Meanwhile, our biodiesel is $4.19/gal. That's over .50 cheaper. We've never been in this situation before. We determine our price based on a whole lot of needs and criteria. We've been refining our methods on that, and we now have an equation that spits out what our price should be, keeping in mind current infrastructure improvement projects, and things like the immediate need for employee health care, which we've never had, but will soon.
I have to admit- the spat-out price is actually a little higher than our current price, so we will be raising our price a little bit soon, but it's not going to get anywhere near diesel's current price.
What's so weird about this situation is that, historically, we've always been around .50 higher per gallon than diesel. Until now, I kind of took that for granted. It regulated who walked in our door, and who called us up. In retrospect, it was kind of a nice thing.
Now, we have unprecedented demand, and while there is a temptation to find that sweet spot in pricing that gets us the maximum net income- a price that is probably a little higher than that of petroleum diesel- I don't really want to test those waters right now. We'll gradually get to know this situation, and respond as well as we can.
For now, we've stopped accepting new delivery customers, we've significantly cut back on wholesale sales, and we're thinking of other steps we can take. We're going threadbare on marketing, because we really don't want to waste money on demand when that is not a problem at all.
Unbelievably, we're still getting complaints regarding our price, from people who are upset that our price has gone up just as petroleum has gone up. Personally, I find it insulting that people would make that argument in a time in which we are clearly making an effort to be affordable (showcased by the $1.00 swing downward in our price as compared to petroleum diesel), but somehow, it appears that more people are bothered by our price than ever before.
Hmmm.
Well, I just wanted to wax on about that for a moment. Thanks for reading.
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Cheap personal cars and cheap fuel have been around so long that most of us cannot imagine life without them, yet they're obviously not sustainable. How we transition away from them is the question - we can plan to do it smoothly, or wait for the system to crash. One way to help push the idea along is to gradually increase the cost of private transportation, until it returns to luxury status.
We have hundreds of years of fossil fuels left, but at perhaps just 20% of the current supply.