If you've gone to a gas station lately, you probably noticed that fuel prices are on the rise. For once, this is actually a good thing, as it means the law of supply and demand are hard at work.
In layman's terms, things are going back to "normal" (as if there is such a thing), which means more gas is being purchased and utilized. Obviously, there are plenty of other theories as to why these prices are going up, but we'll leave that argument to the comments section on Facebook.
All jokes aside, it's easy to see why people get so upset when fuel prices start to go up. Most of us have to drive to work (especially in the US), which means that the higher prices get, the more money we have to spend to get to our jobs.
On that note, let's explore how many miles a driver travels throughout the decades and what they pay for it in fuel costs.
The Average Driver Covers A Lot Of Miles
Before we get into exactly how much fuel we consume, let's talk about how many miles the average driver covers in the US. As mentioned earlier, many Americans have to drive to work. To be specific, about 76% of us drive to work alone, while another 9% hitch a ride. Among these individuals, 10% will have a one-way commute of over an hour.
As you can imagine, spending two hours or more in a car every day would likely translate to quite a few miles each year (and you'd be right). In June 2020, the Department of Transportation found that the average American drives 13,500 miles per year (in rural areas like Oklahoma, the average jumps up to almost 19,000 miles annually). So, when you take into account that the average American lives until 78 and begins driving at 16, that's a total of 837,000 miles over the course of a lifetime!
A Lot Of Miles Means A Lot Of Gas...And Money
Now that we have an idea of how many miles the average person covers during their lifetime, we can move on to figuring out how much fuel we use. According to ValuePenguin.com, we typically spend around $2,000 a year gassing up our vehicles (that's about 656 gallons annually).
When you apply these figures to the "formula" used beforehand (if you live to be 78 years old), you'd spend around $124,000 dollars on gas (and use 40,672 gallons of fuel) over the course of your life.
Average Fuel Consumption Will Likely Go Down In The Near Future
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Understandably, all of these figures and estimations will probably not apply to most of the people reading this article. On the other hand, those who really like to drive or live far away from everything are obviously going to drive a lot more than the national average. In return, these individuals would pay more in fuel costs each year.
On another note, the rise in electric vehicles will begin to offset these averages for the better. Basically, the more Teslas, Audi e-trons, and Porshe Taycans that people buy, the less fuel (theoretically) that will be consumed per person on average. Therefore, it appears that the moral of the story is that you should go out and buy a really fast electric car so that you don't have to pay for gas or, alternatively, find a fuel-efficient gas-powered ride.