Every route you ran this week cost more than it should have. EIA's weekly data pegged regular gasoline at $4.211 a gallon for the week of August 3, 2026 — enough to erase a chunk of margin on a fleet running gas-powered Ford Transits and Ram ProMasters before the invoice even lands.
Run the math and it stings fast. At 18 mpg, that price works out to roughly 23.4 cents per mile in fuel alone. At 19 mpg, it's closer to 22.2 cents. Stack that against an 80- to 100-mile daily route and a single van is burning $18 to $23 a day in gas — before tolls, idle time in traffic, or an AC compressor running nonstop in August heat.
The timing isn't random. Refinery maintenance season overlaps with peak summer driving demand every year, and this year's climb is tracking that same seasonal pattern — which typically means no real relief until blend specifications shift in the fall. Operators who budgeted off spring pricing are now running behind on a fuel line item they set three months ago.
The fleets absorbing this best are the ones tracking fuel spend per route against a real baseline, not a fleet-wide average that hides which routes are bleeding worst. A route with more idle time, more backtracking, or sloppy stop sequencing burns gas at a materially worse rate than a tight route — even in the same van, on the same day, with the same driver.
If your fuel card statement caught you off guard this week, it's not a fluke. It's the number now.
See how this affects your cost per stop — free calculator at pexara.ai/calculator.