What is the average amount of car gas that Americans consume in a week?

Answer 1

If the average tank of gas takes 20 gallons, and the average fuel efficiency is 18 miles per gallon (official statistics say about 22 mpg, but 5-6 mpg less if you consider buses and trucks and factor in real life traffic jams in major cities), then the average person can drive about 360 miles on one tank of gas.

If the average American commutes 50 miles a day to and from work 5 days a week they travel 250 miles. Throw in another 110 miles per week for miscellaneous travel and the average American consumer would be filling up about once a week, or using about 20 gallons per week, or 80 gallons a month, or 960 gallons a year. The official numbers are actually less than this.

I am just using sample numbers taken at random. None of this has been researched, and your numbers can come in significantly higher or lower.

Official statistics from 2000 - 10 years ago I know, but neither has significant legislation made an impact, nor have significant technological breakthroughs seeped into the hard heads of the broke American auto makers - say the average passenger car travels about 12,500 miles per year, at an average MPG of 22 MPG. Using these numbers, the average American consumer would buy about 580 gallons of gas a year, or about 50 gallons a month, or 12.5 gallons a week, which is close to official estimates. These numbers seem too low to me which is why I used a different metric.

If I split the difference between my arbitrary estimate and official estimates for passenger cars (not buses, light trucks or trucks, which is why I made my numbers higher as these require more fuel, as does bumper to bumper traffic), the average American buys about 16 gallons of gas a week, or about 65 gallons a month, or almost 800 gallons a year - not a month - close to official estimates when including buses and trucks.