FuelWatch has weekly gas price data going back to April 1993. That's over 1,700 weeks of data. Pull up the national chart, switch to All view, and you're looking at the most complete picture of American gas prices available for free anywhere on the internet.
Here's what jumps out.
The long cheap era (1993 to 2003)
For most of the 1990s, gas cost between $1.00 and $1.30 per gallon. Adjusted for inflation, that's actually not that different from today in real terms, but it felt cheap because the nominal price was low. Crude oil was abundant, and global demand was moderate. The US economy was growing, but China hadn't yet emerged as a massive oil consumer.
This era ended in 2003 and never really came back.
The first big run-up (2003 to 2008)
China's economy started growing at 10% per year, and its demand for oil exploded. Global crude prices climbed from around $30 per barrel to nearly $150 per barrel between 2003 and the summer of 2008. US gas prices followed, hitting $4.00 for the first time in history in mid-2008.
Then the financial crisis hit, and demand collapsed. Oil fell from $145 to $35 in about six months. Gas prices followed, briefly dipping back below $1.50 at the end of 2008. It's one of the most dramatic swings in the entire dataset.
The new normal (2010 to 2014)
Prices recovered with the economy and settled into a new range of $3.00 to $4.00 per gallon. Shale oil production in the US was ramping up, but global demand was also strong. This era felt expensive compared to the 1990s but stable.
The shale crash (2014 to 2016)
US shale production grew so fast that it created a global supply glut. Saudi Arabia, rather than cutting production to support prices, kept pumping to maintain market share and drive high-cost shale producers out of business. Oil crashed from over $100 per barrel to under $30. Gas briefly dipped back below $2.00 in early 2016.
COVID collapse and the 2022 spike
COVID-19 killed demand overnight. In spring 2020, gas fell below $2.00 again as nobody was driving. Then the economy reopened faster than supply chains could respond, Russia invaded Ukraine, disrupting global energy markets, and US gas hit an all-time high of around $5.00 nationally in June 2022. California hit over $6.00.
Where we are now
The 2022 spike has mostly unwound. Prices have come back down into the $3.50 to $4.00 range nationally. The EIA's short-term forecast, shown as a dotted line on the FuelWatch chart, projects prices to gradually decline through 2027 as supply remains adequate and demand growth slows.
The 30-year view puts today's prices in context. They feel higher than in the 1990s, but in real, inflation-adjusted terms, they're not far from historical norms. The dramatic spikes of 2008 and 2022 are the outliers, not the baseline.
You can explore all of this yourself on FuelWatch. The interactive chart lets you zoom into any time period and see exactly what prices were doing week by week. Click any state to see how its prices tracked against the national average through all these cycles.