AD&P; > December 2015 > TALK > Marginal > Gary S. Vasilash > gsv@autofeldguide.com
6
Gary S. Vasilash, Editor-In-Chief
Gas Pressures
As I am writing this, the average
price of gas in the U.S., accord-
ing to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA), is $2.99 a
gallon. Less than three bucks. Who
would have thought this would be
the case? In June, the average price
was $3.69 a gallon. That's about a
19% diference. What else can you
think of that's gone down in price
by about a ffth in fve months?
Who doesn't think that this fall in
gas prices is a good thing? Every-
body ought to be happy, right?
Well, maybe not.
Product planners at OEMs are prob-
ably not all that chufed with the
fall in prices. Odds are, they were
thinking of a bogey on the order of
$4.00 per gallon for the next few
years. Now the certainty is less so.
When the sales numbers for October
came in, not surprisingly the top
three vehicles were pickups: Ford
F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado and
Dodge Ram. Even though everybody
knows that the 2015 Ford F-Series is
a rather transformative vehicle (yes,
the aluminum is impressive, but the
level of technology in that vehicle
cannot be overlooked because it
is arguably taking the pickup to a
place where only luxury cars have
been before) and so some people
might be delaying their purchase of
a Ford truck, even though Ford has
been winding down production of
the '14 models so there is less avail-
ability (although there have prob-
ably been some good prices on the
earlier models as dealers free-up
lot space for the new one), F-Series
sales were still 63,410 units, down
a mere 0.6% from October 2013.
Ford C-MAX sales—Ford's Prius-
fghting hybrid and plug-in—were
of by 22.5% in October compared