An important statistic, but it doesn’t speak to the real cost per gallon. If you read the accompanying article, they specifically speak to two variables: amount used plus changing efficiency of cars.
If a household doubles its usage, you can’t say the cost per gallon price increased, even though their expenditure has. Similarly, you can’t say the per gallon cost decreased when the family replaced their suburban with a Camry.
This explains it better than I could:”A real value(price) is one which has been adjusted for inflation, enabling comparison of quantities as if the prices of goods had not changed on average. Changes in value in real terms therefore exclude the effect of inflation.”
To use a real-world question: Which is more expensive, a $10,000 car in 1978, or a $22,000 car in 2022?
