This seems insane to me. I live in a city where maybe 50-60% of people have cars, and most don’t drive them that much. Yet every grocery store I’m aware of with the sole exception of the expensive Whole Foods has a fuel rewards points program. Reasons this should be controversial enough to enable a low-cost alternative:

  1. Many people don’t drive and therefore pay a little more for groceries because it includes a perk they don’t use
  2. It seems like a very ardent pro-fossil fuel move that you’d think would cause some sort of negative attention from environment activists.
  3. The subsidy typically applies as an amount off per gallon, so you end up really subsidizing big vehicles with big gas tanks. Again, really makes some customers subsidize others and you’d think people (other than me) would be annoyed at this.

But yet, virtually every grocery store does this. Anyone know why? Does the fossil fuel industry somehow encourage this?

  • @KellyEnglish
    1•6 months ago

    For a pretty extreme example consider, as you say, a large 25-gal tank, and filling up from dry twice a week, at an average of $0.10/gal non-optimal price: you pay an annual premium of $260 bucks not to drive yourself batty hunting for pennies, and burning at least a tiny bit more fuel to do it.

    Since 2001 here in WA we have a system where petrol stations have to lock in their price for a day by announcing it the afternoon before. The highlights used to be mentioned on the local news and newspaper (maybe they still are, who knows?). But more importantly they all get published on https://www.fuelwatch.wa.gov.au/ so its pretty trivial to visit the site in the afternoon and check the stores along the commute home, plus you can also compare their tomorrow price to see if you should wait until then.

    Looking at that site right now I can see 25% variance across my commute without even considering a detour. Its a pretty handy system.

    • @wjriiEnglish
      1•6 months ago

      Fair; I guess I should have run some data. I just used gasbuddy.com to run a similar track for what would have been my rather lengthy commute if my employer had asked us to return to office (and kept the lease on that building). Apart from a couple of outliers just outside the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, I’m only getting an 8% variance (about USD 0.23/gallon, versus your 25% and AUD 0.55/litre – is that right?).

      That said, Iwill admit that $0.10/gallon suboptimal average price is probably more likely than I thought, though with a less intense driving situation one would still be well under the $260/year “convenience premium.” Outside the US and other oil-subsidizing countries, the numbers clearly work out very differently.

      • @KellyEnglish
        1•6 months ago

        The numbers on fuelwatch have rolled over for the new day now but when I was looking last night there was around 5-10% variation within each day but also a 15-20% price drop from Tuesday to Wednesday. By min-maxing across both days I could a min that was 25% lower than the max.

        The range would be much less impressive if we only had access to a single days prices.