The global oil market may be soaring to new highs but US drivers are not forsaking their gas-guzzling cars -- far from it.
While still cheap by European standards, gasoline (petrol) has never been so expensive in the US.
The average US price of a gallon (3.78 liters) of fuel is US$2.48, up 7 percent from last month and a whopping 33 percent on last year, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
In parts of California and the New York conurbation, pump prices have even topped US$3 per gallon. This in a nation where US$2 gasoline was headline news not so long ago.
Yet as Marshall Steeves, oil analyst at broker Refco, puts it: "People are willing to suck it up without changing their driving or their consumption habits."
Even as pump prices soared, US petrol stations saw turnover increase 2.4 percent last month from June, which itself saw an increase of 2.0 percent.
This is a time of year when many Americans take to the roads for their summer holidays. But drivers' resilience is also explained by the fact that in such a sprawling nation, autos are for many a necessity and not a luxury.
"You own a car, you have to drive to go to work: your driving is not based on the price of gasoline," Standard and Poor's economist David Wyss said.
He noted also that as a proportion of households' total expenditure, gasoline represents about 5 percent now compared to 7 percent to 8 percent in the 1980s, thanks in part to greater fuel efficiency.
But during the same interval, Americans have also embraced one of the least fuel-efficient modes of transport ever to take to the road: the chunky sport utility vehicle (SUV).
While advertised by their manufacturers as the ultimate in off-road capability, most SUVs rarely if ever stray from the route between suburban driveways and downtown parking lots.
"Car companies are much more aggressively pushing those SUVs, and people are buying the discounts saying, `I want a big car,'" Wyss said.
Notwithstanding the record rise in petrol prices, US auto sales have boomed this summer, rising 4.6 percent in June and then by an even bigger 6.7 percent last month.
General Motors kicked off a price war in June by offering employee discounts to all buyers, with Ford and Chrysler now both following suit. Such discounts have revived sales figures after months of poor growth.
Despite the SUV mania, the US is not wholly deaf to environmental progress in automaking.
Sales of "hybrid" cars such as the Toyota Prius, which is powered by gasoline and electricity, have rocketed. A number of hybrid SUVs are in the works. Cleaner diesel engines are also growing in popularity.
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