AI-written summary of reporting by New York Post. No human editor reviewed this. AI can misread or omit facts — read the original, linked below.
ABSTRACT

California's average diesel price reached a record $8.39 a gallon on Friday, up from $7.98 a week earlier and $5.17 a year earlier, according to AAA. The national average also set a record, at $6.45 a gallon on Friday compared with $3.71 a year earlier, AAA said.

New York Post

California diesel averages a record $8.39 a gallon, AAA says

California diesel averages a record $8.39 a gallon, AAA says
Sep 18, 2026, 4:57 PM

California's average diesel price reached a record $8.39 a gallon on Friday, up from $7.98 a week earlier and $5.17 a year earlier, according to AAA. The national average also set a record, at $6.45 a gallon on Friday compared with $3.71 a year earlier, AAA said.

Context

Diesel averaged $8.36 a gallon in Los Angeles and Long Beach on Friday. The Post reported a week earlier that California stations were displaying diesel at $9.99 a gallon, effectively maxing out some digital price boards.

Piazza Trucking, founded in California in 1953 by Andrew Piazza's father and two uncles, moves oversized and heavy equipment including electrical transformers, telephone poles, excavators and tractors. Piazza said filling one of the company's trucks now costs about $1,500, against a range of three to four dollars a few years ago.

Piazza said carriers cannot pass every added fuel dollar to customers because competitors will move the same freight for less, and that lanes priced at a given rate for a sustained period can no longer be served at that rate. Trucking costs feed into the price of goods trucks carry, from groceries and construction materials to the heavy equipment his company moves across Southern California. For the past three months, Piazza said, his trucks have hauled industrial-size air-conditioning units to hospitals and commercial buildings during a period of intense heat, with one recent job delivering AC equipment to the LA Live and Crypto.com Arena complex.

Los Angeles trucker Kenyatta Cole said his three trucks burned through more than $10,000 in diesel during the first two weeks of June and another $6,000 during the final two weeks. Cole said the three trucks grossed about $32,000 in gas for the month. The article describes the squeeze as rippling through California's trucking, agriculture and shipping industries.

All Perspectives
Andrew Piazza, Piazza Trucking: "Our trucks are like $1,500 per fill-up," Piazza said. "A few years ago it was in the three-to-four-dollar range, and now you see as much as eight, over $8 a gallon." On absorbing costs, he said: "You gotta absorb a little bit because there's always someone that can do it for cheaper. The owner-operators, they have less overhead. But it's affecting everybody." On routes, he said: "If certain lanes [routes] have been the same price for a while, you can't haul that freight on that lane for that same price anymore. So it's just kind of making the price of everything go up."
Kenyatta Cole, Los Angeles trucker: Cole said his three trucks burned through more than $10,000 in diesel during the first two weeks of June and another $6,000 during the final two weeks. He said the three trucks grossed about $32,000 in gas for the month.
Position not represented in the source reporting: California state officials.
Gaps & Unknowns
  • The source does not name the trucking companies described as warning they can no longer afford to keep their rigs on the road.
  • The source does not state a cause for the diesel price increase.
  • The source does not state the year of the June figures Kenyatta Cole gave, or whether both two-week periods fall within the same month.
  • The source does not clarify whether the roughly $32,000 Cole said his three trucks grossed represents revenue or fuel spending.
  • The source does not state whether Piazza Trucking has dropped routes or rigs in response to fuel costs.
  • The source text supplied appears truncated; some material may be missing.
Sources & Further Reading
  1. New York Post — original

Read the original at New York Post

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