to eight miles per gallon and a whole lot more that get a more manageable 10 miles to the gallon. Those getting the worst mileage among them are paying close to 90 cents a mile, or $9 for ten miles. And for those diesel-friendlier Sprinter owners who manage 15 miles per gallon … well, they’re still paying close to 50 cents a mile at the rates in Mammoth.
The gassers aren’t doing much better.
I saw $6 a gallon for diesel a week ago in the Seattle area (actually $5.999), and thought that was bad. Maybe it’s worse out there.
What high prices have you seen? Please snap a photo of the next high-priced fuel sign you find and attach it to an email to editor@rvtravel.com. Be sure to tell us where you took the photo. We’ll publish some of your submissions.
We wonder how high fuel prices will need to rise before RVers toss their keys into the next bass pond they pass.
Oh, if high prices are already causing you significant pain at the pump, please leave a comment.
##RVT1122b
No image available. In Beaver Creek YK last summer we paid the equivalent of $8.50 a gallon, or C$2.29x/liter with the exchange rate at the time.
Just checked and the price is C$2.45 per liter. So even with our higher than normal prices we are still doing pretty good compared to the rest of the world.
I LOVE the California bashing, keep it up. Nothing would please me more than seeing hordes of folks leaving my beloved state, especially people like most of the commenters here.
Pammy, I hate to be the one to break this to you, and you may want to sit down when you read this. (Pause) Are you you sitting? Great.
Here goes nothin, hordes of people are already leaving California, and in droves. They are packing up and heading to other areas of the US with lower taxes and less crime. In fact, California even lost a congressional seat in the last cycle people are leaving so fast. A U-Haul heading to California from Florida is free because they are so short of them but a U-Haul heading to Florida from California is 4000 skins.
Not only are citizens leaving, companies are packing it in too. GUMPS in SF just closed after more than a century, due to crime and crime related issues. CVS and Walgreens have closed multiple locations and iffice space in the Bay area is over 60% vacant. No rents come in, no taxes collected, no money for programs and then the doom loop starts.
For the record, I love California and spend at least 3 months a year in California. We bring lots if money to cover expenses and thankfully, we can continue to visit California forever. I simply do not own real estate in California. Just because the management is awful, the people are beautiful just like everywhere we travel in the USA. We simply avoid the high crime areas, bring some security measures with us, walk tall and stay aware.
Thanks for keeping a light on for us.
The Proofs
Keep one thing in mind, the people leaving are the ones who actually pay the taxes.
Sorry Chuck, no pictures. But, we traveled yesterday and got fuel twice. Both times we used our TSD Logistics /Open Roads fuel card. We drive a 2022 Newmar New Aire with a Cummins ISL 8.9 liter/450 hp diesel engine. At the first stop the posted price at the Love’s in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee was $4.65/gallon and we paid $4.25/gallon for 65 gallons. The second stop was a Speedway in Jasper, Tennessee. Their posted price was $4.50/gallon and we paid $4.24/gallon for 12 gallons. (We didn’t need fuel the second time, but our puppy needed a bathroom break.)
No, we are not close to ridding ourselves of our RV and no longer traveling that way. 🙂
Wow! Gas just went up 7% here overnight!!😫
For all of the “just end oil kooks”, by default, you are then OK with people wearing fur instead of Gortex. Leather instead of pleather. Wood or fur flooring instead of vinyl or carpet. Riding horses instead of trains. Walking instead of driving. Sailing to Europe in your free time instead of taking a ship or airplane. Writing with Ink from crushed berries instead of Office Depot. And lastly, you desire the use smoke signals from your evening wood burning fire used to survive the winter instead of a phone or computer.
BTW: 90% of electric car parts are oil derived
so not a choice in your crazy crazy world with fur floors eating dinner of freshly killed possum on a spit, cooked over the fire pit. No more Starbucks and Chipotle for you.
Great post Cancelproof! Now if the Enviro wackos and lefties would only realize these things maybe, just maybe we can become normal again.
Oh yes, can’t wait for things to be “normal” again (cough, cough, choke…)
Not sure about the rest but I definitely agree with the construction of electric vehicles being mostly petroleum based. Most people don’t realize the damages to the environment caused by mining of lithium for these expensive batteries, either.
As for the price of gas, currently paying in the range of $6.35 to 6.85 per gallon here in Eastern Canada.
We bought diesel at that same station in Mammoth in June. It was better than the $7.16 we paid in Death Valley a few days before. We have been in Washington most of the summer and are now north of San Francisco, where the Chevron in Larkspur, CA is currently $6.69. We do our best to shop prices but, in the end, you have to have fuel.
Supply and demand. Need anyone say more? As the supply of human population increases, so do their demands for everything from a limited amount of worldly resources. And we are all in competition with each other for much of the same stuff.
Not quite true Split Shaft. When you have the government of the U.S., led by the far far leftist running things with the puppet administration false shortages are reported by media in cahoots with the Demy’s. Just a few short years ago gas was about $2.39 a gallon and the U.S. was the number one oil producer in the world, far surpassing Saudia Arbia and other Middle East Countries. But, when you shut down pipeline, deny financing, and pull back tens of thousand oil drilling land leases you put our country again at the mercy of Venezuela, Middle East, Mexico and others. We can’t even import oil from our good friends and number one trading partner to the North, Canada.
Right on! We here in Canada are still importing oil from Saudi Arabia and we have a very rich oil field off our East Coast. We here still cannot figure this one out. My province has a rich offshore supply and a refinery but it does not refine our own offshore oil. The world is a really screwed up place when you consider the cost of gasoline in the Middle East, at last report was under 20 cents per litre. At 3.75 litres per US gallon that equals approximately 75 cents per gallon.
While a small portion of the cost of fuel are taxes, where are the concerns over Oil companies price gouging? After breaking their annual profit records in 2022, Oil companies just posted their highest ever Q1 net profits. I’m sure the second and third quarters will be even better for them!
Company Name
Second Quarter 2023 Net Income
First Quarter 2023 Net Income
ExxonMobil
$8,153,000,000
$11,430,000,000
Chevron
$6,010,000,000
$6,540,000,000
Shell
$5,073,000,000
$9,646,000,000
TotalEnergies
$4,088,000,000
$5,557,000,000
ConocoPhillips
$2,232,000,000
$2,920,000,000
Valero Energy
$2,122,000,000
$3,146,000,000
BP
$1,792,000,000
$8,218,000,000
Phillips 66
$1,697,000,000
$1,961,000,000
EOG Resources
$1,553,000,000
$2,023,000,000
Cheniere
$1,400,000,000
$5,400,000,000
Pioneer Natural Resources
$1,102,000,000
$1,222,000,000
Occidental Petroleum
$605,000,000
$983,000,000
Diamondback Energy
$556,000,000
$712,000,000
Marathon Oil
$287,000,000
$417,000,000
Hess
$119,000,000
$428,000,000
Totals:
$36,789,000,000
$60,603,000,000
This post is very misleading. These are overall profits from all parts of the business, not on gasoline. Oil companies make around 10 cents a gallon (before taxes). The gas station owner makes around 7 cents per gallon.
You are dead-on, ChuckS. I worked for the statistical agency (U.S. Energy Information Administration) of the U. S. Department of Energy for decades collecting data from the major oil and natural gas companies and reporting those data collectively. Essentially refining oil into petroleum products and retail-selling those products is a hand-to-mouth deal; very low profit margins of 1-2 cents per gallon. The oil companies do very little of the actual selling. Almost all is by smaller businesses selling under the brandname of the major. Major oil and natural gas companies make money finding and extracting crude oil and natural gas; not selling diesel or gasoline.
why not ask the elephant in room what government’s take is on each gallon of gas / diesel that the public buys? There is the unquenchable beast that seems to always never be enough for its perceived need. Seems to me an obstructive government for energy independence and lack of concern on how this endangers our country’s security in an uncertain world is always hushed by the current administration. Oh by the way, a general question for ALL politicians, why do you not have the stomach to include energy in the inflation reports?
Sooooo happy I bought stock in all of those companies except for Pioneer in June of 2020. Profit is not a dirty word.
I can’t help but notice you do not list anywhere how many employees each of those companies have on payroll now versus say…. Q1 of 22 v. Q1 of 23 v. Q1 of 21 or 20.
Nor do I see the R&D investments by any of them listed.
From the soles of your Nikes made in China to the frames and the lenses of your eyeglasses, it is all petroleum baby. Car seats and strollers, computers and TVs. Drill baby drill. Show me any product of the billion on the market and I’ll show you where the oil in its production or product is. Good luck with that. Not even a banana at your local grocery has zero relation to petroleum in its supply cycle.
Great point. How many of our pension funds and 401s are invested in the petroleum companies.
There’s been a Progressive “war on oil” for decades now, including efforts to deprive the industry of capital. That means that as there is less investment in procurement and supply diminishes, prices rise and the return on existing capital increases as well.
Those of us who watched this coming did quite well, and it helps support our continuing ability or RV.
Most of the California residents have gotten what they voted for!
The voters in the USA got what they voted for. Wake up America. What were the prices when Trump was in office!
Add Washington State to that list. Whatever California does Washington follows suit.
Those prices, especially in California, are nuts. Where does the money go? Editor: is this the reason you stopped showing California gas prices?
Hi, Marvin. No, that’s not why we stopped showing California gas prices. Readers were questioning why we singled out California and showed its prices, in fact (like we were picking on it). Sometimes Washington’s prices are the highest, BTW. So, there’s now a link included that anyone can click on to see the prices for a city, state or region, if they’re so inclined. Have a great day. 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Good thing I filled up the RV early last week, in East San Diego county, at $5.09 for regular gas. Only 1 gas stop to get me completely through Ca. and get up into Oregon on an upcoming trip.
We live in WA, bought a lot in AZ last year. These fuel prices have prompted us to put away money all summer to use for the trip south in a couple weeks. No way we’re staying home.
This winter, money we would have spent on RV park fees will go into the kitty for the trip home in the spring.
Just trying to make it less painful…
Just left Southern California. Paid $6.19 gallon at a loves truck stop on I-15. A hundred miles further as I entered Nevada diesel was listed at $5.19.
My oh my really? Current administration do not contribute to fuel prices. Well I like comment about the sheep and wolves. Just did a 700 mi round trip to Harrisburg OR from SW Washington I paid $5.489 at Loves on I-5. I am going to fill up again in SW WA and someone said it’s over $6.00/gallon. We will see. In WA state our beloved governor has implemented a fuel tax. WA state took over having the highest fuel cost for a while now second to California. At a recent downtown celebration there was a long line of voters waiting to sign a petition against the extra tax on fuel.
Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency in Georgia due to the current economy. Then he suspended gas taxes here to give citizens some relief. Within a few days, gas had dropped to $3.24/gallon for regular, down from about 3.69/gallon. By stacking GasBuddy deals and the gas station’s fuel rewards, we only paid $3.12/gallon.
When diesel went over $4/gal we parked the rig. I think we made 1 trip this year. This man and his sh.t show have got to go. I sure could use some $1.87 gas and mean tweets about now.
Gasoline was 1.489 in Amarillo, Tx on 11/03/2020 and Diesel was $1.789. THANKS JOE BIDEN!!!!
Thank you! Agree with you 💯 percent.
How about some dirty air and an attempt to steal an election? Could you go for that too?
Trump did nothing to lower gas prices. There is literally nothing he did to reduce gas prices.
Inflation is a worldwide problem.
I live in Napa Ca. And diesel is $6.09 a gal and still climbing. No end in sight. My truck will stay in the driveway. And my trailer on the side of the house. No way am I paying that much.
I live just over the mountains East of you and am paying $6.59 for diesel and have been for some time. Like someone else said “it is what it is.” Yes, we pay dearly to live in this state! But you couldn’t blast me out of Ca. And no, I’m not a liberal democrat…I just enjoy the perfect weather here year after year and all the endless choices of places to go with the RV.
California residents are leaving in hordes. I live in NV. They are coming here. Problem is, they are bringing their “nonsense” with them
$3.31/gallon for regular 87 octane at our local Costco here in Virginia yesterday.
That’s nothing as I paid $7.75/gal for diesel at that same station last year ($5.69 a few months ago). It’s the only one in town and just got enough to get us to Bishop.
Too bad the thumbs up icon isn’t used. I would give it to every previous comment. But remember. We’ll all be driving electric vehicles by 2030, or so we’ve been told. And electricity just comes right out of the wall.
$3.07 for 87 octane at Buc-ees on Sept 7 in Crossville, TN. Up to $3.13 on Sept 14.