(The Center Square) – From the second day after an 11th hour ceasefire between America and Israel with Iran to Monday, traditional transportation energy prices in North Carolina have fallen 4.3% for unleaded gasoline and 2.9% for diesel.
Motorists were paying $3.77 per gallon for unleaded and $5.63 for diesel on average from Murphy to Manteo. Second-term Republican President Donald Trump late on April 7 said a two-week ceasefire had been reached, and the April 9 prices in the state were $3.94 for unleaded and $5.80 for diesel, according to AAA.
A record was set on the day of the ceasefire at $5.81 for diesel.
In analysis by The Center Square of averages posted by AAA, it was April 13 when the average for unleaded dipped a penny below $3.90 and Sunday when it got a penny under $3.80. The rate of decline from the April 9 high to Monday is 1.4 cents per gallon for both unleaded and diesel – each having fallen 17 cents per gallon.
Combustion engine consumers make up more than 8 million vehicle registrations in the nation’s ninth-largest state.
North Carolina’s electric vehicle charging rate average, according to AAA, is 38.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. The national average is 40.8 cents per kWh. More than 100,000 zero-emission vehicles are registered in the state. At the start of 2025, the state norm was 33.5 cents per kWh and the national was 34.7 cents per kWh.
Nineteen states have lower average prices for a gallon of unleaded; 30 are lower for diesel; and 13 plus the District of Columbia are lower in electric.
Among the 14 major metro areas, the least expensive average for unleaded gas is in the Fayetteville area at $3.64. The most expensive is in the Durham-Chapel Hill metro area at $3.90.
Diesel is the most consumer-friendly ($5.41) in the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton market.
North Carolina’s 41 cents per gallon tax rate for 2026 is only less than California (61.2), Pennsylvania (57.6), Washington (55.4), Michigan (52.4), New Jersey (49.1), Illinois (48.3) and Maryland (46).
Motor fuel taxes in the state fund the Department of Transportation’s highway and multi-modal projects, accounting for more than half of the state transportation resources. The revenues go into the Highway Fund and the Highway Trust Fund.
The United States and the Israelis on Feb. 28 launched military strikes. Iran, with control of the Strait of Hormuz, initially stymied an otherwise one-sided confrontation. Fuel prices in America rose.
The blockade of the strait has been a duel in the past week. On Monday of last week, America’s naval blockade targeted ships entering or leaving Iranian ports and attempted to have free movement for other traffic.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, established after the 1979 revolution, took control of the strait on March 4. Its blockade halted the U.S., Israel and allies while allowing its friends China, Russia, India and Pakistan to go through. A truce in Lebanon on Friday failed, with the U.S. failing to lift its port blockages on Saturday.
Second-term Republican President Donald Trump has said energy costs are a “very small price to pay” in comparison to neutralizing Iran’s threat to America and securing long-term worldwide security. Americans, according to polls, have mixed opinion short of full agreement.
Monday represented Day 52 of Operation Epic Fury. A day before it started, the statewide norm for unleaded was about $2.75. For context, since the COVID-19 era, the state's highs are $4.67 for unleaded on June 13, 2022, and had been $5.76 for diesel on June 10, 2022.
Trump on April 1 said, “We are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks – we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Age, where they belong.”
A day shy of three weeks later, on Monday, the president’s negotiators were headed to Islamabad, Pakistan, amid American threats to “knock out every single power plant, and every single bridge, in Iran. No more Mr. Nice Guy,” the president wrote Sunday on social media.
