While in high school in 1971 I worked nights and weekends at Ted's Texaco Station in Wall Township, New Jersey. Ted's was the first gas station after exiting the Garden State Parkway to go to "the Shore." I made a lot of tip money, which allowed me to buy my first car, one that I was not old enough to drive. I polished her constantly and cleaned the engine with a toothbrush. I loved that car.
I thought about Ted's while getting gas the other day, something that I rarely do since buying a plug-in hybrid. I think that I paid $3.54 per gallon for regular at the 7-Eleven store on U.S. 1. That didn't seem so bad to me, but I wondered how it compared to the $0.32 per gallon that I recall from my days at Ted's. That depends on how you measure it.
To find out, I turned to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) inflation calculator. As of July, $0.32 would be $2.68 today, so gas was cheaper by that measure. However, cars achieve much better mileage now than in 1971. According to The PEW Environmental Group, "between 1975 and 1985, average passenger-vehicle mileage doubled from about 13.5 mpg to 27.5, while fuel economy for light trucks increased from 11.6 to 19.5." I verified that those numbers for light trucks still hold by checking F-150 pickup truck fuel economy at www.fueleconomy.gov.
If the purpose of a car or truck is to haul people and things from one place to another, it can be much cheaper to drive today than it was when I was pumping gas. I say "can" because behavior changes when prices change. When gas is cheap, many of us drive more or buy less fuel-efficient vehicles. We also buy larger houses that are farther from work. Using the numbers above, the cost to drive one mile in a light truck dropped from 23 cents-per-mile to 18 cents-per-mile assuming the price that I paid at 7-Eleven.
The cost of driving a mile today depends much more on where you live and what type of vehicle you drive than on the wholesale cost of a barrel of oil. I am writing this on August 25, and according to AAA the price of regular gasoline varies from $3.49 per gallon in Indiana to $5.623 in California.
When the OPEC embargo came along, gasoline became much more expensive than it is today when adjusting for inflation. We also had fuel shortages, rationing, and interminably long lines where gas could only be purchased on certain days. So, I changed my behavior and sold my Oldsmobile and bought a Fiat 850 Spider that held less than eight gallons of gasoline. That was a fun car too.
Sadly, lessons need to be relearned by each new generation. Relying on foreign oil when the United States had ample energy reserves was just plain dumb. Germany depending upon its historic enemy Russia for natural gas when they possessed sufficient gas reserves was an equally bad national strategy. If you had told college freshman Guy as he waited in a gas line at 4:00 AM that the developed world would once again become willingly vulnerable to Middle Eastern politics, he would not have believed you.
The world will once again diversify its energy sources. It already has begun. Young people will pay attention to fuel costs when buying a car or truck and new efficiencies will lower costs. The wheel turns.
* Bureau of Labor Statistics/Data Tools/Charts and Applications/Inflation Calculator. https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm. Accessed on 08.27.2026.
** The PEW Environment Group/Clean Energy. "History of Fuel Economy". https://www.pew.org/~/media/assets/2011/04/history-of-fuel-economy-clean-energy-factsheet.pdf
*** AAA. "State Gas Price Average" https://gasprices.aaa.com/state-gas-price-averages/. Accessed on 08.27.2026.
**** U.S. Department of Energy. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2025_Ford_F150.shtml. Accessed on 08.27.2026.