How much gas does a 1,000-mile road trip use?

35.71 gallons at 28 miles per gallon, 50 gallons at 20, and 25 gallons at 40. At $4.22 a gallon, that is $150.71, $211.00, and $105.50. Doubling the mileage from 20 to 40 saves $105.50 on the trip.

How much does gas cost in California vs North Carolina?

On a 1,000-mile trip at 28 miles per gallon, the fuel is $214.29 in California at $6.00 a gallon and $123.57 in North Carolina at $3.46, a spread of $90.71. The national average is $150.71 at $4.22.

What does a road trip cost beyond gas?

Wear on the car beyond fuel, priced by the IRS at 76 cents a mile, or $760 on a 1,000-mile trip, of which $609.29 is wear beyond the $150.71 of fuel. An electric car on the same trip costs $57.60 in electricity at 18 cents a kilowatt-hour, saving $93.11 on fuel.

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The mileage ledger · Table No. 44

How Much Does Gas Cost for a Road Trip?

One division and one multiplication: 1,000 miles at 28 miles per gallon is 35.71 gallons, and 35.71 gallons at $4.22 is $150.71. This article prices the fuel at five mileages and three gas prices, and states what the gas line leaves out.

Filed November 1, 2026 · figures checked against 2026 sources

The formula, and the worked example

The gas for a road trip is one division and one multiplication: divide the miles by the car's miles per gallon, which gives the gallons, and multiply the gallons by the gas price, which gives the dollars. On a 1,000-mile round trip in a car that gets 28 miles per gallon, the division is 1,000 divided by 28, which is 35.71 gallons, and the multiplication is 35.71 times $4.22, the national average regular gasoline price on October 29, 2026, which is $150.71. The same trip in a car that gets 20 miles per gallon uses 50 gallons and costs $211.00, and in a car that gets 40 uses 25 gallons and costs $105.50, and the difference between the thirstiest and the most frugal car on that list is $105.50, which is the whole saving available from the car on a 1,000-mile trip. The formula is simple, and the inputs are where the money is: the miles are fixed by the route, the mileage is fixed by the car, and the gas price is the only input that changes every day, which is why it is the input drivers check most and the input that matters least, as the tables below show.

The gas price deserves a second look, because the national average hides a spread that is larger than most drivers expect. Regular gasoline averaged $4.22 a gallon nationally on October 29, 2026, per AAA, and $4.269 by the Energy Information Administration's survey for the week of October 26, and the two trackers agree within 5 cents, which is the margin of their different methods. The state spread is the story: California averaged $6.00 a gallon on October 27, 2026, and North Carolina $3.46, which is a $2.54 gap on the same gallon, and the cheapest states were North Carolina, Georgia at $3.64, and Texas at $3.87, while the most expensive were California, Hawaii at $5.65, and Washington at $5.49. On a 1,000-mile trip at 28 miles per gallon, the fuel is $123.57 in North Carolina, $150.71 at the national average, and $214.29 in California, which is a $90.71 spread between the cheapest and the most expensive state, and which is the saving available to a driver who fills up before crossing into California rather than after, though the saving is bounded by the tank: a 15-gallon tank holds $38.10 of the spread at most, and the rest is paid at the pump wherever the tank runs dry.

The MPG ladder

Fuel economy	Gallons for 1,000 mi	Fuel cost	Trip total
20 MPG	50.0 gal	$211.00	$936.00
25 MPG	40.0 gal	$168.80	$893.80
28 MPG	35.7 gal	$150.71	$875.71
35 MPG	28.6 gal	$120.57	$845.57
40 MPG	25.0 gal	$105.50	$830.50

The ladder shows that the fuel economy matters, and that it matters less than drivers think, because fuel is 17.2 percent of the trip. Doubling the mileage from 20 to 40 saves $105.50 on a 1,000-mile trip, which is real money and also 11.3 percent of the total, and the saving grows with distance: on a 2,500-mile trip the same doubling saves $263.75, which is the same 11.3 percent of a larger total. The EPA average for a new vehicle is 28.1 miles per gallon, which is the middle row of the ladder, and the hybrid at 40 and the truck at 20 are the ends. The practical conclusion is that the car matters most on long trips and least on short ones, and that the driver choosing between two cars for a road trip should compare the fuel saving with the rental premium, because a rental hybrid at $40 a day more than the sedan costs $120 over three days and saves $30.14 in fuel, which is a loss of $89.86, and the driver who rents the hybrid for the fuel has paid $89.86 to save $30.14.

There is a second way to read the ladder, which is as a price list for the habits that change the mileage. Highway driving is typically 25 to 40 percent more efficient than city driving, which is the difference between the brochure figure and the real figure, and the real figure is the one to enter in the calculator, not the window sticker. Air conditioning at highway speed costs less than open windows, which is the opposite of the folk wisdom, because the drag of open windows at 65 miles an hour exceeds the load of the compressor. A roof box costs 10 to 25 percent of the mileage, which on a 1,000-mile trip at 28 miles per gallon is $15.07 to $37.68 in fuel, and a loaded roof rack is the most expensive way to carry luggage that would fit in the trunk. Underinflated tires cost about 0.2 percent of fuel economy per pound of pressure below the recommendation, which is small per pound and real across four tires, and the tire pressure is the cheapest fuel saving on the page, because it costs nothing and takes five minutes at the gas station.

The state gas-price ladder

Gas price	Where	Fuel for 1,000 mi	Trip total
$3.46	North Carolina, cheapest state	$123.57	$848.57
$4.22	National average, AAA Oct 29, 2026	$150.71	$875.71
$6.00	California, most expensive state	$214.29	$939.29

The state ladder is the answer to the question drivers actually ask, which is whether the gas price where they live changes the trip, and the answer is that it does, by $90.71 between the cheapest and the most expensive state, which is 10.4 percent of the trip total. The spread is driven by state fuel taxes, which run from 8 cents a gallon in Alaska to 73.6 cents in California, and by refinery access and regional supply, which is why the West Coast is expensive and the Gulf Coast is cheap. The driver cannot change the state they live in, but they can change where they fill up: a driver crossing from North Carolina into Virginia, or from Nevada into California, should fill the tank before the border, because the saving on a 15-gallon tank is $38.10 at the full spread, and the saving on a tank filled 30 cents cheaper, which is what a price app usually finds, is $10.71 on a 1,000-mile trip, which is a coffee, and which is worth a detour only if the detour is free.

The new insight

The fuel is $150.71, and the car costs $760, which means $609.29 of the car's cost on a 1,000-mile trip is not fuel at all. The IRS standard mileage rate for July through December 2026 is 76 cents a mile, which is the government's estimate of what a mile costs when fuel, depreciation, tires, maintenance, and insurance are all counted, and 1,000 miles at that rate is $760. The fuel is 19.8 percent of the $760, and the wear is 80.2 percent, which means the driver who prices the trip at the fuel is pricing a fifth of the car's cost and calling it the whole cost. The wear is not a cash cost on the day of the trip, which is why it is left out of the trip total, and it is a real cost over the life of the car, which is why it is stated here: the tires wear, the oil ages, the value falls, and the insurance is paid whether the car moves or not. The gas is the visible cost. The wear is the cost that arrives later, in the repair bill and the resale price, and the honest total for the car is $760, not $150.71.

Gas, electricity, and the comparison drivers ask about

The electric comparison is worth stating precisely, because the EV calculator on this site prices it in full. At 18 cents a kilowatt-hour at a public charger and 32 kilowatt-hours per 100 miles, an electric car uses 320 kilowatt-hours on a 1,000-mile trip and costs $57.60 in electricity, against $150.71 in gasoline at 28 miles per gallon and $4.22 a gallon. The saving is $93.11 on fuel, which is 10.6 percent of the trip total, and the per-mile figures are 5.76 cents for the electric car and 15.07 cents for the gasoline car. The saving is real and also smaller than the fuel saving most drivers expect, because the fuel is 17.2 percent of the trip and the electricity is 6.6 percent of it, so switching fuels saves a tenth of the trip, not a third. The electric trip also takes longer, because charging stops are 30 to 45 minutes against 5 minutes at the pump, and the charging cost varies by network, from home charging at 13 to 18 cents a kilowatt-hour to fast charging at 40 cents and more, which on a 1,000-mile trip is the difference between $41.60 and $128.00. The fuel is the smallest big line, and the fuel type is the smallest big decision, and the hotel and the food are where the trip is won or lost, whichever fuel the car burns.

Sources

AAA national average regular gasoline $4.22 a gallon, October 29, 2026, and $4.2046 on October 30, 2026; Energy Information Administration week of October 26, 2026, $4.269. AAA state averages, October 26-27, 2026 (California $6.00, North Carolina $3.46, Georgia $3.64, Texas $3.87, Hawaii $5.65, Washington $5.49; California state fuel tax 73.6 cents a gallon). EPA average new-vehicle fuel economy 28.1 miles per gallon. IRS standard mileage rate 76 cents a mile, July through December 2026. A road-trip cost guide (highway mileage typically 25 to 40 percent higher than city; Northeast corridor tolls $50 to $100 per trip; E-ZPass typically 10 to 30 percent cheaper than cash). This site's EV vs Gas Cost Calculator (electric 5.76 cents a mile at 18 cents a kilowatt-hour and 32 kilowatt-hours per 100 miles; gasoline 15.29 cents a mile at $4.28 and 28 miles per gallon). All calculator figures were computed by this site's calculator under the stated model.