2022 Honda Accord for Uber: what a mile of gas actually costs

Drivers ask me which car to buy more than anything else. The answer starts with one number: what a mile of gas costs in that car, where you drive.

Both halves of that number are published. The EPA rates the car. The Energy Information Administration surveys the pumps. Nothing below is modelled or estimated — the sources are linked and you can check every figure yourself.

The EPA rating

33 mpg combined — 30 city, 38 highway. That is the Auto (variable gear ratios), 4 cyl, 1.5 L, Turbo with front-wheel drive. A different trim of the same car is a different number, so the exact EPA record is linked below.

You will not hit the sticker in rideshare service. You idle at pickups, you crawl downtown, you run the A/C with someone in the back seat. Knock ten to fifteen percent off and you are closer to what the tank actually does.

Nothing exotic here — regular gas, no hybrid system to price in.

EPA record for this exact vehicle — EPA #44565, Large Cars, Automatic (variable gear ratios).

Fuel cost per mile, by state

Pump price ÷ mpg = fuel cost per mile. That is the entire calculation.

EIA publishes a weekly figure for a handful of states in their own right, and those are the ones below — every row is a price EIA actually published for that state, not a regional average standing in for one. If your state is missing, that is why, and the national figure is the closest honest substitute.

Sources: Regular gasoline, all formulations, U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Retail Gasoline Prices — EIA published average, 2026-07-27. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency / U.S. Department of Energy, fueleconomy.gov vehicle database.

What that is over a 150-mile shift

150 miles in California is $24.95 of gas. That is before wear, before tolls, before taxes, and before the miles you drive between pings with nobody in the car.

150 miles is an assumption, not a measurement — swap in your own and the arithmetic is the same.

One offer, run through the same math the app uses

A $14.50 offer: 8.2 miles and 19 minutes of trip, with a 3.4-mile, 9-minute drive to reach the rider. Scored with this car's 33 mpg at California pump prices, plus the app's default $0.146/mile for wear — that wear figure is the one number here I cannot source to a public record, so treat it as a placeholder for yours.

• Net $23.31/hr clears your $20/hr floor.
• Worth knowing: if you drive back empty, it's $10.62/hr — below your floor.

Swap the fare, the miles and the minutes on the calculator and it runs the same arithmetic against your own numbers. A 150-mile shift of offers like this one is the shift, not one lucky ping.

Why the deadhead is the part that hurts

Uber and Lyft pay you for the trip. Neither pays you for the drive to the rider. That deadhead burns the same gas as a paid mile — a long pickup is a real cost, not an inconvenience.

At $0.166 a mile, a four-mile pickup costs $0.67 in gas before the meter starts. Small, until you take twenty of them in a shift.

What this page can't know

Your right foot. Your city's traffic. Whether the car has 40,000 miles on it or 190,000. What you pay for tires.

It also cannot know your wear cost, which is real money — brakes, tires, oil, the repairs your mileage brings forward, depreciation. That number is personal and it is the difference between fuel cost and true cost per mile.

And it cannot tell you whether any particular offer is worth taking. That depends on time as much as distance.

Common questions

Is the 2022 Honda Accord a good car for Uber?

On fuel, 33 mpg combined is solid — it will not be what sinks your week. Fuel is only part of it though. Reliability, repair cost, insurance and whether the car qualifies for the service tiers you want to drive all matter as much, and none of them are in an mpg figure.

What is the fuel cost per mile for a 2022 Honda Accord?

$0.166 per mile at $5.489 a gallon, which is what regular costs in California right now. Divide your own pump price by 33 to get yours — that is the whole formula.

Does this include wear and tear?

No, and that is deliberate. This is fuel only, because fuel is the part I can source to a published number. Wear — tires, brakes, oil, depreciation, the repairs your mileage brings forward — is real and it is personal. To find yours, total everything you spent on the car over a year and divide by every mile you drove, including the unpaid ones.

Does the drive to the rider count?

Every mile of it. Nobody pays you for the pickup, and the car does not care whether a mile is paid. If you are driving four miles to reach a rider, that fuel comes out of the fare you have not been offered yet.

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