Many long-time readers of this blog will recall the anxieties leading up to the year 2000. The worry was that some software systems, to squeeze more information into less memory, were storing only the last two digits of the year instead of storing all four digits. The worry was that when January 1, 2000 arrived, some systems would crash or calculate things incorrectly. This was called “the Y2K problem”. And now we have an example of a sort of Y2K problem with gasoline pumps.
Yes there are news stories about a gas station in Big Sur, California that is charging $9.999 per gallon for premium gasoline. The owner of the gas station explains that the only reason that he is not charging a higher price is simply that there are not enough digits in his pump.
Some readers, like me, recall the times when the process of paying for gas involved somebody reading some numbers on a pump and then paying money at a cash register based upon the numbers that had been displayed on the pump. Back in those days, a good workaround to such a Y2K problem would simply be to post a sign that the price charged would be twice the amount of money displayed. To collect $11 per gallon, the pump would be configured to charge $5.50 per gallon.
But in recent decades, the way it works is “pay at the pump”. This mean that the “multiply by two” workaround is not available.
Because I drive an EV, it has been some time since I last paid close attention to this aspect of gas pumps, namely the number of digits available for the price per gallon. I wonder how many other gas pumps across the US have this price limitation? If you have seen other pumps that max out at $9.999 per gallon, I’d be grateful if you could comment below.
(It is beyond the scope of this blog article to address what event or events might lead to high gas prices, so I think there is no need to comment on such events here, thanks. I am focused specifically on the Y2K situation.)