{"id":82179,"date":"2026-06-22T19:42:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T19:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/82179\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T19:42:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T19:42:06","slug":"is-ai-causing-higher-gas-prices-california-lawsuit-says-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/82179\/","title":{"rendered":"Is AI Causing Higher Gas Prices? California Lawsuit Says It Is"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Topline<\/p>\n<p class=\"topline-summary\">A new lawsuit accuses a slew of gas station owners in California, including Walmart, Speedway and Albertsons, of using an AI tool developed by a company called Kalibrate to artificially inflate prices at the pump\u2014causing prices to surge in the Golden State.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit cites a bill signed into law last year banning the use of common pricing algorithms.<\/p>\n<p>AFP via Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n<p class=\"timeline-fact\">The suit, filed on Monday in a federal court in Sacramento and first obtained by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-06-22\/gas-stations-accused-of-using-ai-to-inflate-prices-in-california\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-06-22\/gas-stations-accused-of-using-ai-to-inflate-prices-in-california\" aria-label=\"Bloomberg\">Bloomberg<\/a>, accuses the companies of using Kalibrate Fuel Pricing\u2014a tool the plaintiffs claim requires gas stations to hand over cost and volume data to the company, which then makes pricing decisions for them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"timeline-fact\">However, the plaintiffs allege this allows the stations to \u201cavoid competing with other area stations and to charge higher prices to consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"timeline-fact\">The suit also alleges Kalibrate has a feature called \u201crestoration,\u201d which allows most stations in a market to \u201ccontemporaneously implement large price hikes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"timeline-fact\">In areas where a large number of gas stations are using Kalibrate, gas prices could artificially rise as much as 30 cents more per gallon, according to the suit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"timeline-fact\">The suit named Kalibrate\u2019s parent company Knowledge Support Systems, as well as several gas station operators who it claims have used the system in the past.<\/p>\n<p class=\"timeline-fact\">Kalibrate did not immediately return a request for comment from Forbes.<\/p>\n<p>Big Number<\/p>\n<p>$5.52 per gallon. That\u2019s the average price for gasoline in California as of Monday, according to data from <a href=\"https:\/\/fuelinsights.gasbuddy.com\/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-ga-track=\"ExternalLink:https:\/\/fuelinsights.gasbuddy.com\/home\" aria-label=\"GasBuddy\">GasBuddy<\/a>. That\u2019s the highest of any state in the country. <\/p>\n<p>Which Gas Stations Were Accused of Using the Tool?<\/p>\n<p>The suit identifies 1,732 stations in the state maintained by companies that allegedly used the Kalibrate Fuel Pricing system. This includes 1,000 ARCO stations, 16 TravelCenters, 90 EG America stations, 400 Circle K stations and 150 Speedways. It also includes 25 Walmart or Sam\u2019s Club fueling stations, as well as 51 owned by grocery chain Albertsons.<\/p>\n<p>Key Background<\/p>\n<p>The suit was brought under AB 325, a bill signed into law in 2025 that prohibits the use of common pricing algorithms to \u201crestrain trade or commerce.\u201d The suit claims Kalibrate\u2019s algorithm is illegal under the bill because it \u201cuses competitor data to recommend, align, stabilize, set, and influence gasoline prices.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline A new lawsuit accuses a slew of gas station owners in California, including Walmart, Speedway and Albertsons,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5547,24,25,970,27557,44640,7602],"class_list":["post-82179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-gas-prices","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-california","tag-gasoline","tag-kalibrate","tag-lawsuits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}