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We live in an era of economic uncertainty where gas prices are highly volatile. U.S. gas prices swung from a national average of $3.10 a gallon in 2025,\u00a0the third straight year that fuel costs had fallen,\u00a0to $4.09 a gallon as of July 23, 2026, according to\u00a0AAA<\/a>, reversing that multi-year trend.\u00a0<\/p>\n Crude oil is trading near $90 a barrel right now, and\u00a0AAA connects the increase\u00a0to the unrest playing out around the Strait of Hormuz. Prices have climbed enough that some\u00a0drivers are switching to regular gas instead of the premium grade<\/a>, just to soften the hit at the pump, even though the cars in question are designed to run on premium.<\/p>\n When you look at it through the lens of an average household, those price hikes can become substantial.\u00a0So, how much does the average U.S. household spend on gas yearly? Per the\u00a0Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey<\/a>, U.S. households\u00a0averaged $2,411 in gasoline costs\u00a0across 2024, a $201 monthly line item that worked out to roughly 3.1% of everything a household spent that year.<\/p>\n GasBuddy’s 2025 Fuel Price Outlook<\/a>\u00a0put the following year’s household total at $2,252, though that number was only a projection published in December 2024, months before 2026’s\u00a0geopolitical turmoil actually played out. You also have\u00a0AAA’s 2025 Your Driving Costs study<\/a>, which assumes a 15,000-mile average travel distance for the study vehicle at\u00a013 cents per mile, or $1,950 annually. Given\u00a0AAA’s standardized 13 cents per mile and $3.15 per gallon (regular gas) figures,\u00a0the study’s assumptions imply\u00a0the average driver is using about 619 gallons per year.<\/p>\n How gas costs compare to other car expenses<\/p>\n
Fx-visual\/Getty Images<\/p>\n For a household, gas is far from the biggest car expense, but if current projections are anything to go by, prices aren’t easing soon.\u00a0AAA<\/a>‘s 2025\u00a0Your Driving Costs\u00a0study tallies what a new vehicle costs a household\u00a0per year at $11,577, broken into six categories: depreciation, fuel, maintenance,\u00a0 insurance, financing, and registration\/taxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Depreciation leads by far: a new vehicle\u00a0sheds $4,334 in value\u00a0on average for each year of a typical five-year ownership stretch.\u00a0Insurance ($1,694)\u00a0and maintenance (about 11 cents per mile, or $1,650) sit just behind fuel (13 cents per mile, or $1,950), rather than far below it. Financing adds $1,131 in interest on top of the loan payment itself, and registration\/taxes round out the list at $813.<\/p>\n It is worth noting that the $1,950 fuel figure assumes AAA’s $3.15-a-gallon baseline. At\u00a0July 2026’s $4.09 average, the same household is looking at closer to $2,500 a year in gas instead. These costs also hinge heavily on what’s actually in the driveway \u2014 sticking to the\u00a0cheapest new cars the market has to offer<\/a>\u00a0would naturally keep the picture lower.\u00a0<\/p>\n Back in 2016, things looked significantly different.\u00a0AAA’s Your Driving Costs study that year\u00a0found the average owner spent just $8,558, the cheapest ownership had been in six years,\u00a0thanks largely to cheap gas.\u00a0A decade later, that total has climbed to $11,577, a 35% increase, with gas now pushing the number up instead of down.\u00a0<\/p>\n Owning an electric vehicle might be cheaper<\/p>\n
K-FK\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n All of this might prompt an American household to consider switching to an electric car to mitigate fuel costs. But does that switch actually offer meaningful savings? Turning back to AAA’s\u00a02025 Your Driving Costs study, electric vehicles still cost more overall than comparable gas cars across the classes the study tracked, largely because higher depreciation, insurance, financing, and fees outweigh the fuel savings.<\/p>\n Where the electric vehicle savings are real is on the two costs that actually hit a budget every month: fuel and maintenance. Combine those two line items and an electric medium sedan runs $2,087 a year against $3,455 for the gas version \u2014 a gap of roughly $1,368. The pattern holds in every size class: compact SUVs save about $1,272 a year, medium SUVs about $1,473, and pickups about $1,520.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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