
U.S. transportation sector gasoline & distillate fuel consumption 1992-2021
Gasoline and fuel oil and diesel consumption in the U.S.
The transportation sector, which includes public and personal transportation by road vehicles, airplanes, trains and ships, is the second largest energy-consuming sector in the United States.
Distillate fuel can be used as either fuel oil or diesel fuel. The figures indicate that gasoline is still the most popular transportation fuel in the U.S., as consumption of this fuel is almost three-fold higher than fuel oil and diesel consumption. While gasoline is most commonly used in cars and motorcycles, diesel is the fuel of choice used in trucks and buses. Gasoline and fuel oil and diesel fuel consumption in the U.S. reached its peak in 2007, when the U.S. transportation sector consumed just over three million barrels of distillate fuel oil daily and over nine million barrels of finished motor gasoline per day.
Thanks to government incentives, annual biofuel consumption in the U.S. increased from around 260 million gallons in 2010 to over 1.6 billion gallons in 2021.