The U.S. national average price of diesel on Friday surpassed $6 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club’s price tracker.
The national average hit $6.06, up from $5.98 the day before. A year ago, a gallon of diesel fuel averaged $3.71.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that U.S. transportation consumed approximately 123 million gallons of petroleum diesel a day in 2025, excluding biodiesel and renewable diesel. That supplied 22 percent of total transportation energy.
Trucks, which are mostly diesel-fueled, carried 11.27 billion tons of freight in 2024, according to the American Trucking Associations. ATA puts trucking’s share of domestic freight tonnage at 72.7 percent.
Produce prices are particularly sensitive to diesel prices. USDA economists in 2013 estimated that a doubling of diesel prices would increase wholesale produce prices by 20 to 28 percent in the short term, on average. What’s more, farm costs increase when fuel prices rise. Diesel represented 64.3 percent of farm fuel spending in 2024, according to data from the USDA.
Diesel also powers most construction equipment, so higher diesel prices add to cost pressures on residential and nonresidential building in the U.S.
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