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Lauren Fix Is AI quietly deciding what you pay at the gas pump? How the algorithm picks drivers' pockets. Every time tensions flare somewhere in the world, gasoline prices seem to jump overnight. Drivers expect it. The news blames geopolitics, oil traders blame uncertainty, and politicians blame each other. But here's the question almost nobody is asking: If computers can raise prices within hours, why do they suddenly become so patient when it's time to lower them? Americans have lived with this frustration for decades. The price of crude oil climbs, and gas stations respond almost immediately. Crude oil falls sharply, and suddenly we're told to be patient. Refiners need time. Distributors need time. Retailers need time. Somehow, that urgency only seems to work in one direction. Regulators have already gone after algorithmic pricing in apartment rentals, and they're looking at hotel rooms, airline tickets, and online retail. Now a new California lawsuit and a federal push to investigate gasoline pricing suggest there may be another piece of the story that deserves far more attention. It isn't simply about oil markets anymore. It's about artificial intelligence, algorithms, and whether software designed to maximize profits is quietly changing how fuel prices are set across America. If that sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, think again. Kalibrating the market? Kalibrate is a real pricing platform. The company markets its software as an advanced pricing solution that analyzes competitor prices, wholesale costs, local demand, traffic patterns, and countless other variables before recommending the "optimal" price at the pump. By the company's own marketing, it serves many of America's largest fuel retailers and convenience store chains. Retailers use it because it promises to increase profit margins while staying competitive. There is nothing inherently illegal about any of this. Every major industry now runs on data analytics. The concern begins when pricing software stops simply reacting to the market and starts shaping it. On June 22, three California drivers filed a federal class-action lawsuit in Sacramento — and they didn't just sue the software company. They sued the gas stations. Kalibrate is the lead defendant, but so are Marathon, BP, Circle K, 7-Eleven, Speedway, Walmart, Sam's Club, and Albertsons. According to the complaint, Marathon alone runs more than 1,000 ARCO stations in California and has been letting Kalibrate set prices at them since 2020. Circle K, plaintiffs claim, has more than 400 stations on the software. Albertsons, they allege, has been using it since at least 2009. The complaint alleges that Kalibrate allowed competing retailers to share competitively sensitive information and receive pricing recommendations that discouraged aggressive competition. It describes a "restoration" feature that plaintiffs say lets nearly all the stations in a market raise prices at the same time. It also quotes Kalibrate's marketing, which according to the complaint tells operators that even in the face of "falling oil prices ... it's critical to avoid a race to the bottom," and warns that cutting your price to win customers "could be making a change that triggers a downward spiral." The plaintiffs call the platform the "central nervous system for a conspiracy to extinguish retail price competition among gas stations." Price pumping What does that cost you? Research cited in the complaint found that stations switching to this kind of software raise prices by about 6 cents a gallon on average — and by as much as 30 cents where most of the stations in an area are running it. Plaintiffs point to a real-world example too: They allege that when one California Albertsons turned Kalibrate on, its pump price climbed 3 to 4 cents within days. That sounds small. It isn't. By the complaint's math, a single penny on the statewide average drains $134 million a year from California drivers' wallets. Kalibrate says it disagrees with the allegations, calls its technology lawful, and intends to defend itself. The retail chains have not yet answered the complaint. No court has ruled on any of it. But what happens when thousands of competing businesses begin relying on the same algorithm to determine prices? Price fixing has been illegal in California for more than a century, and the plaintiffs are suing under that old law. What's new is a statute that took effect on January 1 — AB 325, the Preventing Algorithmic Collusion Act — which says plainly that you cannot escape a price-fixing charge by routing the conspiracy through software. Using pricing software is still perfectly legal, but using it to coordinate with your competitors is not. AB 325 makes it unlawful to use or distribute a "common pricing algorithm" — software that uses competitor data to recommend, align, or stabilize prices — as part of an agreement to restrain trade. Whatever you think of Sacramento, it closed that loophole first, and this case is the first real test of it. The A-word Washington is applying pressure of its own — though it is worth being precise about what kind. On July 3, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission sent every state attorney general a letter urging them to investigate whether antitrust violations or price gouging are keeping gas prices artificially high. "Recent volatility in crude oil prices does not suspend either the antitrust laws or state consumer protection laws," they wrote, "and it does not authorize companies to manipulate retail prices or collude with their competitors." The letter followed President Trump's complaint, posted to Truth Social on June 23, that falling crude prices weren't reaching drivers. But read that letter closely and you'll notice something. It never mentions algorithms. Not once. The federal government is going after gas prices with the same tools it has always used, while the argument about the software is being made by three drivers and their lawyers in a Sacramento courtroom. Nobody in Washington has said the word yet. And whether any of these investigations turns up illegal conduct remains to be seen. Anyone who has driven for more than a few years knows the pattern. Prices spike within days of a geopolitical event, then drift down at a painfully slow pace. Economists even have a name for it: the "rockets and feathers" effect, and they have studied it for decades. Researchers point to several reasons, including inventory replacement costs, consumer behavior, and local competition. None of those explanations necessarily involve illegal activity. Dirty work But artificial intelligence introduces an entirely new variable. Unlike traditional pricing models, today's software can monitor competitors continuously, process enormous amounts of market data instantly, and recommend price changes faster than any human pricing manager ever could. If dozens or even hundreds of competing retailers rely on similar recommendations generated from comparable market data, the practical result may be less price competition — without anyone ever picking up the phone to coordinate prices. That possibility isn't unique to gasoline. Regulators have already gone after algorithmic pricing in apartment rentals, and they're looking at hotel rooms, airline tickets, and online retail. The Justice Department sued RealPage over the software landlords used to set rents and settled the case last November. The concern in every case is the same: that algorithms may accomplish indirectly what competitors have long been prohibited from doing directly. It's worth being precise about what that settlement did and didn't say. RealPage paid no penalty, and the government made no finding that it broke the law. What the DOJ objected to was the use of nonpublic information from competing landlords — not the software itself. Using an algorithm to price your product isn't illegal. Feeding it your competitors' private numbers is where the trouble starts. That distinction is going to decide the gas station case too. Technology moves faster than regulation. Thin margins This debate also exposes another misconception. When Americans get angry about gas prices, they aim that anger at the oil companies. In reality, what you pay at the pump includes crude oil costs, refining expenses, transportation, taxes, distribution, and retail pricing. Gas stations generally operate on thin per-gallon margins — the National Association of Convenience Stores puts the net at roughly a dime a gallon once credit card fees and operating costs come out — while state taxes and regulatory costs can dramatically affect what you pay locally, particularly in a state like California. If gasoline prices are rising because of global supply disruptions, consumers may not like it, but they can understand it. Markets move. Wars affect energy. Hurricanes interrupt refining. But if pricing software is reducing competition by encouraging retailers to move together instead of competing aggressively for customers, consumers deserve answers. Artificial intelligence is quietly becoming the invisible middleman in countless financial decisions Americans make every day — insurance rates, airline tickets, hotel rooms, online prices, and now what you pay every time you pull up to the pump. Most consumers never know an algorithm was involved; they simply assume that's what the market decided. Algorithms don't care whether you're commuting to work, driving your kids to school, or trying to keep your small business afloat. They don't understand household budgets or family vacations. They optimize. That's what they were built to do. The question was never whether artificial intelligence can set prices more efficiently. It's whether we've quietly allowed machines to redefine what competition means. Because if software can determine the price of something as essential as gasoline today, what will it be deciding tomorrow? https://www.theblaze.com/lifestyle/is-ai-quietly-deciding-what-you-pay-at-the-gas-pump

4-5-6 fails due to design. Not enough clutches and not enough piston to clutch surface area. Also the backing plate can bow. I'd say converter is two part. The design of converter chosen, and factory tuning of it aka slipping it in D (also L6) for AFM purposes, as well as locking it up in 2nd gear, sometimes 1st, also it will partially lock up at light loads. All because CAFE/fuel economy requirements. A billet converter on the stock tune might hold up better, but would still be subject to the stock tuning and how its designed to lock or partially lock. The most baffling part to me, is the 2007-2013 6L80s didn't have the failure rate the 2014-2018 ones do. I've been where I work for almost 17 years now, and I recall maybe 3 or 4 of the 07-13 transmissions getting pulled for something. 14-18 on the other hand, it was at a minimum one a month being opened up. If I had to guess, I'd say the tuning for the gen 5 engines/6L80 setup and its fuel economy goals had a good bit to do with it. Also, it was bankruptcy time during these years, so I'm thinking some cost cutting was done for the launch of the K2XX trucks. See also now the 10 speed valve body issues (more cost cutting). They blow out some mesh screen in the spacer plate, undersized check ball, and the feed limit valve was aluminum and wears out prematurely. I don't think it was the HP jump from the gen 4 to gen 5? The 6.2 in the 07-13 trucks was good for 380-400hp during its life/states of tune, and the 5.3 did 310-320hp.

If we actually used any significant amount of that source in the USA then I'd agree but we don't. We've had that discussion before. We drill and pump more than we use. Thing is, we sell. We export. Gas and Crude. It's more profitable so any shortage here is self inflicted and LEGAL. I worked a gas plant that has multiple fuel sources available and I worked in the furnace and boiler plant in that facility. I'd had days we swapped fuel types four times in a twelve hour shift which isn't done on supply but on margin. Two of the fuel sources are internally generated. Tail gas and DAK, both of which are sold as well a consumed. We always had more than we needed to run the process but we chose the fuel that produced the best margin not bought at the cheapest price always. A good bit of math to that and back in the time that was done on a slide rule. I worked the Shale Oil Semiworks of Chevron Research and CONOCO Research in Salt Lake City. That process never went into production although it was very successful. Why? Did we lack oil bearing shale? Nope. Price of crude never made the margins work. That was in the late 70's early 80's. Remember history? What was happening then was a reaction to that situation. It didn't drive it. If so then it's easy. This isn't a supply and demand thing. This is a profit and margin thing and AI rules that now. In no refining situation that I was ever in would a bomb hitting a well anywhere in the world 'instantly' interrupt or even distress the supply. Most plants have more than a months worth of crude in the tank field and more in pumping stations. That yo-yo could play out over days, weeks and maybe months and have zero impact on plant operations. How many times has this been off and on in the last few months? These people and not stupid. These plants measure down time in hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. They are not sucking fumes or waiting on the next truckload with baited breath. Besides, as I noted, they are for the most part 'vertically integrated'. They own it from the dirt is sits in to the delivery rack and sometimes to the pump. It has a HUGE shock absorber built in. When production suffers, refining wins and when refining is winning exploration is killing. The rest of that crap in the news is a 'news cycle'. Government dipping in to reserves? Oil is stealing their milk money. There's a reason Chevron abandon Venezuela infrastructure and it had nothing to do with security of US citizens. Nationals run those plants. it has to do with MARGINS disappearing to corruption. They are in no hurry to return. Is there supply there? Oh yea. More than enough to offset what is bought in the middle east. Just isn't ???? Profitable. We have supply. There are places in Illinois you can drive a pipe into the ground and run your homes natural gas furnace on it. A refinery fire will gum up the supply works but not a localized war where the market is using a limited supply from. Now Europe, that's something other....

SPECULATION on the wars effect raised prices. AI is maximizing the profit. Refining is vertically integrated.

All valid. But. How many people really do this? Its few and far between. Most just drop it into D and go.

IMNTBHO; the worst thing for the 6L80 is to be lugged down to low engine rpm while in high gear......AKA, to save fuel. I rarely use D on my '16 with the 6L80 and use M mode to keep engine RPM above 1500 at the speed I'm driving, which is also benefiticial for the tranny because line pressure is kept up because the pump is actually turning a decent speed, and it's not always hunting to drop to the next gear to lower the engine RPM's. Never above 30mph.............M3, maybe M4 if just driving thru a small NoDak town Never above 40mph............M4 Never above 50-55mph.............M5 This is way better for the tranny and the engine.........especially if AFM is still active. 262K miles on my OEM 6L80 as I type this.

I have the VSE CCV kit. It is a quality product. Fairly easy installation. I vent it back into the turbo intake horn, like stock. I check the reservoir monthly. I have seen oily water come out. So far, after 6 months I would say it has collected about 8-10 ounces of crap.

Curious @newdude, how does this change when a 6L80 is either fitted with a billet converter OR is behind a V6 whose converter isn't a pile of junk? Oh, and are you saying in the above the 4-5-6 clutch's burning up is the result of the converter/pump induced failure or they are just fragile? Thanks in advance for any feedback you may be willing to give.

8 > 6 Your mechanic needs to have hung around a dealer or transmission shop over the last 5-10 years. He'd change his mind. 6L80 has a higher issue rate for sure. Torque converters, fluid pump gets wiped from converter failure, 4-5-6 clutches burn up, the TEHCM gets wrecked from the clutch debris from converter failure, some burn up hard parts too, etc. 8L90 has its quirks but if you change the fluid regularly and use the right fluid, its been a more reliable unit over the 6L80.

I would say the main negative would be that I believe it's around when the 8-speed was introduced, so most likely it will have the original parts, whereas newer trucks will have 8 speeds with various upgraded/improved parts that fixed various issues with it.

i dont know where you been reading...they make a top notch product..people say lots of great things about them..yes it can be difficult to get a hold of them when you need help sometimes put when you do it is great service... as for the actual question at hand i have the ccv mod and i vented to atmos in my case...I got my ccv from somewhere else but i have plenty of VSE product...for starters i use their tuning on my 22 duramax

You might try this 1st. 1. Disconnect both transmission lines from the trans thermostat. 2. With compressed air, blow out the transmission cooler lines, blowing thru the return line with a jug container on the outlet line, and see if any debris is in the jug. I used a clear plastic drink bottle to catch the fluid & then looked to see if it caught any debris. Note from AI.....On your 2017 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 5.3L with the 6L80E, the transmission fluid flow is: Upper cooler line at the transmission = Hot fluid OUT to the radiator/transmission cooler. Lower cooler line at the transmission = Cooled fluid RETURN back into the transmission. At the radiator/auxiliary cooler, the fluid typically flows: Out of the transmission through the upper line. Through the radiator heat exchanger. Through the auxiliary cooler (if equipped with the factory towing package). Back to the transmission through the lower return line.. Then with the thermostat removed, I installed a thermometer defeat (bypass) that bought off Amazon. This one has no moving parts.

Facebook groups hate VSE, poor customer service; their responses to criticisms are pretty poor for a reputable company. I'm not a customer, haven't bought anything from them, but how they handle themselves on social media is a definite "No" for me.

I fill them up until it comes out the fill hole, never had a problem. The transfer case uses just transmission fluid, don't run anything else other than what it says too. The new HP Fluid won't be what you want. I don't know if the rear is a gasket or just RTV, often it's just RTV. Get a new gasket or use RTV again. I have a fluid pump so sucking the fluid out when it's hot is easier and less of a mess.