If you’ve seen the word PADD in our quote process and pictured a place to park your RV, you’re not alone. It’s actually a federal fuel map, and it’s the reason the fuel part of your quote reflects what diesel really costs along your route, not a guess and not a flat rate.
The Quick Version
- Diesel isn’t one price. It changes from region to region, and every week.
- The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes the average retail diesel price for each region.
- We price each stretch of your route at the price for the region it’s in.
- The result is one all-inclusive Transport line, with no fuel surcharge added later.
What a PADD Is
PADD stands for Petroleum Administration for Defense District. The country was split into five of them during World War II to help manage fuel supply, and the EIA still uses them today: East Coast, Midwest, Gulf Coast, Rocky Mountain, and West Coast. Each week the EIA publishes the average retail price of on-highway diesel for each one. It also reports California on its own, because its prices run well above the rest of the West Coast.
Why One National Number Doesn’t Work
On a typical week, diesel on the Gulf Coast, where we’re based, costs noticeably less per gallon than it does in California. A single national average would be too high for the miles you drive through Texas and too low for the miles in California. A flat per-mile rate has the same problem. We’d rather price the miles you actually drive.
How It Works in Your Quote
- We map your route and measure how many loaded miles fall in each region.
- We pull the latest weekly EIA diesel price for each of those regions.
- Miles in a region ÷ the rig’s fuel economy × that region’s price gives the fuel cost for that stretch. The empty miles we drive to reach you and to get home are priced at our home-region price.
- It all folds into your Transport line. There’s no separate surcharge to decode. When diesel moves, the fuel portion of the quote moves with it, and it’s built into one price.
A move that stays inside Texas is priced on Gulf Coast diesel. A move from Texas to the Pacific Northwest crosses several regions, and each leg is priced at its own region’s rate.
What “Accurate” Means Here
The EIA figures are weekly regional averages, not what one particular truck stop charges on a given afternoon. That’s the point: it’s a neutral, public benchmark rather than a number we pick, and you can check it yourself on the EIA’s weekly diesel page. Fuel is only one line in a quote. The rest of the build-up is on our pricing page.
Bottom Line
A PADD is just a region on a fuel map. Using it means the diesel in your quote tracks where you’re actually driving, in both directions: we don’t overcharge on the cheap miles, and we don’t hide the expensive ones.
See It in Your Own Quote
Every quote shows a transparent breakdown of what goes into the number. Request one and see how your route is priced. Questions about how a quote was built? Call or text (512) 593-1673.
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