Gas at the pump just dropped for the second straight week. Your P&L still hasn't recovered from the run-up that got you here.
Retail gasoline fell to $4.141 per gallon for the week of August 10, according to EIA weekly data — the second consecutive weekly decline after prices peaked at $4.228 on July 27. That's welcome relief, but it's worth keeping perspective: five weeks earlier, on July 6, gasoline was sitting at $3.911. Even after the recent pullback, pump prices are still running roughly 6% above where they were in early July.
For a DSP running a fleet of Ram ProMaster 2500s and Ford Transit 350s — the two vehicles that make up the overwhelming majority of last-mile fleets, both gasoline-powered — that swing isn't abstract. A ProMaster averaging 18 mpg and a Transit averaging 19 mpg both burn real money on every mile of that increase. Across a route running 80-100 miles a day, the difference between $3.91 and $4.14 a gallon adds up to real dollars per van, per day, that don't show up until the fuel card statement lands.
The pattern matters more than the single data point. Gasoline has moved in a roughly 8% band over the past two months — up sharply through July, now easing back. Operators who build fuel assumptions around a single snapshot get burned when the next swing hits mid-cycle, right when a rate card is already locked for the quarter.
The takeaway isn't that gas is "cheap" or "expensive" right now — it's that the volatility itself is the cost. Budgeting on a rolling average, not last week's number, is what keeps a fuel line from becoming a surprise.
See how this affects your cost per stop — free calculator at pexara.ai/calculator