Monday, October 5, 2015 -- Part III; Everyone Is Buying Big Vehicles

Jack Kemp:

The average fuel economy for vehicles sold in the United States in September was 25.2 miles per gallon, down by 0.6 mpg since August 2014, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

Fuel economy, using window-sticker values, has increased by 5.1 mpg, about 25 percent, since October 2007, when the institute began monitoring, thanks to higher fuel prices and tougher government standards.

But the improvement has stalled as the reduction in fuel prices has encouraged buyers to trade efficiency for increased size and power (www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/img/EDI_mpg_September-2015.png).

In the first nine months of 2015, sales of light trucks, a category that includes SUVs and pickups, surged more than 11 percent compared with the same period in 2014. Car sales dropped nearly 2 percent.

But this is huge:

According to OPEC, the same trend is evident in China: lower prices are encouraging consumers to purchase larger and more fuel-hungry vehicles.

I did not find the graph particularly interesting.

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A Video On The Bakken

A reader sent me this video taken of Williston on/about September 19, 2015.