A year ago the price of diesel fuel was over a dollar more then unleaded regular gas per gallon

[Winterblues]

Everyone here justified it by saying it takes more refining to take out the sulfur. Today diesel is $.20 less than regular unleaded gasoline. What is the justification now?

[rucky]

1. Maybe they found a sideline gig selling the sulfur for bombs or something?

:shrug:

[sandnsea]

2. Not here

In any event, if it's getting cheaper it's because people are parking their SUVs.

[dysfunctional press]

3. how many suv's run on diesel?

:shrug:

[sandnsea]

6. Quite a few, half probably

That's one of the reasons they gave tax credits for them in the 90s. Reduce gas prices by shifting some of the demand to diesel.

[EOTE]

9. I would doubt it's much more than 10%.

I don't have any figures available, but I know that there are practically no diesel crossover vehicles (the new GLK Mercedes is the only one I know of that offers a diesel), no diesel compact SUVs and the bulk of full size SUVs are have conventional gas engines. It seems that less than 10% of the Benzes I see are diesels and less than 20% of the VWs I see are diesels. Considering those are the only two companies selling them en masse in the U.S., I can't imagine that diesels make up a sizable chunk of sales here.

[dysfunctional press]

10. i don't think that it's anywhere near half in the u.s....

considering how few diesel pumps there are out there, in comparison to gas pumps.
do you have any statistics regarding the numbers?

[sandnsea]

11. No. That's personal observation in my area

The business owners here bought diesel SUV's for tax purposes. Most of them are now parked. Apparently it's not the same in other areas.

[dysfunctional press]

13. they bought them here for tax reasons too- but they were mostly gas engines.

there had to be over a half dozen hummers just in our small subdivision a few years back.

[dysfunctional press]

4. less demand.

not as much war going on in iraq, and not as many goods being trucked around the u.s.

once vietghanistan gets up to speed, the price of diesel will follow.

[sandnsea]

7. That would be true too n/t

[safeinOhio]

5. Damn Ford

won't import the diesil motor from England or build it here. The little car they'll sell would get 65/mpg. I don't buy new cars anymore, but I would that one.

[NashVegas]

8. Things Are Back To Normal?

Diesel gas has almost always been cheaper than regular unleaded, and it skyrocketed just ahead of regular the whole way through the bullshit of the last two-three years.

[Michigan-Arizona]

12. Here in Tucson, AZ it's about $.45 more than no-lead

Some station's here for No-Lead are around $2.45 per gallon & Diesel at most station's are around $2.95 a gallon. Well that was yesterday so they could both be higher today.

[jmowreader]

14. I haven't seen diesel priced less than gas anywhere

Gasoline is also desulfurized.

Diesel's a weird thing. There are four very similar fuels whose price work together: diesel, heating oil, kerosene and jet fuel. They're all basically the same stuff, but kerosene is more highly refined and more volatile (it's a very clean version of number-one diesel; the stuff at the fuel island is number-two diesel), heating oil just has the big chunks strained out of it, and jet fuel is extremely pure so it doesn't cause airplanes to crash. The more jet fuel is used, the more diesel will cost. The more heating oil is used, the more diesel will cost.

The other thing that affects diesel prices is taxation--diesel is usually burned in very large vehicles that tear up roads, so the road tax is set accordingly.

One other thing worked against diesel last year: they were still getting familiar with making ultra-low-sulfur diesel that didn't tear your engine up. Sulfur is a lubricant. They had to add other chemicals to restore the lubricity--a lot of old guys running pre-2007 trucks say it's still not there yet. Now they know how to do it, but last year ULSD was still a black art.