Letters to the Editor: The best way to fight high gas prices? Get an electric car

To the editor: I found an even better way than using the smartphone apps GasBuddy and Gas Guru to respond to gas price gaming: purchasing an electric car. For good measure, I added to my existing solar energy system as further insulation from the oil market.

Admittedly, it’s an (initially) expensive way to avoid being gouged at the pump, but among my small pleasures in life, I now count driving by gas stations while contemplating that under no circumstances will I have to stop in one. Should I admit that my uncharitable side is looking forward to the predicted spring price rise?

I can only hope that in time enough people will get an electric car, so that buying gas will become just an option and eventually an anachronism.

Barry Carlton, El Cajon

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To the editor: I think columnist David Lazarus soft-pedaled the gouging issue a little.

The vast majority of oil consumed in the U.S. is produced domestically. Only 9% of the oil we import comes from Saudi Aradia; the rest mostly comes from Canada and Mexico. It seems to me that what happens vis-a-vis Iran is that the producers, refiners and marketers use the instability as a bogus reason to justify price increases.

What I see here is that we in California, particularly Southern California, are the victims of a greedy corporate structure that takes advantage of the fact that we don’t have an adequate public transportation system, and most people who work must drive.

The federal government could do something about this problem. Each time the price jumps as a reaction to some bad news, it should release oil from the strategic reserve to drive prices back down quickly. Obviously our present administration would never do such a thing.

Robert L. Blum, Encino

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To the editor: Thanks to Lazarus for keeping the topic of fuel price gouging front and center.

It is also time for an update from Gov. Gavin Newsom on his administration’s investigation of the gouging issue here in California. Fuel prices rise and fall, but we in California want to know why we always pay far more than the rest of the country even after higher taxes and special refining costs are taken into account.

James W. Brown, Santa Ana