Just Post

While you are right, prices in the countries listed were never cheap to begin with because fuels in Europe are highly taxed.

Also, for the same reason, most European cars are leagues above US ones in terms of fuel efficiency. Fuel was always expensive here, so we started making and purchasing cars that were smaller and more efficient in order to save.

In the US, efficiency was never the goal because with cheap fuel prices, nobody cared if their truck was huge and drank several times what an European car drank to make the same distance.