{"id":374151,"date":"2026-06-25T07:20:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T07:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/374151\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T07:20:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T07:20:29","slug":"class-action-lawsuit-blames-ai-for-gas-price-inflation-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/374151\/","title":{"rendered":"Class-Action Lawsuit Blames AI for Gas Price Inflation in California"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lawyers have filed a class action suit in federal court<\/a> alleging anti-trust violations by an AI pricing software company and its customers.Kalibrate Fuel Pricing is used by stations to set the highest possible price that is still competitive.The suit also names about a dozen station operators that are known to use the software.<\/p>\n

Gas station operators in California are being accused of colluding to keep fuel prices artificially high. The alleged culprit? A piece of software that uses AI to collect and compare non-public pricing and sales figures from participating stations. The tool’s maker, Kalibrate, is named as a defendant along with about a dozen station operators that use its tech. Also included are unnamed “Doe Corporations,” companies that use the software but have not yet been identified.<\/p>\n

The federal class action suit has been filed in California’s Eastern District. While Kalibrate’s fuel pricing software is used in other states, a recent amendment to California’s anti-trust law provides the basis for the suit there. AB 325, which went into effect on January 1, 2026, amends the state’s anti-trust Cartwright Act, adding language specific to the use of common pricing algorithms. The bill was introduced in response to similar tools used to set rent prices in the state.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs allege that Kalibrate Fuel Pricing is doing the same kind of cooperative price adjustment. By using the software to automatically set pricing, the suit says, Kalibrate promises stations can maximize both volume and profit while staying locally competitive. The plaintiffs cite research showing that the use of these types of tools by many stations in an area can result in a 4.5 percent increase in fuel prices.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs note that Kalibrate’s software has a “restoration” feature that allows station operators to initiate or join a coordinated price hike, allowing them to effectively reset prices. The lawsuit also alleges that Kalibrate has shared non-public proprietary pricing information from its customers with prospective clients.<\/p>\n

Consumers in California already pay the highest gas prices in the country, in part due to being subjected to the highest state gas taxes, which equate to 70.9 cents per gallon. The suit points out that every one-cent increase in prices means an extra $134 million in fuel costs annually for California fuel purchasers.<\/p>\n

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Ever since David was a wee Car and Driver intern, he has kept a spreadsheet listing all the vehicles he\u2019s driven and tested. David really likes spreadsheets. He can parallel-park a school bus and once drove a Lincoln Town Car 63 mph in reverse. After taking a break from journalism to work on autonomous vehicles, he\u2019s back writing for this and other automotive publications. When David\u2019s not searching for the perfect used car, you can find him sampling the latest in gimmicky, limited-edition foodstuffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawyers have filed a class action suit in federal court alleging anti-trust violations by an AI pricing software…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,47544,151618,9569,124165,9568,151617],"class_list":["post-374151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-edf1def8-de6c-4d67-8ffb-98e9ef033237","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-shorttitle-is-ai-costing-drivers-money-at-the-gas-pump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}