Canada went skyrocketing up as well (just in time to add to the greenhouse gases tax that Canada stuck on each litre of petrol.) Of course, people are blaming the folks who make the least profit off of each fuel sale: the oil companies.
You take a few minutes and explain the average profits the station, transporter, refiner, and oil provider take vs the three to four times that number (or more in California when you add in the underground tank taxes...) and it gets through their thick skull that the one who’s profiting (and subject to their vote) is their government.
The price of petrol is shocking in Australia. But, in our case, it never went down. It is just going from high to higher.
And what of the “no/zero emission” vehicles? (except lubes, tires, faux leather, production process, transportation methods, etc., etc., etc.)
Maybe. One of the issues here is that vertically integrated companies have great leeway to make some segments of the operation profitable and others less so by pricing the materials transferred from one part to another.
For generations oil companies have pushed profits into crude oil production and made refining less profitable. Probably because of tax treatment, the depletion allowance.
Anyway, the biggest profiteer at the gas station is the government, as you have noted.