The $100 tank becomes a reality for U.S. motorists

By Christopher Maag
Published: July 7, 2008

With prices high and rising, a new financial milestone has arrived in the United States: the $100 tank of gasoline.
Bryan Carisone, a heating and air-conditioning contractor in Raritan, New Jersey, "absolutely loves" his new GMC Denali XL, an extra-large sport utility vehicle with televisions built into the leather seats. But in June, one week after he bought it, he pulled into a station on a near-empty tank and watched the total climb higher and higher - to $109.
"It just about killed me," Carisone said.
For decades, the $100 barrel stood as a hypothetical outlier in doom-and-gloom conversations about future oil prices. And nobody could even imagine a U.S. family paying $100 to fill the tank.
But the future is here. Oil passed $100 a barrel in January and hit $145 a barrel last week before retreating. Gasoline prices in the United States surpassed $4 a gallon, or $1.06 a liter, on June 8, stalled for a while, and have been rising again in recent days, setting a record Saturday.

By late spring, owners of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles with 30-gallon tanks, like the Cadillac Escalade ESV and Chevrolet Suburban, started paying $100 or more to fill a near-empty tank. As gasoline prices continue to rise - the U.S. average stood at about $4.10 a gallon Saturday - membership in the triple-digit club is growing. Now, even not-so-gargantuan Toyota Land Cruisers and GMC Yukons can cost $100 to fill up in the United States.
Data on exactly how often people in the United States pay $100 for a tank of gasoline are scarce, given price variations from market to market and day to day.
But during the first five months of 2008, about 11 percent of U.S. drivers said they bought 24 gallons or more at their last fill up, according to a survey of 81,000 drivers by the NPD Group, a market research firm - which at today's prices would place many of them at or around $100.
For people who love their big vehicles, the pain is acute.
Members of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America prize the Avalanche, a large sport utility vehicle, for its versatility, including a rear cab wall that slides forward for a larger pickup bed or backward for more passenger room.
But the Avalanche also has a 31-gallon tank, which would cost $127 to fill at Saturday's U.S. average price. Even the truck's most dedicated fans find that a tough bill to swallow. David Obelcz, who founded the club in 2002 and is still a member of the board, sold his Avalanche because he could not afford gasoline for it.
Thirty members of the fan club's Arizona chapter used to attend off-roading and other events three times a month. But now that Avalanche owners pay more than $100 a tank, the club is lucky to attract 10 members once every two months, said Eric Tolliver, a leader of the chapter.
"Everybody's trying to save money on gas, so now we mostly chat online instead of driving," Tolliver said.
Eric Laugen, a firefighter in Seattle, is administrator of the Chevy Avalanche Fan Club of North America. For a trip to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, he wanted to drive his truck because it has enough room for his fishing and camera gear, as well as space in the back to sleep.
He rode his motorcycle instead. That meant pitching a tent every night, and no fishing.
"Motorcycle touring is a pain," said Laugen, talking on his cellphone from a park in Alaska. "But then I looked at how much gas would cost in the Avalanche. It just doesn't make sense anymore."
Hummer clubs are suffering, too. In Nebraska, Ric Hines of the Omaha Hummer Owner Group - known as Omahog - stopped doing off-road trips this summer and started riding his recumbent bicycle instead.
"I get to camp either way, and biking pushes me to save a few hundred dollars on gas," Hines said.
Mark Price, founder of the Illiana Hummer Club in the Chicago area, owns three Hummer H1s, which get about 8 miles a gallon, or 29 liters per 100 kilometers. "A lot of our members won't travel 70 miles just to support a parade anymore," Price said. "People wait for something a little closer."
Larger families that were accustomed to the convenience of sport utility vehicles are having to cut back as well. Colleen Hammond of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, loves packing her three kids and all their soccer gear into her 2000 GMC Yukon XL.
But she hates paying $160 to fill the 38.5-gallon tank. Last month, she parked the Yukon in her driveway and borrowed her friend's Toyota Land Cruiser.
"I don't know if it gets better gas mileage, but I like her car because it costs $100 to fill it," said Hammond, 40. "I think $100 for a tank of gas is cheap now."
Steve Burtch bought a Dodge Ram last year, when gasoline cost $3.75 a gallon, because he thought gasoline prices had peaked and would start coming down. Instead, he pumped his first $100 tank in June. "I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to keep this up," said Burtch, 43, who lives in Marion, Ohio.
It seems that plenty of other drivers in the United States are sharing his dismay. An automotive information Web site and market research firm, Edmunds.com, compiled sales data showing that in the past seven model years, Americans bought 25.4 million vehicles with tanks 24 gallons or larger - the point at which three figures for gasoline is a real possibility today. A few big trucks and sport utility vehicles have tanks exceeding 30 gallons.
But people who try to pump $100 worth of gasoline often find that they cannot, since most pumps in the United States that take credit cards shut off at $75 to prevent someone with insufficient funds or a stolen credit card from running off with gasoline. In addition, some older pumps still are not capable of registering triple-digit bills.
Many consumers whose tanks would easily swallow $100 worth of gasoline refuse to pump that much at once, just to avoid the trauma.
"Usually I don't let it get real empty so that I don't have to see that $100 on the pump," said Bob Hammond of Chesterland, Ohio, who drives an Avalanche.
Gary Chamberlain always pays cash for gasoline, so the pump kept right on spinning two weeks ago when he made his first triple-digit fill-up of his Ford conversion van.
"The bill was $104.98, which was a real shock," said Chamberlain of Marion, Ohio. "I never thought I'd see the day."