I wonder whether the Subaru-driving holier-than-thous in Boulder will realize that Subarus have among the worst gas mileage of any fleet, and start dumping them? Look for a lot of Priuses stuck in snowbanks next winter.

Agreed. The economy that is based on car usage and travel will reshape itself around $4/gallon. There will be pain in the transition and many new opportunities will be created - somewhat matching the magnitude of failures that will occur. In the end, though, I believe that the culture that the old economy created will be a casualty of the change.

You live in a holier-than-thou, green city that already made the mental shift under the guise of saving the planet or reducing global warming (or some other drivel) ages ago. The rest of the country (aside from, perhaps, Cambridge and Berkeley) is being forced to make the shift for financial reasons now. It’s gonna have a major cultural impact.

Note, I didn’t say it was bad, wrong, or catastrophic in any way. My only point is that it will change and I’ll miss the old car culture.

Like you, the price of gas isn’t going to force me to change my lifestyle much. I’m speaking about changes in the broader sense, of course. My belief is that even many of those who see $4/gallon as a mere bump in the road still will adjust their thinking about how they use their vehicles and our car culture will change.

In the mean time . . . a Fisker Karma, huh? I’ve read about ‘em. Have they started shipping yet? What’s the range of those babies?

Congrats.

I think there are loads of people who are thinking just like you. In fact, I’m shocked at how quickly attitudes have changed - even (or especially) my own. As you say, the trickle down will be a big deal. I think there will be many changes - that is, there will be failures because of it as well as an equivalent number of opportunities.

27 miles for pizza is a real commitment whether gas is $1/gallon or $4/gallon. You, obviously, have a more refined pizza palette than I

In the meanwhile, I did put an order down for a Fisker Karma. Tesla’s up the street from here, but a complete shame of a car.

Second, with the cost of gasoline as well as airfares going higher, there is no way for the hotel industry to avoid lower rates. They are just not going to have the demand, and lower rates will make the overall cost of a trip more attractive.

Third, the people this really hits hard are commuters. I think various adaptations will take place over the next few years - people will tend to move closer to their jobs, more telecommuting and other innovations in remote work will finally come to pass.

All that said, I do think that superfluous driving will be viewed as more of a luxury/guilty pleasure than it ever has been. Maybe in the end that will cause us to *appreciate* it more.

Growing up in the UK left me permanently MPG sensitive, which is why I still have never owned an SUV (even though I’ve liked a number of them). When gas was under $2 a gallon, my relatives used to make fun of my grumbling about $0.25 increases, but the recent run on gas prices has been bad enough to almost elicit sympathy from my family back home…

I currently drive a 2.0L turbo Passat. In the UK that would be a big engined car. I can almost hear you snicker that it’s not a V6 or 8. But it’s an Audi designed engine that gets lots of torque while hitting pretty good has mileage. With 28k miles on the clock, the built in whatsit tells me I’ve averaged 27.9 MPG, and I do a fair number of short trips…

But my point is this: for the last three months I actively been avoiding taking almost any trips that aren’t critical. Last year I would routinely drive to Chapel Hill for good pizza. It’s about 27 miles, but the pizza is really good. I won’t do that now — I’ll suffer the local less impressive alternatives. Now I can’t imagine that I singlehandedly drive Pepper’s Pizza business, but the agregate impact on smaller businesses like theirs must be huge. I’m guessing there’s some lag time — you have to pass through the “oh, we really shouldn’t… well go on, just this once” phase before reaching the “what else can we do in Chapel Hill to justify this” phase, followed by the “it’s just too expensive to keep doing this” phase.

I wonder how many other folks are reaching phase 3 at this point, and how many businesses will collapse because of it?