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.
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.
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.
the model y aside, even a well made hybrid can get 40. the rav4 hybrid gets close to that.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.