U.S. gas prices are falling and could hit the cheapest Thanksgiving day price since 2020
Gas prices at a Chevron gas station in Newhall, CA. Monday, September 18, 2023. The average price of a gallon of regular gas in Los Angeles County rose 4.8 cents today to $5.915, a day after increasing 13.6 cents. The average price has risen 52 times in the last 57 days, increasing 94.3 cents, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)
Hans Gutknecht | Medianews Group | Getty Images
U.S. drivers can expect the cheapest gas prices on Thanksgiving day since 2020.
The national average for gallon of regular gas was about $3.31 on Monday, 25 cents cheaper than a month ago and 36 cents lower than the same period in 2022, according to AAA.
The average national price for a gallon of gas could hit $3.25 by Thursday, which would be the cheapest price on Thanksgiving day since 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic crushed demand and gas fell to $2.11 per gallon, according to GasBuddy.
Gas has dropped below $3 a gallon in 11 Southern and Midwestern states as of Monday, according to AAA. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Prices have fallen for nine weeks now and are on the longest downward streak since the summer of 2022, said Patrick de Haan with GasBuddy.
Gasoline futures, YTD
More than 65,000 gas stations are selling gas at $2.99 per gallon or less right now and another five states could see average prices below $3 per gallon by Thanksgiving, de Haan said.
“Americans collectively going to spend about $1.2 billion less on gasoline from Monday through Sunday from last year,” de Haan said.
OPEC decision ahead
Gas prices could continue to fall for another week or two and potentially dip below last winter’s bottom of $3.05 a gallon, De Haan said. But a lot depends on whether the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries implements another oil production cut at their Nov. 26 meeting.
“If OPEC makes a sizable production cut, I think that pretty much ends the potential of us falling below what we saw last year,” de Haan said.
More than 55 million Americans are expected to travel for Thanksgiving, according to AAA. Despite falling gas prices and slowing inflation, about 20% or respondents to GasBuddy’s travel survey said they could not fit holiday travel into their budget due to other areas of inflation.
The drop in gas prices largely reflects a seasonal weakening of demand, though a decline in oil prices over the past several weeks has been the “icing on the cake,” de Haan said.
Crude oil futures YTD
U.S. gas prices are falling after a recent oil selloff as domestic crude oil inventories rose amid worries that demand is softening.
West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, briefly fell into a bear market last week, down 22% from its September closing high. U.S. crude traded higher Monday at $78.02 a barrel, an increase of $2.13 or 2.81% from the previous session on expectations that OPEC might cut production again.
Gasoline demand fell to 8.9 million barrels per day in the week ending Nov. 10, compared to 9.5 million bpd in the week prior, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
At the same time, domestic crude inventories rose by 3.6 million barrels to a total of 439.4 million barrels, outstripping expectations. U.S. crude production continues at a record clip of 13.2 million bpd.
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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