Has American Gas Consumption Hit An All-Time High?

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

For all the debate about strong sales of trucks and SUVs this year, American gasoline consumption is actually going down and may have reached an all-time high. Fox News may filed the AP story under “Disasters” but the worst news in the story is that

America will continue to burn more gasoline than any other country, in total and per capita, for decades to come. China is second in total consumption, but, despite its explosive growth, still uses just half of what the U.S. uses. Canada is second in consumption per capita but is on its own path toward a more fuel-efficient economy.

While America’s diminishing demand will temper global demand, it will be more than offset by rapidly growing demand in China, India, the Middle East and Africa. As a result, declining U.S. gasoline demand will not bring lower pump prices.

The AP gives most of the credit for the projected decline in gas consumption to demographic shifts and government policies like CAFE standards and ethanol blending credits. The coming of electric and plug-in vehicles is even given some credit as a long-term driver of lower gas consumption, but the success of alt-energy cars does seem to be dependent on the pump price of gasoline. And, in fact, if you look at medium-term historical gas prices it seems that unleaded is unlikely to ever cost less than it did in 2006, indicating that a gas tax would have been at least as effective as the convoluted CAFE and ethanol policies. Now that gas seems unlikely to ever drop below the $2.50/gallon mark, baby boomer demographics and complex government policies need not take all the credit.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Dimwit Dimwit on Dec 21, 2010

    Far be it for me to rain on anyone's parade but instead of gas consumption, wouldn't be more relevant for miles travelled? Seems to me that countries that have lots of wide open spaces and the tendency to spread out would drive more, yes?

  • R H R H on Dec 22, 2010

    I'm not sure if this is the right metric. Do we care about gas usage more? Pollution or some other metric (time waiting in traffic?) I travel many more miles but probably use about the same or slightly more gas than a year ago, as I went from 7 miles from work (~ 15mpg in all city traffic for 45min-1hr minutes) to 35 miles from work (43mpg on my motorcycle 8 months a year, 32-33mpg in the wfies car or 23mpg in my car. Why move so far from work? My apartment in Chicago (renting) cost 50% more than my house where I live now...

  • John Horner John Horner on Dec 22, 2010

    Total US gasoline consumption trending down is a good thing. Oddly enough, the fact that global demand is likely to keep prices going up is part of that dynamic.

    One major factor which isn't often discussed are the attitudes and behaviors of younger people. Today's 20-something is, generally speaking, less enamored of cars, trucks and gotta-have-a-V8 thinking than today's 50-somethings were in their youth. Cars are seen more and more as a costly PITA which are to be avoided if possible.

    The times, they are a changing.

  • Zackman Zackman on Dec 22, 2010

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