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Transportation Energy Use

Energy Use for Transportation
Types of Energy Used for Transportation
Energy Use by Type of Vehicle

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ENERGY USE FOR TRANSPORTATION

Pie chart of how much of the total energy used is used in transportation: 28 percent.

America is a nation on the move. About 28 percent of the energy we use goes to transporting people and goods from one place to another.

Cars, vans, and buses are commonly used to carry people. Trucks, airplanes, and railroads can be used to carry people and freight. Barges and pipelines only carry freight. In 2005, there were almost 239 million vehicles (cars, buses, and trucks) in the United States. That’s more than three motor vehicles for every four people!

Automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, and buses drove nearly 3.0 trillion miles in 2005. That’s almost one-twelfth the distance to the nearest star beyond the solar system. It’s like driving to the sun and back 13,440 times.

Images of a person and a car, representing the number of people in the United States in 2005, 297 million, and the number of motor vehicles, 239 million.

TYPES OF ENERGY USED FOR TRANSPORTATION

Gasoline is used mainly by cars, motorcycles, and light trucks; diesel is used mainly by heavier trucks, buses, and trains. Together, gasoline and diesel make up 86 percent of all the energy used in transportation.

There is currently a push to develop vehicles that run on fuels other than petroleum products, or on blended fuels. Today, there are some vehicles that run on electricity, natural gas, propane, and ethanol. Hybrid-electric vehicles combine the benefits of gasoline engines and electric motors, reducing the amount of fuel required for moving a vehicle. This is why hybrid-electric vehicles can get more miles per gallon of gasoline compared to vehicles that run on gasoline alone.

Fuels Used for Transportation

Pie chart showing what types of fuel are used in transportation. The petroleum products used include gasoline with 62 percent, diesel with 24 percent, and jet fuel with 8 percent. Other energy fuels account for 4 percent, and natural gas use is 2 percent of the total.

Note:Due to rounding, data may not sum to exactly 100 percent.

ENERGY USE BY TYPE OF VEHICLE

The people in the United States have always had a love affair with the automobile. Personal vehicles (like cars and light trucks) consume 63 percent of the total energy used for transportation, while commercial vehicles (like large trucks and construction vehicles), mass transit (like airplanes, trains, and buses), and pipelines account for the rest.

 

Image of the types of vehicles that use energy and how much they use. The different vehicles using energy include cars, light trucks, other trucks, aircraft, ships and barges, pipelines, trains, rail and buses. Cars use 32 percent of transportation energy, light trucks use 28 percent, other trucks use 16 percent, aircraft use 9 percent, water use 5 percent, construction and agriculture 4 percent, pipelines use 3 percent, trains and buses use 3 percent.


Last Revised: October 2007
Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 26-2007.

 

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