Americans are using less gasoline - a lot less gasoline

Is it the recession? Higher gas prices? Fuel-efficient vehicles? A more urban, meaning car-uninterested, population? Social media and teleconferencing keeping us home?

Whatever the reason, the per-capita usage of gasoline in this country has fallen almost 20 percent since it peaked in 1990, according to a long, interesting analysis by a guy named Doug Short, based on Energy Information Administration data. You can read the whole thing here; he discusses many of these possible reasons, and crunches some numbers looking for correlations.

(Despite the post below here, we can't attribute this to electric cars: They make up about 1/3 of 1% of new car sales ... not exactly signifcant.)