{"id":753842,"date":"2026-06-22T23:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/753842\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T23:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:20:13","slug":"california-drivers-sue-gas-stations-for-allegedly-using-ai-to-inflate-prices-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/753842\/","title":{"rendered":"California drivers sue gas stations for allegedly using AI to inflate prices | California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Gas \u2060station \u200boperators including BP, Circle K, Marathon, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons were sued on Monday by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/california\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">California<\/a> drivers \u2060who accused them of using artificial intelligence to boost prices at the pump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">According to a proposed class action, the defendants \u2060violated California\u2019s main antitrust law, the Cartwright Act, by using an AI-based tool that \u200buses data from competing gas \u200cstations to \u201ccoordinate high prices \u200cand wring more money from the pockets of consumers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The lawsuit in the \u200cSacramento federal court said the scheme violated assembly bill 325, a California law that took effect on 1 January and was intended to crack down on algorithmic price fixing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Drivers said gas prices have risen as much as 30 cents a gallon in areas where high percentages of stations \u200cuse the AI tool, which comes from a company called Kalibrate. Each penny costs California drivers an extra $134m per year, boosting \u200bgasoline prices to \u201castronomical\u201d levels sometimes reaching $7 a gallon, the complaint said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWhile families struggle to afford the commute to work, defendants have conspired to put an end to competition, joining an AI-powered trust to ensure that no matter where a \u2060driver turns, the price for gasoline is artificially high,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The \u200bdefendants operate more \u200bthan 1,700 gas stations in California, \u200baccording to the complaint. Kalibrate is also a defendant. The \u200bdefendants either did \u200cnot immediately \u200brespond to requests for \u200bcomment or declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Californians pay the nation\u2019s highest gas prices, averaging $5.58 per gallon for regular, according to AAA. The national average is $3.93. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for drivers who paid too much for gasoline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gas \u2060station \u200boperators including BP, Circle K, Marathon, 7-Eleven, Walmart and Albertsons were sued on Monday by California&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-753842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}