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Gas Prices Jump; California Hardest Hit

Posted by timothy on from the swedes-and-brits-will-cry-us-a-river dept.

New submitter jefery23 writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press article (as carried by the Denver Post): "Californians woke up to a shock Friday as overnight gasoline prices jumped by as much as 20 cents a gallon in some areas, ending a week of soaring costs that saw some stations close and others charge record prices." Friday's jump followed another big one just a day earlier, too. Texas gas prices have gone up, but not quite so dramatically ($3.59 at the station nearest to me); how are they in your neck of the woods? Those Bloom boxes and charging stations can't arrive too soon.

2 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. Cry me a river... by Kergan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On this side of the pond, we're paying a bit under $8/gallon...

  2. EV charging as you drive by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If someone came up with a good in-road delivery system for electricity for cars, they could probably successfully pitch wiring all our roads for electricity

    There are already good proposals for doing this that do not require wiring the roads. These proposals assume that in the future cars will be capable of driving in "platoons", separated by only a few inches to reduce drag and increase road capacity.

    Option 1: inductive coupling. Cars contain coils in their bumpers that can transmit and receive energy from cars immediately in front or behind them. If you are on a long drive, the computer in your car negotiates with the computer in the other cars and buys power from them. If you are on a short commute, and have spare power, you sell the power to other cars as you drive and make a small profit.

    Option 2: magnetic coupling. This is similar, but the bumpers contain electro-magnets that pull or push leading or trailing cars. So if you are on a long trip, you get on a freeway, join a platoon, automatically negotiate to buy power, and then coast to your destination without consuming any of your own battery power. You could even use your engine to recharge your battery as you siphon power from the rest of the platoon.

    Both of these proposals assume that cars on short trips are more common than cars on long drives. That is mostly true. But on long stretches of highway it is possible that dedicated vehicles with big batteries (or CNG generators on board) will be used to convoy platoons of regular cars.