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I am in Helen, GA for a Corvair convention. I passed the local station in Helen this afternoon and saw: Diesel Hwy fuel $4.20 Off road diesel $3.09.
Does that mean there is $1.11 road tax per gallon?

I also saw some bad pavement spots on my 400 mile drive. Along with that, ALL of the rest areas in Tenn. were closed.

Just some observations by an average Joe.

That sounds high. Should be more like 50 cents. Some of the price difference could be ULSD vs red LSD, or there could be other market forces at work.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

Red diesel is ULSD.

But highway ULSD is green.

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1996 E300 D
1992 300D
1990 Ford E-350 7.3 Diesel AKA "the Deep Fryer"

Tax and dye are the only differences between on and off road diesel.

I do not think that off road diesel has to be ULSD the regulation was written specifically for on highway vehicles so off road does not have that requirement.

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Keith Schuster
2006 E350 98K miles
2013 Ford Explorer 15K miles

Maybe the formula is more like this:


Off-Road Diesel - Red Dye + Tax + Additional Profit = On-Road Diesel


I am saying "Additional Profit" because there is also some profit built into off-road diesel. I'm saying that there could be some additional profit being collected for on-road diesel sales. I'm not sure why, because you'd think the competition in many areas would be greater for diesel road vehicles than farm vehicles.

Generally speaking the dollar is going worthless. But we are seeing some price disparities amongst the various fuels that don't make any sense, except from the view of profit. Diesel vs. gasolene, and on-road vs. off-road diesel for example.

Demand for fuel is very in-elastic once people cut out most of their pleasure driving. Most have to drive to work, and have to drive to buy food.

Let's say you are selling a product. You raise the price 30% and demand for your profit only drops 3%. What does that teach you to do? You keep going up because that maximizes profit. In the real world, there are some political limitations to doing this - mainly fear of government socialism that would limit profits. Right now that is the only thing holding down prices. If we were in some area with no government, fuel companies would be charging more to extract even more profit.

Ken300D

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1982 300D at 351K miles
1984 300SD at 217K miles
1987 300D at 370K miles

Might try a search for you local state road tax. In Oregon, the federal + state tax comes out to about 48 cents per gallon.

The gasoline tax in Ga is a total of 25.6 plus regular sales tax. I'm sure that diesel is similar but slightly higher. So, even at 4.00, the sales tax is 28 cents plus the 25.6, even with some added for the difference of gas and diesel, the difference is not $1.11

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87 300SDL - 215K Miles !!
99 F-350CC Dually PSD - 190K
86 300SDL - 189K
All on B-100

Here in south AR, combined local, state and federal tax is a little over $0.54 a gallon. The spread between on-road and off-road around here usually is around $ 0.45 because they still charge $0.09 sales tax on it.

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1971 R600 Mack toterhome (SuperDawg)
99 NU-WA Snowbird 34+2 SE 102 5er
If it's not diesel, it's not in my stable!
53 F100 617.951/auto
95 Dodge 3500 Cummins/5 speed service truck

off road diesel isn;t slated to be ULSD for another year or two.. IIRC

80% of all diesel types produced is ULSD. The railroads consume most all of that 20%.

Saw a figure of 54.6 cents per gallon added to diesel for tax here in NC. Suspect it's close to right if not 100% accurate.

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~Michael S.~
Past cars:

1986 300SDL
1987 300SDL
1982 240D
1982 300SD


Current:

1987 300SDL

who works at the NC Dept. of Revenue. What the state does not publish all that clearly is it kind of works like alcohol sales. When you buy a six pack you do see the sales tax in the receipt. You don't see the excise tax. Fuel in NC has a 'sliding scale' excise rate, and, that is in addition to the $0.54. Because it changes based on the raw wholesale price we don't hear about it much.

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1987 300D (230,000 mi on a #14 head-watching the temp gauge and keeping the ghost in the machine)
Raleigh NC - Home of deep fried sushi!