Gas prices bite trips
Road‑trip budgets just tightened: the national average gas price hit $4.15 on April 10, up 39% from $2.98 on February 26. (cnbc.com) That level is the first time prices topped $4 a gallon since summer 2022, and reporters say travelers should count fuel in their all‑in trip math, not just the airfare. (cnbc.com)
The national average for regular gas reached $4.153 a gallon on April 10, the first time it has been above $4 since August 2022. (gasprices.aaa.com) That price was up from $2.98 on February 26, a jump of about 39% in six weeks, according to AAA data cited by CNBC and USA Today. (cnbc.com) (usatoday.com) AAA said on April 9 that the national average had risen 8 cents in a week to $4.16, while the Energy Information Administration put the weekly United States average at $4.12 on April 6, up 13 cents from March 30. (gasprices.aaa.com) (eia.gov) The rise has been tied to higher crude prices during the Iran war and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping lane that normally carries about one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas, CBS News reported. (cbsnews.com) For travelers, the change is not abstract math. A 500-mile drive in a 25-mile-per-gallon car costs about $83 in gas at $4.153 a gallon, up from about $60 at $2.98; a 1,000-mile trip rises to about $166 from $119. (gasprices.aaa.com) (miniwebtool.com) The state gap is wide. AAA listed California at $5.90 a gallon on April 11, Washington at $5.39, and Oklahoma at $3.47, with Pennsylvania at $4.17 and New York at $4.14. (gasprices.aaa.com) That means the same road trip can carry very different fuel costs depending on where drivers fill up, especially for West Coast routes where regular gas is already near or above $5 a gallon. (gasprices.aaa.com) Federal forecasters said in April that higher crude prices and normal spring-to-summer seasonal patterns were driving most of the increase in retail gasoline prices. The Energy Information Administration also said crude oil usually makes up around half of the pump price. (eia.gov) AAA’s April 9 update said the last time the national average was this high was early August 2022. Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy told CBS News that drivers are likely to notice the dollar digits on station signs moving up quickly. (gasprices.aaa.com) (cbsnews.com) For anyone pricing out a summer trip, the fuel line is back in the budget: airfare may set the headline cost, but the pump is moving the road-trip total again. (cnbc.com)
