If you google "most expensive gas station in the USA" it comes up with this particular gas station.
It's a meme, but also disingenuous, sensationalist example to use to support an article the war and gas prices. I'd expect this from a shitty rag like newsweek, but I'm a bit disappointed in this sub for not downvoting this post to oblivion.
Gas prices suck, but absolutely this. There is a local intersection near a highway that has two competing gas stations across the street from each other. One was always 40-50 cents per gallon higher than the other.
Consumer supply and demand took care of that issue rather quickly.
Yeah there’s always one like this. Usually it’s near an affluent/HCOL neighborhood where the residents don’t really look at prices, and are there for the close by maintenance, or the walkable convenience store. I see em where I live too.
This. I’m passing through all of California with my band on tour. It’s expensive, sure, and I stayed a few blocks from this gas station, but as a whole I’ve seen gas everywhere at like 5.49-5.90
Meanwhile, in my city in the middle of Canada (even with our famously high taxation) it's currently $1.51 ($CDN)/litre (which translates to $4.11 ($USD) per US gallon).
Wrong comparison. California has even higher taxation than Canada. Compare with any other state and its about even. Arizona or Nevada for example is $4 something.
CA also has strict refining laws that only a few refineries on the west coast adhere to, which is harder to come by as they shut down from being unprofitable.
The comparison is price today to historical prices, given that sales tax and gas tax are always a component, I am not sure it is worth noting that.
And if that is worth noting, it is also worth noting that roads and traffic lights cost money.
Super cringe that people just pretend that taxes don't pay for our lifestyle. Rather than taking the childish, taxation is theft angle, why not draw a hardline that tax dollars are spent well.
Sir my constitutional "right to travel" exempts me from state regulations, taxes, and traffic laws as I am "traveling" in a private capacity rather than "driving" for commerce.
>!That was sarcastic in case anyone just thought I was a manic!<
Boomer mentality of crying about the taxes that pay for the roads we drive on. It is this mentality that is why we have shitty infrastructure. It's because of Boomers choosing to have money in their pockets and deferred maintenance making it the next generations problem.
For a number of reasons, some self-inflicted, some not, California is a unique situation.
But please, nobody let that distract you into thinking this is somehow a California problem. I live in Southwest Florida and I cannot count the number of people on my local next-door feed who thought they were going to get $1.50 a gallon at the pump soon after Trump won the last election.
Now that that is obviously not happening, right on queue, they have been reprogrammed to all of a sudden claim why do the Democrats care about gas prices now when they didn’t care before… Blah blah blah.
Funny enough, a lot did care as it changed the cost of living. But it’s difficult for the government to regulate or affect gas prices. One way we can affect it is through war…
Yes, CA has a high gas tax and has strict environmental requirements on the formula for gasoline which causes it to be less polluting. The end result is the high cost is off set by savings in health outcomes like asthma.
It is partially a call problem. Yes gas is getting expensive everywhere but cali is chronically 2 bucks per gallon more expensive than everywhere else.
Not by me. We didn’t get anywhere near that, and I get mine from BJ’s.
According to AAA, even before all this, from Labor Day, 2024 to Labor Day, 2025, gas was a walloping $.14 cheaper in the country. That’s a little more than a rounding error.
CA is crazy like that. There might be another station 3 blocks away selling it at $5.50.
That's how it is in Tahoe. There can be a $1-$2 difference per gallon depending. Which is just silly to me. Even the stations on the NV side of the lake aren't much cheaper, despite not being required to sell the California blend (less smoggy).
Sure, but also.. why does that matter? Obviously the state with the most expensive gas is gonna hit any particular price milestone first, so what’s your point exactly?
But like, can we use examples from southern states where the % change is still similar to the % change in California? I think that will resonate more with Trumpists.
Well, we’re at about $8.07usd for a gallon in NZ (national average as of 30 Mar). In the last 28 days, the price has gone up almost 40% for unleaded and 95% for diesel
States with easier access to refineries get lower prices because the logistics are much less. I live in the Memphis metro, which has a Valero refinery, among others. Prices are generally much lower than what you will see in California.
Texas is clearly going to have lower prices because it’s an oil producer, as does Oklahoma (my home state).
Plus, California is going to have high demand with a state population of 39 million people (not all of them are drivers, but you understand the larger point, yes?).
CA has easy access to gasoline. It's expensive because of taxes. Hell, in PA the state government takes in more revenue per gallon of gas sold than the actual gas companies.
>A has easy access to gasoline. It's expensive because of taxes.
California does add a significant amount to gasoline because of its higher than normal taxes (and it charges sales tax on gasoline), but to say its location has no bearing on the price is very incorrect.
The top ten most expensive states for gasoline are: Hawaii, California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, Illinois (because it also charges sales tax), and Utah.
You can probably look at a map and figure out a commonality between all those states and exclude the obvious (Hawaii and Alaska), and the outlier (Illinois for charging sales tax on Gas). In case you can't see it, the commonality is states west of the Rockies. Even Wyoming and Colorado are in the bottom half.
The mountains make anything other than vehicle transport of petroleum difficult, plus the shortage of major refineries on that side of the Rockies means that a large share of gasoline and diesel must be trucked in.
Because of a few mountain ranges there's no pipelines to supply it from where US oil production is largely centered today. So almost everything has to come in on tanker from elsewhere to then go to the few West Coast refineries that supply the west coast. It's a very isolated market and that's a lot of the price issues - expensive supply, small number of key refineries that cause prices to spike if anything goes wrong, etc.
Not going to matter much beyond fake outrage and lots of hot air. Gas prices need to exceed $10/gal for Americans to start making lifestyle changes.
So much evil comes from oil related issues in the world. Imagine a world where nobody cares about oil because society and industry have moved on to other energy sources that don’t involve politics and religion.
“Oh but it’s California!” Literally nothing has happened in the past month or so to make gas prices explode like this aside from trump starting a pointless ass war.
The headline is a pricing outlier, but the economics are still real. California’s baseline is already elevated because of refinery constraints, fuel-spec requirements, and taxes, so a geopolitical shock lands on a higher starting point than most states. The useful comparison is percentage change from each region’s own baseline, not raw pump price versus California. If crude volatility persists, expect temporary spikes first in constrained markets, then slower pass-through elsewhere as wholesale inventories reset.
US industrial output share right now is that of Imperial Japan in ww2, while iran is backed by China whose industrial output is that of US after ww2 - about 50%+ of worldwide output.
Can't even limit supplies as russia and china are right there.
I think this is going to be way worse than most people think, US might collapse USSR style during this presidency.
Things just can't continue this way. Pump and dump, pump and dump, inflate everything, gasoline crisis in Asia. At some point things gotta break but nobody in the stock market cares enough. It's a bubble.
the state can't prevent the oil shock from restrictions on global markets but it does have control over the taxes it levies on fuel. the state could lower the price by about 20% by relaxing some of the taxes. it would still leave Cali as the highest gas in the country for other reasons that aren't easily changed (such as fuel mix requirements or refinery regulations) but some short term relief is within their control.
i think it is very important to remember that the high prices are intentional: the state wants reduced gasoline usage. they just never wanted them to get this high. trying to walk that line is extremely difficult for reasons Iran is making obvious.
Hello inflation, my old friend.
I’ve come to live with you again.
‘Cause a madman whose name is Trump
turned the world into an oily dump
And we’re slipping into a war
from which there is no return.
Yet no one dared
Disrupt the path of madness.
Station is profiteering off of masochists that see an absurd price and decide to buy it so they can complain to everyone else in a bid to get attention.
Regular gasoline in Nebraska is $3.30 a gallon this morning. That price is in the middle of the nation. We have a federal tax of 18.7 cents and state tax of 31.8 cents which helps pay for roads etc. California is about 89 cents on tax. It also costs more because. California doesn’t have infrastructure to move fuel and also requires its own special blend of fuel. But don’t if you start going electric by 2035 you only need to increase grid capacity by about 50% which would cost taxpayers about $11,000,per household.
If prices are higher, shouldn't they just lower the tax amount for a while? You're getting more tax revenue from gas, but at what price? At the sake of harming other industries and greatly raising shipping costs.
PandaCultural8311 | 21 hours ago
At this one particular gas station.
Average cost
Los Angeles $5.97 per gallon
San Francisco : $5.83 per gallon
California Average: $5.84 per gallon
Musa_2050 | 19 hours ago
That gas station always has outrageous prices. Its a meme at this point
AshingiiAshuaa | 19 hours ago
If you google "most expensive gas station in the USA" it comes up with this particular gas station.
It's a meme, but also disingenuous, sensationalist example to use to support an article the war and gas prices. I'd expect this from a shitty rag like newsweek, but I'm a bit disappointed in this sub for not downvoting this post to oblivion.
exodus3252 | 15 hours ago
Newsweek is such a fucking rag. That entire website should be blacklisted from this app.
thecodeofsilence | 18 hours ago
Gas prices suck, but absolutely this. There is a local intersection near a highway that has two competing gas stations across the street from each other. One was always 40-50 cents per gallon higher than the other.
Consumer supply and demand took care of that issue rather quickly.
FearlessPark4588 | 18 hours ago
This article has no business being submitted to this sub. The data point is an egregious outlier.
Equivalent-Ice-7274 | 18 hours ago
I just paid $5.45 yesterday in the Inland Empire (CA).
PandaCultural8311 | 18 hours ago
Downvote this post into oblivion!
Edit: I had typed download instead of downvote. Confusion set in.
Equivalent-Ice-7274 | 18 hours ago
Lol why? I don’t get it
PandaCultural8311 | 18 hours ago
I was being snarky.
It's Reddit. We don't like being told things aren't as bad as the worst possible scenario.
Equivalent-Ice-7274 | 18 hours ago
Oh ha! You made a typo - you said download instead of downvote. I wanted to make sure ai was properly downvoted for this Reddit violation
PandaCultural8311 | 18 hours ago
😂
I'm blaming SwiftKey for that.
wbruce098 | 20 hours ago
Yeah there’s always one like this. Usually it’s near an affluent/HCOL neighborhood where the residents don’t really look at prices, and are there for the close by maintenance, or the walkable convenience store. I see em where I live too.
But also: fuck trump
SgtBaxter | 19 hours ago
There's one in CA that's always expensive simply because of how remote it is, and the expense of fuel to get it there.
Phlowman | 19 hours ago
I see them near major airports just before the car rental return area. Locals know to avoid but travelers get ripped off.
epochwin | 18 hours ago
I travel on business so when it’s covered by the company no one cares about the price. In fact you can rack up more points the more expensive it gets.
corejava2 | 15 hours ago
It's one banana Michael, what could it cost? $10?
PowerfulRevolution12 | 11 hours ago
What a weird edit lol
pineappledumdum | 18 hours ago
This. I’m passing through all of California with my band on tour. It’s expensive, sure, and I stayed a few blocks from this gas station, but as a whole I’ve seen gas everywhere at like 5.49-5.90
nick-jagger | 5 hours ago
It’s at least $6 in Oakland unless you want to wait in a giant queue
pineappledumdum | 3 hours ago
Didn’t do Oakland this tour, just did LA, OC, and SF and made it to Portland tonight where it all dropped almost a dollar
kent_eh | 17 hours ago
Meanwhile, in my city in the middle of Canada (even with our famously high taxation) it's currently $1.51 ($CDN)/litre (which translates to $4.11 ($USD) per US gallon).
Weird how much the US is "winning" these days...
GAndroid | 16 hours ago
Wrong comparison. California has even higher taxation than Canada. Compare with any other state and its about even. Arizona or Nevada for example is $4 something.
PossiblySustained | 11 hours ago
CA also has strict refining laws that only a few refineries on the west coast adhere to, which is harder to come by as they shut down from being unprofitable.
CapeMOGuy | 8 hours ago
They also have the highest gasoline taxes and fees in the US.
yasssssplease | 13 hours ago
I just paid $5.09 in CA today!
CapeMOGuy | 8 hours ago
$3.49 in Missouri. Gavin and the Democrats own the rest.
yasssssplease | 7 hours ago
That wasn’t the point. I was just saying that I paid less than the listed average in CA when I filled up.
Gas could be free in Missouri, and I wouldn’t live there. 1.50 difference isn’t enough for me to care.
Eloping_Llamas | 13 hours ago
No different than mentioning the single gas station that had prices under $2 at the state of the union.
Wonder what the price is there now.
Jdobbs07 | 21 hours ago
Also worth noting about $1.30 of that is sales tax and gas tax
ktaktb | 20 hours ago
Lol
Is it worth noting?
The comparison is price today to historical prices, given that sales tax and gas tax are always a component, I am not sure it is worth noting that.
And if that is worth noting, it is also worth noting that roads and traffic lights cost money.
Super cringe that people just pretend that taxes don't pay for our lifestyle. Rather than taking the childish, taxation is theft angle, why not draw a hardline that tax dollars are spent well.
Gimme_The_Loot | 20 hours ago
Sir my constitutional "right to travel" exempts me from state regulations, taxes, and traffic laws as I am "traveling" in a private capacity rather than "driving" for commerce.
>!That was sarcastic in case anyone just thought I was a manic!<
Horror-Layer-8178 | 19 hours ago
Boomer mentality of crying about the taxes that pay for the roads we drive on. It is this mentality that is why we have shitty infrastructure. It's because of Boomers choosing to have money in their pockets and deferred maintenance making it the next generations problem.
Jdobbs07 | 18 hours ago
I live in Georgia we have a state gas tax of about .30c a gallon there is never ending road work going on here
ktaktb | 18 hours ago
Yeah
Never ending work
You are proving the point
It is like a child complaining that the roof is getting replaced, but where is my new nintendo switch???
OffSidesByALot | 20 hours ago
For a number of reasons, some self-inflicted, some not, California is a unique situation. But please, nobody let that distract you into thinking this is somehow a California problem. I live in Southwest Florida and I cannot count the number of people on my local next-door feed who thought they were going to get $1.50 a gallon at the pump soon after Trump won the last election. Now that that is obviously not happening, right on queue, they have been reprogrammed to all of a sudden claim why do the Democrats care about gas prices now when they didn’t care before… Blah blah blah.
VampEngr | 12 hours ago
Funny enough, a lot did care as it changed the cost of living. But it’s difficult for the government to regulate or affect gas prices. One way we can affect it is through war…
OffSidesByALot | 12 hours ago
Correct. With Biden, Russia’s war with Ukraine affected prices. This one… Self-inflicted.
VampEngr | 12 hours ago
Yes, I feel like we’re in a never ending loop of which war to fight next. Some say we’re a wartime economy, then there’s also the OPEC deal.
DangerousCyclone | 3 hours ago
Yes, CA has a high gas tax and has strict environmental requirements on the formula for gasoline which causes it to be less polluting. The end result is the high cost is off set by savings in health outcomes like asthma.
mjm132 | 14 hours ago
It is partially a call problem. Yes gas is getting expensive everywhere but cali is chronically 2 bucks per gallon more expensive than everywhere else.
Eighteen64 | 15 hours ago
It got below $2 in parts of florida earlier this year
OffSidesByALot | 13 hours ago
Not by me. We didn’t get anywhere near that, and I get mine from BJ’s. According to AAA, even before all this, from Labor Day, 2024 to Labor Day, 2025, gas was a walloping $.14 cheaper in the country. That’s a little more than a rounding error.
river_tree_nut | 20 hours ago
CA is crazy like that. There might be another station 3 blocks away selling it at $5.50.
That's how it is in Tahoe. There can be a $1-$2 difference per gallon depending. Which is just silly to me. Even the stations on the NV side of the lake aren't much cheaper, despite not being required to sell the California blend (less smoggy).
jwkpiano1 | 20 hours ago
This is not unique to California. For example, stations just off of freeways are significantly more expensive just about everywhere.
river_tree_nut | 18 hours ago
no, but it's why I think we'll see the first $10 at one of these CA stations
jwkpiano1 | 17 hours ago
Sure, but also.. why does that matter? Obviously the state with the most expensive gas is gonna hit any particular price milestone first, so what’s your point exactly?
river_tree_nut | 17 hours ago
Sorry for not being profound enough for your exacting reddit standards
YouWereBrained | 20 hours ago
But like, can we use examples from southern states where the % change is still similar to the % change in California? I think that will resonate more with Trumpists.
Leafybug13 | 19 hours ago
Dude, nothing resonates with those people.
chickyloo42by10 | an hour ago
Well, we’re at about $8.07usd for a gallon in NZ (national average as of 30 Mar). In the last 28 days, the price has gone up almost 40% for unleaded and 95% for diesel
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 19 hours ago
Mine went up to 3.30 in Texas. Blue states really drive up prices.
YouWereBrained | 18 hours ago
Nah, it has nothing to do with “blue” or “red”.
States with easier access to refineries get lower prices because the logistics are much less. I live in the Memphis metro, which has a Valero refinery, among others. Prices are generally much lower than what you will see in California.
Texas is clearly going to have lower prices because it’s an oil producer, as does Oklahoma (my home state).
Plus, California is going to have high demand with a state population of 39 million people (not all of them are drivers, but you understand the larger point, yes?).
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 18 hours ago
CA has easy access to gasoline. It's expensive because of taxes. Hell, in PA the state government takes in more revenue per gallon of gas sold than the actual gas companies.
Dublers | 17 hours ago
>A has easy access to gasoline. It's expensive because of taxes.
California does add a significant amount to gasoline because of its higher than normal taxes (and it charges sales tax on gasoline), but to say its location has no bearing on the price is very incorrect.
The top ten most expensive states for gasoline are: Hawaii, California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, Illinois (because it also charges sales tax), and Utah.
You can probably look at a map and figure out a commonality between all those states and exclude the obvious (Hawaii and Alaska), and the outlier (Illinois for charging sales tax on Gas). In case you can't see it, the commonality is states west of the Rockies. Even Wyoming and Colorado are in the bottom half.
The mountains make anything other than vehicle transport of petroleum difficult, plus the shortage of major refineries on that side of the Rockies means that a large share of gasoline and diesel must be trucked in.
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 17 hours ago
I never said location has no effect. I said CA has a good location.
SkiingAway | 18 hours ago
Actually no, it doesn't.
Because of a few mountain ranges there's no pipelines to supply it from where US oil production is largely centered today. So almost everything has to come in on tanker from elsewhere to then go to the few West Coast refineries that supply the west coast. It's a very isolated market and that's a lot of the price issues - expensive supply, small number of key refineries that cause prices to spike if anything goes wrong, etc.
Reasonable-Fee1945 | 17 hours ago
>Because of a few mountain ranges there's no pipelines to supply it from where US oil production is largely centered today.
It is the 7th largest oil producing state. It has a massive coastline friendly to shipping. It has off shore locations.
realvvk | 16 hours ago
Not going to matter much beyond fake outrage and lots of hot air. Gas prices need to exceed $10/gal for Americans to start making lifestyle changes.
So much evil comes from oil related issues in the world. Imagine a world where nobody cares about oil because society and industry have moved on to other energy sources that don’t involve politics and religion.
AquietRive | 20 hours ago
“Oh but it’s California!” Literally nothing has happened in the past month or so to make gas prices explode like this aside from trump starting a pointless ass war.
AustinBike | 19 hours ago
Wait, there is an ass war going on too????
Dependent_Ad_1270 | 16 hours ago
Brazil is winning so far
gmanEllison | 18 hours ago
The headline is a pricing outlier, but the economics are still real. California’s baseline is already elevated because of refinery constraints, fuel-spec requirements, and taxes, so a geopolitical shock lands on a higher starting point than most states. The useful comparison is percentage change from each region’s own baseline, not raw pump price versus California. If crude volatility persists, expect temporary spikes first in constrained markets, then slower pass-through elsewhere as wholesale inventories reset.
cranberrie_sauce | 21 hours ago
US industrial output share right now is that of Imperial Japan in ww2, while iran is backed by China whose industrial output is that of US after ww2 - about 50%+ of worldwide output.
Can't even limit supplies as russia and china are right there.
I think this is going to be way worse than most people think, US might collapse USSR style during this presidency.
bedrooms-ds | 20 hours ago
Things just can't continue this way. Pump and dump, pump and dump, inflate everything, gasoline crisis in Asia. At some point things gotta break but nobody in the stock market cares enough. It's a bubble.
thomasrat1 | 20 hours ago
Yeah, this is my biggest concern.
If war was to truly start between the big powers rn.
How long before America takes a loss we can’t recover from?
JackDostoevsky | 19 hours ago
the state can't prevent the oil shock from restrictions on global markets but it does have control over the taxes it levies on fuel. the state could lower the price by about 20% by relaxing some of the taxes. it would still leave Cali as the highest gas in the country for other reasons that aren't easily changed (such as fuel mix requirements or refinery regulations) but some short term relief is within their control.
i think it is very important to remember that the high prices are intentional: the state wants reduced gasoline usage. they just never wanted them to get this high. trying to walk that line is extremely difficult for reasons Iran is making obvious.
grumpyliberal | 17 hours ago
Hello inflation, my old friend. I’ve come to live with you again. ‘Cause a madman whose name is Trump turned the world into an oily dump And we’re slipping into a war from which there is no return. Yet no one dared Disrupt the path of madness.
Constructionbae | 5 hours ago
Filled up with diesel at $6.19 in WA. Credit card maxes purchases at 150. That 150 only got me ¾ of a tank. Shit made me sick to my stomach
PlanetCosmoX | 34 minutes ago
Station is profiteering off of masochists that see an absurd price and decide to buy it so they can complain to everyone else in a bid to get attention.
Smart. Also free advertising.
They’ve been doing it for years.
Bubbaman78 | 18 hours ago
Regular gasoline in Nebraska is $3.30 a gallon this morning. That price is in the middle of the nation. We have a federal tax of 18.7 cents and state tax of 31.8 cents which helps pay for roads etc. California is about 89 cents on tax. It also costs more because. California doesn’t have infrastructure to move fuel and also requires its own special blend of fuel. But don’t if you start going electric by 2035 you only need to increase grid capacity by about 50% which would cost taxpayers about $11,000,per household.
Dublers | 17 hours ago
Two issues:
>That price is in the middle of the nation.
Nebraska has some of the cheapest gasoline in the country, as in top 5 cheapest.
>California is about 89 cents on tax
California also charges sales tax on gasoline, so its total tax goes up even more as the price does, so that 89 cents is out of date.
Stellar_Impulse | 19 hours ago
If prices are higher, shouldn't they just lower the tax amount for a while? You're getting more tax revenue from gas, but at what price? At the sake of harming other industries and greatly raising shipping costs.
Blahkbustuh | 18 hours ago
Gas taxes are a flat cents per gallon of gas, not a % of price.
Stellar_Impulse | 17 hours ago
That makes sense.