The modest good news in AAA's survey was that some costs actually fell: maintenance was down 2.2 percent, and insurance 6.1 percent. Then the Expedition gets a "For Sale" sign. They've always been more expensive to own, but people are willing to pay a premium - at least until $4 gas results in $200 to $300 tank fill-ups. A typical four-wheel drive sport utility vehicle costs a whopping $11,239 to drive 15,000 miles, at a cost of 74.9 cents per mile, AAA said. Expect that cycle to repeat, but with prices rising higher and falling less, in the coming years.Īmericans may love their SUVs, but the gas guzzlers don't love them back. And once they do fall, people start driving again, and buy more SUVs - so demand is up again and so are prices. He said that consumers hit with high fuel costs drive less, which depresses oil demand and thus causes prices to drop.
At a Toyota event on Tuesday, I interviewed Peter Wells, a former Shell and BP executive who advises the automaker on fuel issues. The road to peak oil isn't a smooth curve, but a jagged landscape reflecting consumer anxiety. That behavior actually causes fuel prices to fluctuate wildly. It's likely that the experience of past fuel crises will be repeated, and people will whipsaw back and forth between the large cars they actually like better and the smaller ones they feel forced into.