The price of gas really does matter after all.
There were more cars than ever in California in 2006, but for the first time in 14 years, the state's motorists bought less gasoline than the year before. The drop in sales was meager -- less than 1% -- but surprising given that nationwide, drivers are consuming more gas.
The Golden State, it seems, is different.
Prices that hovered above $3 a gallon prompted some Californians to cut back, others to park their cars altogether in favor of trains and buses, and still others to buy hybrids.
Ricardo Ramirez, a 24-year-old student who lives in Santa Ana, said the higher prices had forced him to watch his fuel gauge carefully and sometimes pass up family gatherings in San Juan Capistrano. Ramirez, who was buying $10 worth of regular at a Tustin 76 station Wednesday, said the price "determines whether I see my parents once a week -- or three times."
Ramirez wasn't the only one to muzzle the urge to guzzle: California's consumption in 2006 fell by 0.7%, to 15.8 billion gallons, figures from the state Board of Equalization show. They marked the state's first drop in gasoline use since 1992, when consumption fell less than 1%, the state tax agency said.
Compared with 2005, Californians used more gas in the first three months of the year, but less for the remaining nine months. During the lower-demand months, the statewide average price for self-serve regular stayed above the $3-a-gallon mark for 19 weeks, posting several new records and peaking at an average price of $3.33 a gallon in early May, the U.S. Energy Department said. The rest of the country endured considerably less punishment at the pump last year.
"The economic driver of this trend is clearly the cost of gas," said Judy Chu, vice chairwoman of the State Board of Equalization. The last big drop in California's gasoline demand was in the early 1970s, when an oil embargo led to gasoline rationing, Chu said, "but in those days, we didn't have the options of hybrid vehicles or expansive public transportation systems."
Both of those alternatives appear to have helped offset the state's relentless increase in registered vehicles and licensed drivers, which in 2006 rose 1.8% and 1.4%, respectively.
At the end of 2006, California was home to 33.9 million registered cars, trucks and trailers, including 135,425 hybrids -- vehicles that burn less gasoline because an electric motor sometimes takes over for the internal combustion engine. More than a quarter of the nation's hybrids travel California's roads.
