From the desk

How we get the number.

Where the prices come from, how the math runs, and what we don't do.

By The Pump Index Desk Week of 2026-05-18

Every Sunday we pull EIA Weekly Retail Gasoline Prices — the same series the U.S. Department of Energy publishes — and pair them with NHTSA/EPA fuel-economy records. The whole pipeline is public, auditable, and cited inline on every page.

Where prices come from

EIA publishes weekly:

  • National average
  • 7 PADD regional averages (New England, Central Atlantic, Lower Atlantic, Midwest, Gulf Coast, Rocky Mountain, West Coast)
  • ~9 state averages: CA, CO, FL, MA, MN, NY, OH, TX, WA

States not in EIA's per-state series fall back to their PADD regional average. Crowdsource overlays land Phase 4.

Current snapshot: $4.49/gal national, week of 2026-05-18.

How the calc works

Fill-up cost = tank size (gal) × $/gallon. Miles per tank = tank × MPG. Annual cost = (miles/year ÷ MPG) × $/gallon.

Vehicle data: NHTSA/EPA Fuel Economy database. Combined MPG = the EPA-published combined city/highway figure. Tank size = manufacturer spec mapped via EPA vehicle class.

What we don't do

  • No GasBuddy / AAA scraping. Their data is theirs. We're independent — by design.
  • No station-level real-time pricing. Weekly granularity is sufficient for budget decisions; station-level requires a paid feed or scraping (legal exposure).
  • No price predictions. We report what's happening, not what might.

Attribution