Even as miles driven inched to a record and the population surged, gasoline consumption in 2024 was where it had been 20 years ago.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Gasoline consumption in the US, in terms of product supplied to gas stations, inched up by 0.25% in 2024, to 8.97 million barrels per day, according to EIA data, below where consumption had first been 20 years ago in 2004, despite a population increase over the same period of 47 million people, or 16%.
Compared to the peak in 2018, consumption is down by 3.9%. Gasoline consumption is determined by miles driven, which inched up to a new record in 2024, the improving efficiency of gasoline-powered vehicles, and the growing share of EVs which in 2024 surpassed 10% of total new vehicles sold.
Per-capita gasoline consumption has plunged, as a result of a growing population and at first stagnating and then lower overall gasoline consumption. This shows the structural decline in demand for gasoline.
While the population grew by 16% or by 47 million people over the past 20 years, gasoline consumption has gone nowhere. So per-capita gasoline consumption has plunged by 16% from 2004 and by 21% from 1978, including the on-trend decline in 2024 of 0.5%.
But miles driven rose 0.9% to a record of 3,294 billion miles in 2024, the second year in a row of records, according to data from the Department of Transportation through November and an estimate for December. This covers miles driven by highway-legal vehicles of all types – cars, light trucks, buses, motorcycles, delivery vans, and commercial trucks.
This record number of miles driven, in conjunction with gasoline consumption that’s going nowhere and is below the peak from 2018, attests to the impact of rising fuel economy of ICE vehicles and the increasing penetration of EVs.
People on average drive a little less: Miles driven per person of driving age (16 and older) inched up to 12,217 miles in 2024, but was 7.4% below the peak in 2004.
Fuel economy keeps improving and EVs gain share: that’s a big part of the long-term structural problem in demand for gasoline.
The average fuel economy of passenger vehicles sold in the US of the model year 2024 rose to a record of 28 “real world” MPG, according to data from the EPA. Over the five model years since 2019, average fuel economy has risen by 3.1 MPG, or by +12% (fat red line in the chart below).
EVs show up in a big way in the blue line of MPG of “Car SUVs,” which spiked by 47% since the 2019 model year. They’re SUVs based on a car chassis and include the #2 bestseller in the US, the Tesla Model Y, whose sales exploded since production started in 2020. There are now many other EV models in that category. The Model Y has an equivalent fuel economy of 114 “real world MPG,” according to the EPA. (our report here).
But for our purposes here, EVs’ efficiency doesn’t matter. What matters here is that they don’t consume any gasoline at all, and each ICE vehicle that is replaced by an EV pushes down gasoline consumption. Conversely, EV’s impact on electricity demand has started to show up, along with that of data centers (AI, cloud, crypto).
The share of EV sales surpassed 10% of all new vehicles sold in 2024 in the US overall (red segments in the chart below). EVs dented gasoline consumption particularly hard in California. In 2024, the share of EV sales was 22% of total vehicle sales, despite Tesla getting crushed in the state.
There are now nearly 6 million EVs on the road in the US, and at the current pace of EV sales, there will be over 7 million EVs on the road by the end of the year. And each one of them pushes down gasoline consumption, even if miles driven are edging higher.
What about supply of gasoline? Crude oil production in the US has surged by 165% since 2008, to a record 13.3 MMb/d in 2024. In 2020, the US became a net exporter, exporting more crude oil and petroleum products than it imports.
Exports of crude oil and petroleum products jumped by 5.4% in 2024 to a record 10.8 MMb/d, while imports declined to 8.4 MMb/d.
These petroleum products that the US exported in 2024 included 1.3 MMb/d of distillate (diesel) and 0.81 MMb/d of gasoline, which is how refiners are dealing with the structural decline in demand for US gasoline amid soaring crude oil production.
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In the fall I purchased a plug-in electric hybrid BMW, not to save the planet but because it’s a pretty amazing vehicle. Overnight charge on household current gets me 40 miles of electric range, which satisfies 95% of daily driving. I have the 3 liter straight 6 gas engine for longer trips. I’ve filled up the tank once in 4 months, and average 80 mpg of gasoline consumption.
Nice! Hybrids are the way to go for now. Once solid-state batteries are widely available & cost effective, then a full-on EV switch over can begin. But even them it doesn’t need to happen through mandates & tax credits, IMHO.
Agreed, and no mandate or tax credit for me. Just a 485 hp/512 fp torque beast in combined ICE/electric operation.
For some reason I can’t comment on the story directly. But I fail to see a problem here; isn’t declining gas consumption a good thing? Global warming still exists. We went over a tipping point in 2023; don’t we want consumption to go down before we go over more tipping points? This is a good thing, most people say it’s not declining fast enough.
it appears that this includes diesel but I am a bit confused because the miles driven includes commercial trucks but the gasoline consumption may not include diesel fuel?? Not sure whether gas stations includes travel centers/truck stops like Pilot Flying J?
1. Gasoline consumption does NOT include diesel. This data here is “finished motor gasoline” only. Diesel is under “distillate.” Gasoline consumption is about twice that of total distillate. But distillate is used not only as diesel for trucks and locomotives, but also in agriculture and all kinds of other non-transportation applications, including heating, and includes the category of “fuel oil.”
2. Total miles driven is by all highway-legal vehicles, regardless of powertrain or size, from motorcycles to class-8 trucks. The biggest portion of miles driven are in urban areas for commuting.
3. “Not sure whether gas stations includes travel centers/truck stops like Pilot Flying J?” you goofball.
”The biggest portion of miles driven are in urban areas for commuting.” IS, absolutely THE clue here to what can be done quickly ( OK, relatively quickly ) to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels AND the electricity needed to power the now clearly much more efficient for commutes EVs of all stripes.
Can WE do it,,, OF COURSE ”WE” can!
WILL WE do it is, of course, another question/challenge all together…
Kudos to WR for another pertinent presentation.
I find it amazing how small the COVID drop in miles driven turned out. I guess it was a few weeks at home and then folks started driving around again, bored and tired of cabin fever. That said, even WFH didn’t seem to reduce mileage; I would have guessed at least 30% of total US miles come from commuting.
This includes all miles driven. Delivery vehicles, service vehicles etc. When everyone was at home, they were having items delivered.
30% reduced by 50% is a 15% overall drop, which is reflected on the chart. Many people couldn’t WFH.
the model y aside, even a well made hybrid can get 40. the rav4 hybrid gets close to that.
My new Civic Hybrid is averaging 53.
The diesel rabbit got 50 mpg in the 1970s. We honestly haven’t made that much progress.
The diesel Rabbit was far from a rabbit, doing 0-60 in about a minute while emitting clouds of black smoke. Modern turbo-diesel technology is far, far better in terms of efficiency and power transfer, and better than gasoline power trains. VW killed it probably for good with the emissions cheating scandal. Maybe hydrogen fuel cell technology is the next big thing.
Russell,
LOL, compare your diesel Rabbit of the 1970s to a modern hybrid, such as the Camry or Fusion. These comparisons are just beyond ridiculous!!
My 600hp Suv surprisingly gets 21mpg. That’s quite a lot of progress if you think about how much engineering design it took.
Kracow – Creating the need for a rolling house is not progress.
“The diesel rabbit got 50 mpg in the 1970s. We honestly haven’t made that much progress.”
You obviously never owned a diesel Rabbit. Ever been passed on an uphill grade by a bicycle?
Cars have much more mass these days too, with safety and luxury items, sound damping materials, etc.
Not accounted for this is look at the fewer times when you had to go to the store esp. with Amazon doing delivery..
Fair points about the impact of electric cars on fuel consumption, and fair comment about greater fuel efficiency of vehicles. They are probably the most important factors. Another factor to consider is per capita, the number of new vehicles being sold is down, which I believe is due to the lack of entry level vehicles available as these have been discontinued by most major manufacturers. With new vehicles costing upwards of $25K for base models, an entire generation is having a challenging time buying cars to drive. It does explain the rise in the value of 2nd hand cars which again, makes it challenging for those starting out to get cars, and jobs for that matter
But the number of total vehicles in the national fleet is up. Vehicles last longer and stay in circulation longer.
I’ve never driven more, but I now have a company car and the company pays the gas bill. I’ll drive anywhere!
SOL – same here. It’s definitely a negative incentive. I selected a 4Runner because I wanted a 4X4 SUV. It generally gets ~16 mp!. I would never have chosen this vehicle if I was paying for gas.
Geez, I thought company cars went out with the “Mad Men” era (along with secretaries).
What industry do you work in? Company?
So we’re driving the same amount of miles as 20 years ago, we’re pumping more oil than ever before, yet the price of gas is 300% higher than 20 years ago. Make it make sense.
“yet the price of gas is 300% higher than 20 years ago”
LOL, where did you hear that? In a bar at 2 a.m.? No, gasoline is up 100% from 20 years ago, and up 0% from 16 years ago, same price as in 2008. Gasoline prices are hugely volatile, so pick your point in time, but you can forget 300%. To get a 300% increase you have to go back to the late 1970s.
Seem to recall just before amBush senior decided to shoot up the clerks over at Sack-o-Sand it was about down around a buck thirty, positraction or not. Full service. (Of course you’d want to pay for that pocketed can of tuna or lawyer up since they still had available space in the county lockups.) But if you adjusted for the decline of dollar value due to real estate inflation since the late ‘70’s, that was more like 70 cents. A like standing station today with similar service and the ability to handle cash without a wait is up in the $3.50 range and may have jumped since I passed by on Sunday last. Adjusted again from the ‘70’s and we’re about 35 cents in real (estate) money terms. Gas ain’t up…dollars are down. Speculative fever.
I remember my frugal Mom driving her VW bug, finding gasoline as low as 18.9 to 21.9 cents per gal. This was Tucson in the late 60’s most likely. On top of that, gas stations were giving away glassware with a fillup.
So, given where somebody was buying gas 60 years ago, inflation to today may be in the 1000 to almost 2000 percent.
A classic example of the cost of production of gasoline. 60 years ago you could stick a straw in the sand in East Texas or Kuwait and high quality oil would come gushing out under enough pressure to move itself to a refinery. The cost of production in Kuwait was something like $2/barrel. Those good fields are sucked dry. Today you have to snake metal rods sideways into porous rock, pump chemicals under pressure to fracture it, and quickly suck out any bits of nafta that ooze out. Then you have to mix the nafta with cracked heavy oils to make gasoline. (A bit simplistic and the timeline is off in E TX, but you get the picture).
Kent,
Largely true…but some of those Middle Eastern mega giant oil fields are still putting out a bunch of oil 60-70 years later.
Can’t speak to their pressure/lift conditions today but their base cost of production is still far, far, far from $70 per barrel.
‘Saudi Arabia has a superpower. Not only is it the largest exporter of crude oil in the world; its production costs for oil projects are also the lowest in the world, at around just $10 per barrel.Sep 5, 2024’
The change in the world price has nothing to do with vastly higher costs in the ME. It is all about the buyers, at that time ‘The Seven Sisters’ super majors, all Western btw, going from controlling the price, going from being price givers, to being price takers.
Maybe even ”early” 1970s for this old boy, Wolf:
Remembering driving a ”driveaway” car from where I picked it up in Miami to WA state, with almost no money, and picking up everyone hitch hiking and asking them all to contribute:
Finally making it over the hills into the city of the angels, Los Angeles, to find a ”gas war” going on so that the price of gas was $0.10,,, as opposed to the average $0.29 at the time.
That delta was enough for me to be able to deliver the car to Everette, WA, on time, and then hitch hike back to the SF bay area where good friends, ahem, put me up…
One time I gave up driving for Lent for three months.
Mostly took cabs, rarely bus, but one time was walking along holding rural rd and held out a 10 as I walked.
Since then I’ve wondered if u could hitch with a sign saying ‘share gas’…but depending on area, maybe not always a good idea.
We purchased a 2016 Chevy Malibu Hybrid in December of 2016. Sales were down at the dealership and we negotiated a $6000 of list. The car has been wonderful, m.p.g. hasn’t decreased from 40 m.p.g. since new and battery degradation is negligible.
Yes, it takes a few minutes more to warm up in the dead of Midwestern weather. Actual m.p.g. in snow and cold is reduced to 34, still above the comparable car with only the I.C.E.. First break job was at 103,000 miles. Still has the original 12 v. battery for the engine, but changing that this spring.
So what happened to this hybrid? Chevy dropped it after the 2019 model because of lack of sales. No promoting or adds for it back then. Just turned 152,000 miles and happy
Ford dropped its Fusion model, including the Fusion hybrid in 2020. They just handed the sedan business to Japanese and Korean automakers, these idiots.
It would be interesting to mull over what exactly the US automakers have been thinking about as they’ve more or less pared their product line-ups to little more than trucks/SUV.
They are likely not *utter* morons (well, not all) but my guess is that they are,
1) Incredibly short-sighted re model profitability, and
2) Lazy – not willing to engineer better processes, fight with unions, do much other than doomed financial engineering that allows apparent price increases while actually greatly increasing risk of ultimate buyer payment default.
The automakers explained why they killed their sedans: profit margins were small, and profit margins in pickups and SUVs were obscene because Americans don’t mind paying out of their nose for them. By killing their sedans, their corporate percentage profit margins rose. Profit margins are a HUGE thing on Wall Street, and Wall Street cheered when the automakers killed their low-profit margin models. It was the stupidest thing ever, and a product of kowtowing to Wall Street short-termism and idiocy. But they did explain that in detail in their conference calls.
Mary Berra, GM CEO has announced recently that they will be producing hybrids again in the near future (certain models). Seems like they are hot again and selling well from other auto companies.
The key concern is the sum total of the electric vehicle group’s load on the power system. If 10% of the vehicles are electric, it’s bearable, but what happens when it becomes 80, 90% of the total? Do we have the power stations to compensate for that?
I wonder how thoroughly the overall green energy program has been thought through. If we had an efficient, large-scale battery in existence, we could store wind and solar during off-times and set the juice flowing during peak hours. But we don’t. The rest of the world relies on America and (Western) Europe to drive all its technological advances, effectively piggybacking on what has been a WestCiv project all along… maybe there should be some sort of tax on the rest of the world for its laggard state.
“… the sum total of the electric vehicle group’s load on the power system.”
LOL, again!!!
Most people charge their EVs at night at home when rates are lower (time of use billing). Rates are lower because there is a lot of idle capacity on the grid at night. Peak loads are during the day from ACs and commercial use. So EVs just balance out the load. Utilities love them for that reason, more revenues without additional investments. I think I explained this about 1,000 times already.
But the data centers pose a bigger challenge, and utilities are investing huge amounts of money to provide them the juice they need 24/7. But this is the business model of utilities: make big long-term investments with cheaply borrowed money and collect a steady return for decades from that investment.
So don’t worry about it. The best thing that can happen to a utility is more long-term demand. Utilities want to be growth businesses too.
Today’s Houston Chronicle has a story about a company called Last Energy installing 30 small nuclear reactors, specifically for data centers.
I was under the impression that the small reactor design problem had not been solved commercially, but the story says construction is about to begin.
I’ve wondered if the navy can go small nuke power w subs and aircraft carriers why can’t it work on land? Granted water is key but the actual reactor would seem to already exist
The Navy has been powering vessels the size of a small city with nuclear reactors the size of a washing machine for 70 years, without incident. And they only need refueling every 40 years or so.
It is one of Elmo’s companies, so you know the plan is legit. I bet they use AI to run the facility.
The question was whether utilities can meet the additional electric demand and whether thought through.
At no price cap, in many areas, supply can come up to meet demand. But is it affordable?
Much potential supply is constrained by transmission capacity. Transmission expansion is hugely expensive. California will soon be sucking supply from not just adjacent states, but from two states over. The cost is in the billions or a new transmission line and wind power installation in New Mexico, largely underwritten by Federal funding.
It is false to say EV demand will just take up surplus power at night.
You’re making up problems. Businesses — including power generators and utilities — LOVE to invest long term to grow their revenues and earn a solid return on their investments and sell their product across state lines. When there is promise of growth and profits, there’s investments, see oil and gas drilling. No different with power generation and transmission. It’s just that permitting is harder for long-distance transmission lines.
Every year, lots of new powerplants of all kinds (except coal and petroleum) get built and added to the grid because there is money to be made. This is America. The profit motive rules. People have got to get that into their heads somehow.
Utilities are actually happy that after switching to an energy efficient fridge, A/C and LED lights people finally buy some big load they plug in and actually consume some power. It’s not just the oil industry that ‘suffers’ from energy-efficiency. The residential electricity business never fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis in terms of volumes either.
If there is a bottleneck it’s not really the power station capacity, more likely transformers and substations. But the marginal theory dictates that people who drive the most and would be the biggest powerhogs will likely be the last to switch to an EV (and even when they do they’d likely keep an ICE car for long trips).
If – and when – EVs will near that high penetration rate it is expected they’ll take up around 10-12% of grid load (ceteris paribus).
Thanks wolf. Informative.
For me, now that I’m retired, I’m driving way less, so it takes me forever to put even 5000 miles on our car. An older America means a lot fewer miles driven [ and a lot fewer opportunities for repais shops and service centers ]. Demographis is a missing piece of the picture.
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
Same here. I purposely drive less, not because I’m tying to save money but because I now despise driving. I fill up (12.8 gallons) about every forty days, and at 24.2 mpg in my 2012 Rav4 V6 I’m averaging
7.74 miles a day. But many days the car doesn’t leave the driveway. My longest trips now from Mobile are down the highway to Bayou la Batre for some fresh shrimp. I would buy them at the grocery store a few blocks from here, but they get $10/lb heads on and I can buy them off the boat headless for $4/lb. Plus it’s a nice drive.
It seems like those that work for home were offset by delivery and other services. It would be interesting to see miles driven broken down.
In terms of gasoline demand — the topic here — a breakdown doesn’t make one iota of difference.
Yes, you are correct on that point and I understand why you didn’t break it down. A breakdown of type of vehicle though might have some insight into the broader economy though.
We have a RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid. The first 40-50 miles are all electric, then standard hybrid. Most of our driving is around town. We just went 1800 miles and 2 months between fill-ups. The electric bill is up $10-20/month from charging daily.
Having one of these changes your mindset. It now feels painful to use the gas engine, like we are frivolously wasting money with the 1%. Driving our other, ICE vehicles inflicts a similar discomfort.
Did you pay a premium for the hybrid, and would that difference buy a lot of gas? No free lunch
In another framing this sort of illustrates the power of government programs started after the OPEC oil-crisis of the ’70s. It’s great that the charts go back to the ’80s. The drop there was much more significant, since everybody wanted to replace their road yachts with something more sensible.
After picking the lowest hanging fruits the tempo of progress slowed down, but it was always there, efficiency improvements with every new model year.
Yet the 31 average mpg still sounds ridiculously high considering it includes a fair share of EVs and hybrids with inflated fuel consumption claims.
Japan does 50+ mpg and they stopped subsidizing kei cars decades ago.
Europe is at around 40mpg – but they completely remove EV figures from their statistics. So that would be more like 50-60 mpg with the same methodology as the US.
There are still huge gains to be made if people switch to just a tiny bit more frugal mindset.
“Gasoline consumption is determined by miles driven”
Any data on the % of gasoline burned in vehicles, vs other types of engines (lawn equipment, generators, boats)?
I’d assume nearly all of it – small engines need less gasoline, and are better candidates for fuel switching.
LOL, someone always brings up lawnmowers… how about the gasoline people use in their model airplanes?
Hah I assume that means it’s a negligible amount, not surprised.
Electric lawnmowers are pretty awesome too. The model airplane folks should switch!
Eight inches of wet heavy snow just hit my neighborhood. Electric snowblowers will be put to the test this morning.
Silicone spray on the inside of my SnowJoe makes a world of difference in keeping wet heavy snow from sticking to the auger.
I think one underlying factor is the price of vehicles. People are hesitant to trade in for new. My 2014 F150 XLT Crew, I purchased on sale brand new for $32k, MSRP was $37k. MSRP on the same truck model 2025 is $53k. People are holding on to their older vehicles which raises the prices of the used market and keeps the low end out of the buying window because the prices are too high and they take public transportation or other means instead.
Anecdotal, but I’ve seen a much smaller mix of pick-up trucks in everyday traffic. Maybe a result of fewer relative purchases, and guys driving their wife’s sedan to save on gas and wear and tear.
Shouldn’t the natural gas burned to power EVs somehow be calculated into these figures?
I’m seeing 3,000 to 4,000 kilowatts per year per Ev owner. So on average that is $595 a year for 3500 KWh. You know if you do not use the super charger whatever’s and pay them. Just at home.
These AI google bots say 26,000 cubic feet of natural gas will have to be burned to power that much EV usage a year.
It also said that would be around $400 just to buy that much natural gas.
Anywho, didn’t know if that cost was *Noted*
I do see a link now for EVs and server impact to the grid. I guess one should calculate how much natural gas one is burning too.
Now if I had power coming from solar panels, I would feel pretty good about that power. Yet some dirty energy was used to manufacture even those.
“Shouldn’t the natural gas burned to power EVs somehow be calculated into these figures?”
No, because natural gas is NOT gasoline! And this article is about gasoline consumption. Natural gas was discussed in two prior articles, see below.
However, as I said this article, quoted verbatim from above, and make sure you click on the link:
“But for our purposes here, EVs’ efficiency doesn’t matter. What matters here is that they don’t consume any gasoline at all, and each ICE vehicle that is replaced by an EV pushes down gasoline consumption. Conversely, EV’s impact on electricity demand has started to show up, along with that of data centers (AI, cloud, crypto).”
EV power consumption and the record use of natural gas in power generation is bigly discussed in my electricity article, so make sure you click on the link. Note the subtitle: “Amid surging demand from data centers (AI, cloud, crypto) and increasing share of EVs.”
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/02/27/demand-for-electricity-takes-off-us-power-generation-by-source-in-2024-natural-gas-coal-nuclear-wind-hydro-solar-geothermal-biomass-petroleum/
And here is the natural gas article:
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/03/02/drill-baby-drill-for-20-years-us-natural-gas-production-and-exports-via-lng-pipeline-rose-to-new-records-in-2024/
Leave your Google bots alone!
The key take away can be described in one word…progress. Cars more efficient, EVs and hybrid numbers growing, etc. If you want to use more words, use law of supply and demand. Who knows, maybe in a few years, we will be wringing our hands over electricity consumption instead of gas and oil consumption.
I bought a 2024 Volvo XC90 plug-in last October. Is this considered as an ICE or an Electric vehicle? I gas up once every 4-5 weeks depending on where I need to drive. I used to gas up every week on Mondays before. Could that be it?
Any vehicle with an ICE under the hood is an ICE vehicle. Hybrids, including those that you can plug in, are ICE vehicles because they have an ICE under the hood.
Only EVs are EVs. There is no ICE under the hood of an EV.
Wolf,
What do you make of EV license plates being available for hybrids? I agree with your definition – seems silly to call anything that burns gasoline an EV – but I see EV plates on vehicles with exhaust pipe(s) quite often.
Gasoline efficiency is a good thing. It lowers consumer costs for essential transport, giving consumers more money to spend or leverage elsewhere. Not to mention, the lower local and worldwide pollution. Be great to see the US mandate a minimum of 40mpg average for all new cars sold by 2040. That would help the US economy tremendously, by lowering economic and ecological costs.
There’s an easy way to get most cars >40mpg: remove some of the safety features. Cars would be a lot lighter and get better mileage if they didn’t need side curtain airbags or reinforced roofs.
/s
Efficiency is always better.
Long ago I had a Dodge 350 pickup with a 440 V8. That truck got 9 mpg empty, loaded, going uphill, going downhill, even when it was sitting with the engine off. 9 mpg.
I read the article and comments. Does the gasoline consumption delivered to stations refer to just the fossil fuel portion or the blended biofuel / ethanol total going into the vehicle? In our midwest area lots of E30 gets pumped at the stations. In other words I only use 70% of the fossil fuel gasoline to drive where I used to.
Geez and I thought we had it bad with only E10 and E15 in my area.
Still trying to find ethanol-free gas that’s less than a 40 mile drive from my house. Plenty of stations selling E0 91UL up north by the lakes but that’s a hike…
i am a senior and retired my mileage annually is 4-5000 as before 15000.there are many of my type and growing,this could be a factor.
Oil, down hard today. OPEC’s production cuts will continue to drive down gasoline costs?…and inflation.
Trump’s efforts to push down the price of oil in order to push energy inflation down, in order to push overall inflation down to get lower long-term interest rates is doing more to hurt the US oil & gas industry than Biden ever managed to do, LOL
Biden put a floor under oil prices at around $75 per barrel WTI by buying at that price to refill the SPR. That floor allowed US frackers to thrive and use their cashflow to pay down debts. Trump stopped refilling it in early February, and the floor is gone.
Oil has been overpriced and due to come down. Natural gas is still trading for less than $20/bbl energy-equivalent. There’s an arbitrage to profit from.
Refill the strategic oil reserve!
While the hybrids and tech in general improving would still not want one at this point.That said,will watch how the tech changes//improves over the years and may reconsider but feel would be even tougher to do a lot of the work I now do on me vehicles.
I actually have low mileage vehicles gas usage wise but have classic 4×4’s(my drug of choice!).
I also wonder folks liking the 40 mpg(is good) with hybrids,will say me diesel rabbit in the 80’s got that local driving,higher mileage tech has been around awhile.
“… my diesel rabbit in the 80’s got that local driving, higher mileage tech has been around awhile.”
LOL, compare your diesel Rabbit of the 1980s (production stopped in 1984 for good reason) to a modern hybrid, such as the Camry or Fusion. These comparisons are just beyond ridiculous!!
Why the decline about 2012? I think hybrids started in 2000. But what occurred to cause the demand to lessen in 2012? More efficient automobiles?
Gasoline demand started falling in 2008 and fell through 2012 because of the employment crisis (Great Recession) when the unemployment rate soared to 10% in 2009, with 15 million people out of work, and then recovered only very very slowly, and the unemployed people stopped commuting and using gasoline for their commutes. Commuting is the biggest portion of demand for gasoline. In addition, even employed people cut back on other driving during that time, such as going on vacations, due to the economic uncertainty.
In 18 months from the middle of 2004 to the end of 2005, the real price of WTI crude (Dallas Fed Oil Service Index), moved up $40 from $25 to $65 and has been oscillating ever since. This corresponded to the rollover of Norway’s production in the North Sea. Over the past 40 years, the oil price has averaged around 3.5% in annual escalation, but 90% of this move happened in 18 months. It is interesting that the flat gasoline demand analysis provided coincides with this event.
Breaking news on CNBC: autos may be exempt from tariffs. WH announcement coming.
Who knows, maybe reaction to head of Ford complaining of ‘chaos’ or maybe someone thought about it, studied the industry.
The headline describes this as a problem, but clearly it’s part of the solution. We need to see gas stations converting to electric charging or going out of business at a rapid clip if we have a hole of mitigating the devastating climate disasters to come. GOP intransigence will lead to the U.S. growing farther and farther behind the rest of the world, while still paying trillions to bail out our insurance industries.
Natural Gas(oline) demand is rising, but fortunately we overbuilt supply a decade ago. Assume we believe the laws of physics, that it takes the same BTU to generate one horsepower, and we are making 500HP EVs on 3 ton chassis, instead of 250hp ICEs which weigh half as much, and massaging the problem with cheap NG? Then consumers use delivery service and maybe that cuts down a little. As gasoline gets more scarce the price can get more expensive. I am thinking about cigarettes now.
In 20 years we’ll have cars running on CNG. This isn’t even a new technology and it doesn’t take much redesign.