The best way to boycott these nasty oil compnies is to stop driving. If the same oil company supplies natural gas or heating oil to your house, switch to an electric heat pump, solar or wood.

I lived next to a Mennonite community for years and these people had no use for oil companies, and used horses for transportation. They even made their own candles from animal fat!

Just met a Swiss couple in the mountains who flew over to tour the Rocky Mountains and the US in a big motorhome. To them the price of gas was no problem, since they paid at least twice as much at home. Most of the gas price in Europe is government tax, not evil oil compny profit!

I'm not suggesting boycotting them all. We all need to drive. Yes, I'd like to go back to the days of horses and buggies as I don't need the stress of driving in traffic, wondering how to pay for all the gasoline I use, etc. etc.. I AM SUGGESTING BOYCOTTING ONE OIL COMPANY. The one with the worst anti-consumer behavor. I think this will get everyones attention and put the power back where it belongs, in our hands.

The only place I have ever seen something like this work was in Australia. Nearly all workers are unionized there, and one supermarket was giving particularly bad service, not focusing on sanitation, etc.

The union congress, and their wives, decided to completely bycott this chain, and nearly brought them to their knees. Service, prices and cleanliness improved rapidly afterwards.

I personally cannot identify any US oil company that is any more or less evil than any other. I can identify many foreign ones that don't do business here.

I didn't say evil. I said anti-consumer behavoir. Raising prices beyond necessity. They are making record profits and re-investing very little of it. They push for ethanol, but producing corn oil to add to Diesel might be the way to go instead. The price of corn oil is less than the price of diesel fuel in some places. Let's agree to vote. We all have our own criteria. If we could vote on the web somewhere and decide who deserves to be punished finally it would be a step in the right direction. I don't think oil companies are evil. I think some have a great deal of greed. Too much greed. And greed should not be rewarded.

If we could vote on the web somewhere and decide who deserves to be punished.... 

Before you punish, you must first assign blame, and I believe we can all share in the blame. For years, fuel was cheap, yet as a country we consume more energy per person than any other country. We also re-elect the same representatives to Congress in spite of the fact that they take bribes from oil companies and don't serve our interests.

I don't think anyone so far has agreed with your idea of a solution and you don't seem receptive to new ideas. You might be better off just letting this half-baked idea go.

All I hear from you is why it won't work. Give me a list of those representatives and I'll work and donate money to anyone who will run against them. I'm open to new ideas, just give me a little effort toward a solution, instead of platitudes on the sad state of our society.

I agree. They should be working on a plant that produces crude that can be processed into gasoline or Diesel. Ethanol caused your car to run/use 20% MORE fuel than you need. Very wasteful.
From my research, the average person wastes about $15.00 of every 20 gallon tank of ethanol they use.
Do a search on "prius" and read the responses of "Is there a difference in gasolines".

Boycotting a single oil company won't do squat to the price of gasoline. As long as marketwide demand continues to increase, so will fuel prices. Your whole premise that oil companies set fuel prices is the main problem. Prices are set by market forces, which won't change unless demand goes down across the whole global market.

I'm not talking about the price of gasoline. I'm talking about making industry answer to citizens when they mis-behave. The oil companies have made record profits, and not re-invested responsibly, and speculators in the commodity markets have driven up the price as much as anyone. It's not all demand side economics.

As long as the USA has the cheapest gas in the developed world, about half the cost of other countries, and the gas is good quality, the pumps not dangerous,the toilets clean, it's hard to prove misbehavior!

I personally boycott a number of businesses; Starbuck's for selling coffee at exhorbitant prices, while paying the peole who grow the stuff next to nothing, for instance. I buy top qualility FAIR TRADED beans, grind my own and make a cup of coffee for 8.5 Cents, including real cream!

I boycott all makers of bottled water, manufacturers of flimsy items, all sellers of over-packaged foods, the US Post Office for parcel service (high price, slow service, long delivery times), most soft drink manufacturers, and so forth.

When Ralph Nader went on a car safety crusade, he, even though he was a lawyer, could identify deliberate design shortcuts and flaws that made these cars unsafe, and would cost very little to correct. At that time, GM had 50% of the car market and had simply gone to sleep (did not give a damn). Others followed in its footsteps.

A boycott would not have made sense, since everyone made lousy cars, but high profile congressional hearing were very efffective and have resulted in much safer cars. The only car compamy to ever voluntarily improve safety was Volvo who pioneered many safety items.

I don't know where this BS comes from all the time that US gas is the cheapest in the world. We actually pay slightly more for the actual product than the Europeans do. The difference is they add a hefty social tax to pay for all of their social programs like health care, pensions, and so on. They do this because they are scared to death of an underclass rising up again like they did in WW II.

Now if you add up what we pay for gas, plus insurance premiums, plus social security, plus the portion of tax going to welfare, plus our personal contributions to charities, and so on, we in the US are paying way more than Europe, working 40-60 hours a week instead of 30, with maybe two weeks vacation instead of a month. Lets compare apples to apples.

Actually, European refiners and American ones pay the same price for the crude oil they process. European refiners are a little more efficient since their plants are more modern. At the retail end, I don't know what the margins are, but Europe is very compact, so the gas arriving at the pump would cost the distibutor less. Agree that the main difference is in the tax applied by federal and local governments.

I disagree with you on the reason for applying the tax, however. Europe is very congested and cheap gas and no limit on cars and engine size would make the place unlivable! So most countries there have a heavy horsepower tax, a weight tax applied both at the sale of the vehicle and on the yearly renewal of the license plates. That's called the road tax, which can be $1800 per year for a V8 powered large car in France.

In addition there is a heavy fuel tax applied for a variety of reasons. Countries without oil, such as Denmark and Sweden put it on to protect their balance of payments, something the US should do with a $350 billion/year oil import bill. Other countries with oil, such as Norway and Britain put it on because someday the stuff will run our and they don't want to get hooked on cheap gas, and large import bills.

All this tax revenue of course allows some taxes to be reduced elsewhere or applied to free univerisity education(Sweden, France), free health care (most countries), better infrastructure, good public transit, and longer paid holidays. If we look at income tax only, the US has very low taxes compared to Europe.

Western Europe no longer has an underclass in the strictest sense; there is a minimum wage which is very high compared to the US, and if you can't work you still get a healthy guaranteed income. Only in France do disguntled workers and students protest for whatever bothers them; in all cases they are too chicken to fight, or realize what a good deal they really have.

If you are unhealthy or lazy, Europe is defintely the place to be. If you are healthy, ambitious, and smart, the US is your dream come true.

Nothing isgoing to happen to the oil companys untill we show which congreesman and senators are getting pay off by big oil. also look at the votes they get to help them they are republic votes.

Take some action. Identify which oil company is paying off the most politicians if you believe that is the main issue. Convince others to vote to boycott the worst offender. We have the ability to take the power back into our own hands. But we must act on it. There are many ways to solve a problem. Let us agree to take positive action and bring the worst behaved oil company to it's knees by boycotting them. Thanks for the input, I hadn't even thought about political contributing as bad behavoir but you are very right. Let's identify the bad behavoir, educate the citizens and then act as responsible adults instead of whining children.

Can you understand this is a Car Talk Forum?

Last time I checked most cars run on gasoline fuel.

There are somethings oil companys don,t want you to know. A company has come out with a H2o system for your car or truck. iI HOPE CARTALK CAN FIND OUT IF IT WILL WORK.anyone with info let us know.

If you believe an automobile can run on water without a huge machine that can break the water down to oxygen and hydrogen (which would take more energy than running the car), I do have a nice used bridge over the Charles River to sell you. The EPA, AAA, other government agencies and Consumer Reports have determined that all products that promise better gas mileage is a SCAM! The only way to improve gas mileage is to follow the tips from the Car Talk guys or other respectable sources, or ride a bike.

This strategy cannot possibly work with a fungible commodity like oil. First of all, the gas you buy at the local Brand X station very likely didn't come from Brand X's refinery. Second, the Brand X corporation can always find someone else to buy their products at the going market price. So, now when you buy gas at the Brand Y station, you're may actually be buying gas that came from Brand X's refinery.

The only effect of boycotting one brand of gas or diesel is hurting the local station owners and their employees.

You sound like an local station owner who doesn't honor his contract with his supplier. I have owned gas stations. Brand X stations that had to buy gas from Brand X, no choice and if they caught me doing as you'd suggest is often the case, I would have been out of business, which I eventually bored of and sold off. Too bad for the local station owners that bought franchises from the worst behavoir offenders. Personally, my candidate for boycotting, has the greediest station owners that raise gas prices every single Friday and lower them on Monday. Everyone who drives oil based automobiles are hurting. It's time to stop the hurting and get on with the curing. If a few greedy owners take a hit, too bad...my heart goes out to the many, not the few.