$92 To Fill Up a Camry? Why Your Gas Bill Is Exploding Despite 'Low' Inflation
The Toyota Camry is not a huge car, so it shouldn’t take much money to fill one up with gasoline. Standard models of this mid-sized sedan feature a fuel tank capacity of 15.8 gallons, according to Modern Toyota.
A year ago, you could have filled a Camry up for about $50. But because of skyrocketing gas prices, it’ll cost closer to $70 today — unless you live where prices are particularly high, which means you’ll fork over more than $90.
Here’s a look at why prices at the pump have soared to their highest level in four years even though the overall inflation rate has fallen sharply since then.
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The $92 Camry Fill-Up
A Reddit post spotlighted just how high gas prices have gotten in 2026. The post, published on April 25, 2026, showed a photo of a gas pump in Riverside, California. The final tally after filling up: $92.12 for 14.86 gallons.
That comes out to $6.20 a gallon. As of May 3, 2026, the average price in California had fallen to $6.101 a gallon, according to AAA. The national average was $4.446 — up from $4.091 a month earlier and $3.171 a year earlier.
This means prices at the pump have risen about 40% over the past year. In contrast, the overall inflation rate climbed 3.3% year-over-year in March 2026, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
As Trading Economics noted, the March inflation numbers were the highest in nearly a year and represented a “sharp increase” from the 2.4% rates in both February and January. Even so, inflation is well down from the 9.1% peak reached in June 2022, which was the highest in decades, per the BLS.
Meanwhile, average gas prices nationally have inched ever closer to the all-time high of $5.016 a gallon, also reached in June 2022.
Why Are Gas Prices So High?
You don’t have to dig very deep to understand why gasoline costs so much these days. The main culprit is the U.S. war with Iran, which has rattled the global oil markets and pushed gas prices higher all over the world.
Much of the focus is on the Strait of Hormuz, a key Middle East waterway for the transport of oil to foreign markets. This “narrow chokepoint” accounts for roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade, according to the Recharged website.
Attacks and shutdowns near the Strait of Hormuz have left oil and gas traders “pricing in the risk that some barrels simply can’t get to market,” per Recharged.
That’s the chief reason oil and gas prices have soared.
Another big problem right now has to do with refining bottlenecks in the U.S. and abroad, which have limited the number of refineries turning crude into gasoline and led to “elevated” margins and wholesale prices.
When those margins and wholesale prices go up, so do the prices you pay at the pump.
The Near-Term Outlook
One thing you shouldn’t do is expect gas prices to fall as quickly as they rose.
Prices at the pump “tend to rise quickly” when oil prices spike and “drift down slowly” when oil falls,” according to Recharged.
Retailers often raise prices to protect themselves from losing money when restocking fuel, per Recharged. When oil prices eventually drop, they may hold onto the extra margin for a time rather than immediately passing all the savings on to customers.
In other words, expect to keep paying high prices for gas well into the summer travel season and even beyond.
This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
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