Category
Built bottom-up from real transaction prices — new and used vehicles, fuel, insurance, maintenance. Two independent methods put transport at 3.9–4.1×, now running ahead of CPI.
Transportation is the second-largest bucket in the Reality Index (18.7% of the headline 1980 basket). The all-in cost of getting around — new and used vehicles, fuel, insurance, maintenance, transit — has grown 4.14× from 1980 to 2025 in our bottom-up build from real transaction prices. That runs ahead of CPI All Items (3.91×) and well above CPI's own Transportation index (3.27×) — and it is independently corroborated by AAA's Your Driving Costs composite at 3.92×, a ~6% spread between two methods that share no inputs.
The story splits internally, and the split is the point. Gasoline has lagged (2.62× — fuel efficiency and US shale kept pump prices below their inflation-adjusted peak). But used vehicles (4.98×) and motor-vehicle insurance (10.89×) have far outrun CPI, and new-vehicle transaction prices (2.57×) sit well above CPI's hedonically-smoothed 2.02×. The headline bucket prices these from what households actually pay — real transaction data, not quality-adjusted models — and re-weights its components for each scenario.
Each card below links to the full chart page for that item — including retail dollar series, BLS CPI subindex for that category, and the long-history backstop where available. Multiples shown are 1980-anchored unless the underlying data series doesn't extend that far back.
Gasoline
per gallon
Used vehicles
Manheim MUVVI
New vehicles
KBB transaction price
Motor-vehicle insurance
BLS CPI subindex
Maintenance & repair
BLS CPI subindex
Bottom-up construction. Six components — new vehicles, used vehicles, gasoline, insurance, maintenance & parts, and public transit — each priced independently and weighted by household spending share. The within-transport weighting follows each headline scenario's philosophy (the fixed-1980 basket weights fuel heavily; current-share scenarios weight insurance more), so the bucket re-weights when you toggle scenarios. Headline result: 4.14× from 1980 to 2025.
Data sources. New vehicles: Kelley Blue Book Average Transaction Price — real prices paid (2012→), chain-spliced to the CPI new-vehicle index before 2012. Used vehicles: Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index — wholesale auction values (1997→), spliced to CPI used before 1997. Gasoline: BLS Average Price retail $/gallon. Insurance, maintenance, and transit: BLS CPI subindexes — CPI measures these prices accurately, so the fix here is weighting, not measurement.
Independent cross-validation. Two methods that share no inputs converge: our bottom-up transaction-price build lands at 4.14×, while AAA's top-down "Your Driving Costs" composite (depreciation, finance, registration, fuel, insurance, at 24,000 mi/yr) lands at 3.92× — a ~6% spread. When independent approaches agree, the result is far harder to dismiss than either alone.
Why vehicles run hotter than CPI. CPI quality-adjusts vehicle prices downward — a better car at the same sticker registers as a price cut. Real transaction prices don't: a household writes the actual check. That is why KBB new (2.57×) and Manheim used (4.98×) exceed CPI's hedonically-smoothed 2.02× and 2.97×. Gasoline (2.62×) lagged — fuel efficiency and US shale kept pump prices below their inflation-adjusted peak.