Why Gas Prices Are Stuck Near $4.09 a Gallon Despite Late Summer

The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline sat at $4.089 on August 4, barely moved from $4.091 a week earlier, according to AAA. Drivers hoping for the usual late-summer relief at the pump are instead paying nearly a dollar more than they were a year ago, and the reason traces back to a shipping chokepoint on the other side of the world.

The Numbers Behind the Stall

AAA’s daily tracking shows regular gasoline averaged $3.847 a month ago and $3.140 a year ago, meaning today’s price sits roughly 30 percent above where it stood in August 2025. West Texas Intermediate crude closed Wednesday’s session up $5.20 at $84.46 a barrel, and the Energy Information Administration reported crude inventories fell 7.2 million barrels in a single week, leaving US stockpiles about 7 percent below their five-year average for this time of year.

AAA points to continued instability along the Strait of Hormuz as the driver keeping both crude and gasoline elevated. The narrow waterway carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply, and lingering tension there has kept traders pricing in supply risk even without a confirmed disruption to shipping.

Demand is not helping either. EIA data shows gasoline demand climbed from 8.94 million to 9.04 million barrels a day over the past week, even as total domestic gasoline supply held flat at 211.3 million barrels and refineries ran at 9.9 million barrels of daily production.

Where Drivers Are Paying the Most and Least

California remains the nation’s most expensive market at $5.648 a gallon, followed by Hawaii at $5.457, Washington at $5.129, Nevada at $4.808 and Alaska at $4.753. Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, Idaho and Montana round out the ten priciest states, all above $4.28.

At the other end, Indiana drivers are paying the least in the country at $3.587, followed by Texas at $3.603, Mississippi at $3.651, Louisiana at $3.657 and Tennessee at $3.656. South Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Alabama and North Carolina complete the ten cheapest markets, each under $3.78. The gap between California’s average and Indiana’s works out to more than $2 a gallon for the identical product, driven largely by state fuel taxes, environmental fuel blend requirements and refining capacity differences on the West Coast.

Why August Usually Brings Relief, and Why It Has Not Yet

AAA notes that August typically marks the point where prices ease as summer road trips wind down and refineries shift toward producing winter-blend fuel, which costs less to make. That seasonal drop has not materialized this year. Elevated crude prices are offsetting the usual late-summer demand pullback instead. The Energy Information Administration’s broader outlook still points toward relief eventually, forecasting the national average will fall to roughly $3.80 a gallon in the third quarter as crude prices ease from current levels, but that projection has not caught up with what drivers are paying at the pump right now.

Not every forecaster agrees on the timing. Commodity trading desks have flagged the possibility of WTI climbing back into the low $90s in September if Strait of Hormuz tensions persist, which would work against the EIA’s more optimistic outlook and keep pump prices closer to current levels through Labor Day travel.

What This Means for Your Wallet

A driver filling a 15-gallon tank at today’s national average pays about $61.34, compared with roughly $47.10 for the same fill-up a year ago, a difference of more than $14 per visit to the pump. For a household filling up twice a week, that gap adds up to more than $110 a month compared with last summer.

Drivers looking to cut costs have a few concrete options beyond waiting for prices to fall. Comparing prices along a planned route using a tool like AAA’s TripTik can help avoid the highest-priced stations in a given area. Timing fill-ups counts for less than shopping around does. Price swings between stations in the same city commonly run 20 to 40 cents a gallon, a bigger factor than picking the right day to fill up. Electric vehicle owners are seeing far smaller swings by comparison. The national average for public charging held steady at 42 cents per kilowatt hour this past week, with the cheapest states, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, all charging 30 to 32 cents.

What Happens Next

AAA updates its state and national averages daily, and the next meaningful move will likely track whichever way Strait of Hormuz tensions break. A resolution or de-escalation there would likely pull crude, and pump prices, down toward the EIA’s third-quarter forecast. A further disruption could push prices higher heading into the fall driving season, right as many families are budgeting for back-to-school routines and holiday travel planning.

Why the Same Gallon Costs $2 More in California Than Indiana

State fuel taxes explain part of the gap, but not most of it. California’s combined state and local gas taxes run among the highest in the country, while Indiana’s sit closer to the national middle. The larger driver is California’s requirement that refiners produce a specific low-emission fuel blend sold nowhere else in the country, paired with a limited number of refineries capable of making it. When any one of those refineries goes offline for maintenance or an unplanned outage, the state has few alternative supply sources to draw on, and prices spike faster and further than in states connected to the broader national pipeline and refining network. Washington and Oregon face a smaller version of the same pattern, part of why all three West Coast states sit at the top of AAA’s price list.

Midwestern and Gulf Coast states like Indiana, Texas and Mississippi benefit from proximity to refining capacity and interstate pipeline access, along with lower state fuel taxes, keeping their prices consistently near the bottom of the national range regardless of what crude oil is doing on a given week.

The Ripple Effect Beyond the Pump

Diesel prices have moved in step with gasoline, and diesel is what actually determines how much it costs to move groceries, building materials and most consumer goods from a distributor to a store shelf. AAA’s data shows diesel running well above regular gasoline in every state, topping $6.90 in California and Hawaii. Trucking companies typically pass higher fuel costs through to shippers within weeks, which means a prolonged period of elevated diesel prices shows up later as higher prices on unrelated goods, not just at gas stations.

Households that drive for work, including rideshare and delivery drivers, feel the change fastest and most directly. Fuel is a direct, uncushioned cost against their earnings, not something that filters through a supply chain over months the way it does for a shopper buying groceries.

A Note on Electric Vehicle Costs by Comparison

Public EV charging costs have stayed far steadier this year than gasoline’s swings. While gas prices have moved by roughly a dollar over the past twelve months, AAA’s public charging index has held in a narrower band, averaging 42 cents per kilowatt hour nationally with far less week-to-week volatility than crude-linked gasoline pricing. For households evaluating a vehicle purchase specifically around fuel cost predictability rather than sticker price, that difference in volatility is worth factoring in alongside the purchase price itself.

How This Compares With Past Price Spikes

The current run of elevated prices differs from past spikes in one important way: it has lasted for months rather than spiking sharply and reversing within weeks, the pattern seen in previous Middle East supply scares. A driver budgeting for the rest of the year should plan around prices staying close to current levels through at least Labor Day, then watch EIA’s monthly updates for signs the forecasted fall toward $3.80 is actually materializing rather than sliding further out with each new report.

Sources:

• AAA Fuel Prices, July 30, 2026
• AAA State Gas Price Averages
• EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook