Plus, a lot of that gas consumption is spent commuting, which makes people miserable. Murdering the daily commute is a good thing Covid-19 did, although I don't expect it to last long (WFH-ers will get fewer promotions, despite working harder, and eventually RTO fetishists will rule the roost).
Very few people want to "consume gas". They want to be able to live decently and have meaningful jobs. Unfortunately, in today's market, that usually means a shit-ass load [1] of driving.
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[1] You don't want to know how much time I spent deciding whether to use the more conventional hyphenization ("shit-ass-load") or the version with better cadence.