Not just inflated prices but inflated fuel

Not just inflated prices but inflated fuel
Gasoline and diesel expand as temperatures rise. So California drivers are getting even less for their buck.
By Elizabeth Douglass, Times Staff Writer
May 9, 2007

Here's another way you're getting pinched at the pump: Paying for, say, five gallons of fuel doesn't mean you're getting a full five gallons.

Fuel expands when temperatures rise. And because gasoline station nozzles don't adjust for the change, motorists and truckers end up with less of the energy that keeps engines humming.

The shortfall means that California motorists could be losing 3 cents on every gallon, by one estimate. But the pennies add up, especially with the average gas price soaring to a state record of $3.489 a gallon Tuesday. With drivers in the state using almost 16 billion gallons of gas a year, hot fuel could be costing them nearly $480 million annually.

The overcharge is rampant, legal and hard for consumers to spot. But it's no secret. Oil companies acknowledge it and regulators allow it. One company developed a device to fix the disparity but shelved the product after dealers resisted. Now the issue is generating heat among consumer activists, lawmakers and beleaguered fuel pumpers.

"It's a real big deal because it comes out of our pockets," said trucker Freddy Chulo, who on a recent day poured 60 gallons of diesel into his rig at the Commerce Truck Stop.

The hot-fuel issue is gaining traction among truckers like the 30-year-old Chulo, who spends $60,000 a year on diesel. A caller to XM Satellite Radio host Dale Sommers, known as the Truckin' Bozo, complained that he filled his 100-gallon tank on a hot desert evening but discovered the next morning that the fuel had cooled and contracted.

"He had lost three gallons," said Sommers, whose listeners call him "the Boze" for short. "At $3 a gallon, that's $9 he lost."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hotfuel9may09,0,1724695.story

While factually correct (i.e., gasoline does expand, contract), the amounts
involved are pitiful compared to those pissed away through inefficiencies
in their vehicles and driving styles.

Still, it provides a new "bad guy" to avoid Joe Public having to worry
about the environmental impact of his wasteful lifestyle.

...legislature outlaw the thermal expansion of fluids.