With the price of oil at almost $150 a barrel, have we finally reached a tipping point? It goes without saying that the spiraling cost of crude has led to substantial price increases at pumps across the world. Fortunately, thanks to continued subsidies provided by the Government, consumers in India have been largely unaffected – save for a marginal recent increase.

In the US, the price of petrol has doubled in the past four years. In the UK, the price at the pumps has increased by 40% on average in the past twelve months alone. As a result, people’s lifestyles are finally beginning to show signs of change. At the macro level, city governments are having trouble balancing their budgets and are shrinking the size of their fleets – to the extent of even reducing the patrolling of police. On a micro level, people are working from home if possible. There have even been recent reports of residents in certain US towns bordering Mexico making trips across the border to save up to 30% on a tank of fuel.

As expected, car-buying behavior is changing as well. Ford is dropping development on its largest V8 engines, and is instead bringing into its home market as many models as it can from its smaller and more efficient European range. Other automakers are also reevaluating their current lineups to focus on fuel efficiency. The car of choice at the moment is certainly the Toyota Prius, especially in states like California. Whereas people previously bought the car primarily to make an environmental statement, they’re now looking even more closely at just how much they’ll save at the pumps. Certain Toyota dealers have even begun offering plug-in conversion kits to make the cars more efficient. Like Toyota, most automakers are planning a number of new hybrid models for the near future. And thanks to Honda, Indian buyers can also experience this technology courtesy of the new Civic Hybrid (featured in this issue). Now it’s up to our government to reduce duties on cars such as these if they really want to propagate usage.

In addition to developing new hybrids, automakers are scrambling to adopt new technologies in an effort to increase the fuel efficiency of their entire line up of vehicles. Even sports car makers like Porsche are adopting direct injection technology to increase fuel economy and reduce the carbon footprint of their cars (see our News section for details). New emissions regulations proposed by various governments across the world may take a decade to effect the same kind of change that shifting customer behavior is capable of doing in just a fraction of that time.

The car that you see here is a Range Rover Sport, and driving it was a true pleasure. But its thirst for liquefied fossil fuel is capable of burning a hole in even the deepest of pockets. As a result, Land Rover, like several other automakers, is in the process of adopting fuel saving technologies such as start-stop systems on certain models. They’re also on the hunt for engineering talent to develop new and efficient power train technologies.

Even if the price of oil does normalize to a certain extent, which is expected towards the end of the year, this has been a real warning for car manufacturers. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out – suffice to say that no one can afford to turn a blind eye again.