Californians now buy less gas

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Californians still love their cars. They just may not be driving them as much.The state tallied a record 33 million registered vehicles in 2007, but new data show drivers bought less gas than in any year since 2003.The switch has economists and hopeful environmentalists debating the causes. They say it probably boils down to consumer reaction to $3-a-gallon gas prices, and a slowdown in commercial activity after last year's collapse in home buying and building. It is also likely that Californians really are going "green," buying better-mileage cars, driving less and living closer to work.Economist Joe Fitz of the California Board of Equalization, which monitors gas-pump purchases, thinks it's about high gas prices.He acknowledged, however, that California's recent highly publicized fight against global warming may be having some impact on motorists' choices.Californians bought 15.8 billion gallons of gas in fiscal 2007, down from 15.9 billion the previous year.The gas sales drop was the first sustained downturn in California since a recession in the early 1990s, and a dip in the early 1970s when oil shortages led to gas rationing, said state board spokeswoman Anita Gore.Sacramento doctor Gregory Redmond said he hopes more Californians are going green -- as he did.Redmond traded his BMW for a Honda Civic after seeing the global warming movie "An Inconvenient Truth."Colleagues, who drive Lexuses and sport-utility vehicles, wondered if he was having financial problems. Money has nothing to do with it, Redmond said. Trading a 15-mpg car for a 35-mpg car was, he decided, "the patriotic thing to do."He now bikes on weekends and sometimes pedals to work. "I'm using less gas, and I'm feeling good about it," he said.California leads in purchases of Toyota Priuses, the best-selling hybrid, and was among 12 states where consumers bought more cars than trucks and SUVs in 2006. The number of hybrid vehicles registered in California jumped from 6,600 in 2001 to 91,000 in 2005, according to the California Energy Commission's latest figures. The sale of vehicles that can run on ethanol tripled in that time to 270,000.But Daniel Sperling, a member of the state Air Resources Board and a professor at the University of California-Davis, says environmentally minded car buyers like Redmond remain a minority.The reduction in gas use in California is small, he pointed out, less than 1 percent last year.Sperling, founder of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, says the real story may be that gas consumption has not dropped more, considering the dramatic spike in gas prices."It's remarkable how little response there is, given that gas prices doubled" since the early 2000s, Sperling said.Latest figures show Californians bought 3.98 billion gallons of gas during the summer driving season in 2007, July through September, nominally down from 4.02 billion during those months the previous year.That averaged out to 60 gallons per month for every licensed driver in the state.The reduction has been gradual over the past 18 months, Board of Equalization data show.Federal data also show a nationwide gas-sales stall. After years of increased vehicle miles, motorists drove roughly the same amount in 2007 as the year before.Some of the reduction in gas sales is due to better-mileage vehicles. A recent congressional study said the nation's vehicles now get a half-mile more per gallon than in 2004.Policy makers say true change in driving and gas-buying habits may ultimately depend on state and local government programs that require change, or encourage it, such as building communities where it is easier to walk to the store and take transit to work.Reach Tony Bizjak at tbizjak(at)sacbee.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com