Dollar-A-Gallon Gasoline? Yep, Briefly, One Day In LA (Video)

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2,646 views May 16, 2011

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Even if some of us suspect that cheap gasoline may never come back for good ... well, we can dream, right?

In the face of national gas prices averaging $4 a gallon, and fillups that can cost three figures, several hundred lucky drivers in Los Angeles hit the jackpot yesterday morning: They paid just $1.10 a gallon to fill their tanks.

It was all due to a computer glitch, but it took three hours--and lines of cars around the block, with police on hand to direct the resulting traffic--before the station owner shut down all his pumps.

The station in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles lost roughly $21,000 on the 8,000 gallons of gasoline it sold in roughly three hours, according to news reports.

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If you're not lucky enough to find dollar-a-gallon gasoline in your neighborhood, the new car with the highest gas mileage sold in the U.S. is the 2011 Toyota Prius, with an EPA combined rating of 50 mpg.

There are also two plug-in electric cars from major manufacturers, though both are in short supply.

They are the battery electric 2011 Nissan Leaf, with a range of 75 to 100 miles, and the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car. The Volt uses a small four-cylinder engine to generate electricity to run the car after its battery pack provides 25 to 40 miles of range.

The EPA combined rating for the Leaf is 99 "miles-per-gallon equivalent"--which is a comparative measure of energy efficiency, since the Leaf does not use gasoline at all.

The agency rates the Volt at 37 mpg combined when running solely on gasoline, and 93 "MPGe" on electricity.

[CBSlocal.com via Consumerist]

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