Oil prices not high enough to change behavior
December 5th, 2009Stuart Staniford at Early Warning has posted this chart showing that new vehicle fuel economy wasn’t very responsive to the oil price spike of 2005-2008.
Unlike the oil crisis of the late ’70s, people just didn’t run out and trade in their gas guzzlers for new fuel-efficient cars. And “cash for clunkers” did very little to offset the impacts of lower gas prices.
With gas prices down from the spike in 2008, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is once again on a growth path after falling in 2008. The Federal Highway Administration reports travel on all roads and streets was up 2.5% (5.8 billion vehicle miles) for September 2009 as compared with September 2008. Cumulative Travel for 2009 through September was up 0.3% (6.7 billion vehicle miles) over 2008.
U.S. Vehicle Miles through January 2009
The decline in VMT totaled 122 billion for the period December 2007 to January 2009, compared to the same 14-month period a year earlier. If VMT keeps increasing by almost 6 billion miles a month, it won’t be long before VMT is back to where it was before the oil price spike hit. If oil prices spike again . . . ?
The Energy Information Administration reports petroleum used for transportation in 2009 remains significantly less than in 2007 and 2008 (8.0% and 4.2%, respectively).