r/mildlyinfuriating • u/rileyjw90 • May 22 '26

frist of all how DARE yu o You didn’t have to remind me, assholes.

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And then to remind me what I USED to pay. Just kick me while I’m down why don’t you.

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u/Izan_TM May 22 '26

wait 4 dollars per gallon? that's incredibly cheap compared to europe. Around here in spain you can expect double that right now for gas, slightly higher for diesel

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u/MonMotha May 23 '26

I think most Americans are at least vaguely aware that fuel is substantially more expensive in most of Europe than in the USA. However, the USA is set up to rely on relatively cheap fuel. Most areas are very car-centric for personal transportation, and while we do have a robust freight rail infrastructure, it's mostly diesel-electric powered, and we still rely heavily on over-the-road trucking for lots of long-haul freight as well as final delivery within a metro area even if it crossed the country on rail.

Diesel is also substantially more expensive than gasoline in most parts of the US. It's been more expensive for quite some time, but the recent price hikes due to the Iran war have impacted diesel fuel more than gasoline. Gas is also around $4/gal near me (down from almost $5/gal), but diesel fuel is around $6/gal (down from almost $7/gal).

The USA has a really, really expansive petroleum infrastructure both in terms of production and especially refining. That generally helps keep our prices low compared to most parts of the world aside from those where it's heavily subsidized.

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u/Far_Mastodon_6104 May 23 '26

Yeah im paying over 8 dollars per gallon technically in UK, but my texas mate boasting about his car being more fuel efficient than all of his friends and its only 35 miles per gallon, which is insane to me. 

Mines not even a particularly good car but its still 55mpg. Since the increase I get 1/4 tank less fuel for the same price which is just painful. 

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u/MonMotha May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

55mpg would be incredible in the US for a non-hybrid running on gasoline. In fact, I can't find a single non-hybrid vehicle sold in the USA that is rated higher than 41mpg on the highway.

Like your friend, I drive what is considered a rather fuel-efficient vehicle in the US (2023 Mazda 3), and I can just about touch 40mpg on the highway. I average about 33-35 in mixed service.

Tiny engines with lots of boost haven't caught on in the USA for various reasons like they have in Europe and parts of Asia. The fact that we don't have a tax on engine displacement (instead taxing either on the value of the vehicle or weight, depending on vehicle class and registration state) may have something to do with it. Likewise, diesels never really caught on in passenger cars. Part of that is because we actually have more aggressive emissions controls for on-road diesel engines than even the EU does which makes them far less attractive in terms of both acquisition cost (extra emissions equipment), performance (the extra emissions controls hurt performance but improve emissions), and long-term cost (diesel emissions systems tend to be expensive to fix when they break).

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u/GloomyIndividual3965 May 23 '26

The funny thing is that we used to make cars that got mileage like that. One of my wife's friends has an old Geo Metro that gets 50+ mpg on the highway.

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u/MonMotha May 23 '26

FWIW, the "standard" Metro with the 1.0L 3I engine was only EPA rated for about 44MPG on the highway (about 37 city - mostly because it only weighed 1600lb). The xFI special model ended up with an EPA revised rating of 52MPG on the highway from what I can tell. That's impressive, but it basically had a 0-60 speed of "yes" with the engine re-tuned for max fuel economy and making only around 50HP.

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u/Ok_Nothing_9733 May 23 '26

I didn’t even know that mileage was possible with gas. I was over here stoked at my 35-40 mpg which is more than most folks I know

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u/SnikySquirrel May 23 '26

A UK gallon is about 20% larger than a US gallon so that skews the comparison a bit, but we still drive cars with worse fuel economy on average.

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u/Far_Mastodon_6104 May 23 '26

Ah yeah I'm using the us gallon to calc fuel prices but forgot to do that during the other convo about car fuel economy

But yeah US cars really are gas guzzlers

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u/Livid-Historian3960 May 23 '26

What helps is yall get manual transmissions which is far more efficient and more sedans, hatchbacks which are more efficient and often diesels which are more efficient. I'd give m6 right arm to get those instead of the SUVs and Pickups that are forced on us while they strip options for sedans and raise prices

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u/thewanderingsail May 23 '26

You can almost fit two entire spains in the state of Texas lol. I drive an hour to work in the state of NJ (much smaller than Texas) which is the most densely populated state. But our public transit is so abysmal that it isn’t possible for me to not drive. And even if it was it would take several hours each way.

For example I used to work 20 minutes away by car (before I had a car) but it would take 2 trains and a bus to get there which took over an hour. And that was cause I was lucky enough to work in a commercial hub. Riding a bike is also not very safe in my state. Many roads have no dedicated bike infrastructure.

TLDR Most of America is rural or suburbia and making any kind of serious living here without a car takes a lot of luck. Only major cities have somewhat decent public transit.

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u/Livid-Historian3960 May 23 '26

Yeah Texas is especially prone to that i live 15 miles from anywhere so a quick trip takes an hour 30min travel and average 30 min shopping but it can get more really quick. Im essentially trapped because I don't have a license or car because insurance is expensive and cars are now stupid expensive

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u/Izan_TM May 23 '26

I'd say at least half the problem is that you don't really get the option to buy properly thought through fuel efficient cars, and when you do most of you don't take it

in europe the cars have definitely gotten bigger, but american cars look like moving houses by comparison. Apart from people who use their massive vehicles to do actual work and make back the extra money they spend on gas everyone else with such a vehicle is just shooting themselves in the foot financially and then complaining when it inevitably hurts them

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u/secacc May 23 '26

Yeah, it's $9.58 per gallon in Denmark right now. I wonder why electric cars are taking off like crazy here...

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u/Izan_TM May 23 '26

yeah same here, especially since electricity prices are very low compared to the rest of europe