Hacker News

38 points by lafond 2 days ago | 27 comments

culi 10 minutes ago

GasBuddy is great for this. You can see average gas prices across all gas stations for a certain region (or nation-wide).

https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts

The data goes back even over 25 years if you play around with the query params (it started in June of 2000). E.g.

https://charts.gasbuddy.com/ch.gaschart?Country=USA&Crude=f&...

0cf8612b2e1e 19 hours ago

  Costco gas is famously a loss leader, typically running 15 to 20 cents below surrounding stations.

Is this true? I always assumed that Costco just had better deals/longer horizon commitments so it could undercut local stations. Maybe they even own a refinery just to maintain the best margin.

shrubble 16 hours ago

They are selling 10000 gallons a day at some locations, so I find it hard to believe.

More like they don’t have a need to make a profit and they run the station in a barebones manner on real estate that they get as part of the larger site. So it would be a loss leader for anyone else.

PessimalDecimal 17 minutes ago

The Acquired episode about Costco (https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco) claims they don't do loss leaders at all.

teruakohatu 10 hours ago

Selling below the price of surrounding stations doesn’t mean they are losing money on the fuel.

Costco has a single store in my country and it’s butter that they sell cheaply to get people in the door. But I doubt they are losing money on it.

wyre 17 hours ago

It makes sense. The ~$10 someone saves pumping at Costco is easily made up in the >$100 shopping trip they are making, or compared to lifetime spend.

bryanlarsen 2 hours ago

No it doesn't. Costco has a gross profit margin of 11% and a net profit margin of 3%. Losing $10 to make $3 isn't viable.

basch 2 hours ago

Costco isnt losing $10. They can sell gas at cost to run a gas station if they want to. They break even and get people there instead of a normal gas station.

1970-01-01 24 minutes ago

Tracking Costco gas doesn't make much sense as Costco doesn't make money on gas. They use it as a loss-leader for memberships.

avgDev 13 minutes ago

I disagree. The prices still move with the price of oil. Their margins are just lower.

1970-01-01 9 minutes ago

The prices move on dozens of other factors, most of which include the word "supply" however some do not. Using Costco as an example will add "membership retention factor" into the mix of factors for price. Better to track all the Sunoco or BP or Mobil stations directly.

monkeydust 28 minutes ago

Probably a good index for predicting how midterms might go

Ductapemaster 23 hours ago

https://archive.ph/qX4vF

jmpman 20 hours ago

I started screenshotting my local Costco warehouse gas prices weekly since the week prior to Trump's inauguration, mostly so my Trump supporting brother inlaw couldn't just spew his Fox brainwashing on me without me hitting back with this data.

hydrogen7800 19 hours ago

I've been tracking every fuel purchase I've made for 12 years now across 5 or 6 different cars. Not sure what I'll ever do with that information, but I suppose it may come in handy for a political argument.

Waterluvian 19 hours ago

I’d be amazed if it actually changed anything with him.

jmpman 19 hours ago

Oh it won't, doesn't mean I'm not planning to rub it in his face.

jerlam 2 days ago

It's too bad there's no API to find the current wait time at the Costco gas station. I'm not going to spend an extra hour of my day to save $5.

plandis 9 minutes ago

Does it routinely take an hour to get gas at Costco near you?

Even when the lines are completely of cars at the Costco I go to (north of Seattle in Shoreline), I never wait more than like five minutes.

lafond 2 days ago

If only they exposed this data!! Would have been so fun adding the display to the site

dominotw 22 hours ago

i go befoe costoco opens at 7am . they have different timings.

caminante 21 hours ago

Or don't go at 9AM with the Executive rush. Wait 30m.

phil21 17 hours ago

Doesn’t matter at all for my local Costco. It’s busy open to close with very little variance.

The only times I’ve seen it relatively empty were during bad storms.

That said, it’s not an hour wait. Around 20 minutes is average, but I rarely fill up there since I value my time much more than that.

jerlam 16 hours ago

I don't live at Costco so it's going to be 30 minutes just back and forth. My Costco does have quieter times, but then I have to plan around it. It never made the slightest bit of sense to make a separate trip for $5.

ButlerianJihad 18 hours ago

Just wait until you have an EV! Then you will get to wait in line for an outlet, and then wait while the electrons trickle into your tank! Good times.

jerlam 16 hours ago

There's no line in my garage.

Also most of the public chargers are networked, so you know when they are busy.

1970-01-01 17 minutes ago

Let's nevermind this nonsense about waiting in lines.. I want to know more about what is happening to electrons after they trickle into your tank. Where do they end up when you go for a drive? Are we pumping them back into the air?

Sohcahtoa82 21 hours ago

[dead]