Gasoline consumption in the US dipped by 0.4% in 2022, from 2021, to 369 million gallons per day, all grades of gasoline combined, below where it had been in 2002, and down by 5.7% from 2019, and by 5.9% from the peak in 2018, according to data from the Energy Department’s EIA.

And yet, in 2022 employment grew by 4.8 million. And miles driven increased by nearly 1%. It’s not that economic activity declined or that people drove less. But they bought less gasoline:

The primary long-term structural factor at work is the rising fuel economy of the vehicles in the national fleet. This started many years ago, and it continued in 2022…

EVs Made the First Visible Dent into Gasoline Consumption | Wolf Street