You could be paying $2.90 a gallon for gas this week. CNN Money reports, "Gasoline prices fell overnight, moving to within 3 cents of the $2.90 a gallon mark after sliding below $3 over the weekend, a survey for the American Automobile Association showed Monday. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas fell to $2.923 from $2.954 the day before, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report, the 33rd straight day that prices have declined."
The New York Times notes, "Oil prices dropped below $70 a barrel for the first time in 14 months Thursday, prompting the OPEC cartel to call for an emergency meeting next week to establish some stability in prices that have plummeted recently after rising for months. " There is some hope that "the decline in oil prices could provide a form of stimulus to the economy as consumers pay less to fill up their tanks. If oil prices stay at current levels, consumers would have $250 billion more, over a year, to save or spend elsewhere, according to Lawrence Goldstein, an energy economist." But OPEC nations "which control 40 percent of global exports, could curb their output by about a million barrels a day to try to stem the drop in prices, according to analysts."
But there is some worry that a drop in the price of gasoline could set back progress toward alternative energies in the automotive market. At a recent conference, the Washington Post reports, "Bill Reinert, one of the Toyota Prius designers...cautioned that designing and ramping up production of a new car takes five years." Struggling automakers could abandon such intensive efforts in a cash-saving move if it seems like gasoline is becoming more affordable and consumers are becoming less concerned with fuel economy. "As oil prices climbed, major automakers including GM, Mitsubishi, Renault-Nissan and Toyota moved ahead with plans to produce plug-in vehicles," the Post notes. "But the first of those cars won't be ready for a couple of years. What the price of oil will be then, and what consumers' appetite for plug-in cars will be then, is anybody's guess." Expensive green car projects like the upcoming Chevy Volt "could be even tougher for the big automakers in the United States" if the cost of gas declines and automakers are forced to make cash-saving cuts in a tight credit market.
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