Nationwide, the price of gas has fallen significantly from its all-time record high in June.

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the average price of a gallon of regular gas is $3.90, the lowest figure since March and more than a full dollar below the peak of $5 per gallon in mid-June.

The reprieve has eased the strain on Americans' wallets and been a boon for President Joe Biden's administration, which received criticism for the rise in gas prices. 

"There's no celebration, there's no victory lap," Jared Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, told Spectrum News in an interview. "Prices are still elevated, they are too high."

But what's driving the plummeting prices at the pump? And how long might they last? We asked experts.

One expert told Spectrum News there are two key factors: The price of oil, which has fallen steadily since June, and an "unusual" lack of demand.

"Normally, this time of year, it's a high driving season, and you would expect more people to be hitting the road, more demand means, gas prices would be edging higher," Andrew Gross, a spokesperson for AAA, told Spectrum News. 

Gross said they have found that about 65% of drivers are "coping with these higher-than-usual prices by driving less or by combining errands."

He also said that the rise in electric vehicles could also play a factor: "One thing to keep in mind, also, is what will happen with demand as more people start driving electric cars? That is something to begin filtering into the conversation, because there are more and more electric cars out there every day."

There aren't many factors that could force a dramatic reversal of this trend, save for inclement weather like a hurricane, Gross said.

"We know hurricanes have a terrible habit of going right through where you really don't want them to go, which is the Gulf Coast, where we have all those oil-producing platforms, as well as all those large refineries that line the coast," Gross said. "So if a hurricane were to plow through there and knock refining capacity offline for a while, that could reverse this trend and make prices go up."

And then there's China, the world's largest energy consumer and biggest oil importer.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm warned that China could play a role in a rise in gas prices by increasing demand.

“If China opens up significantly after COVID, there will be more pressure on demand,” she said. “More pressure on demand means upward pressure on prices. So, we’re watching what happens globally. But we are doing everything possible to try to stabilize supply and demand to keep those prices coming down.”

"If their economy starts to slow down, then they will consume less oil," Gross told Spectrum News, adding: "China may be opening up post COVID-19, but there are also a lot of recession fears that the Chinese economy could be slowing down — this is a factor that could push oil prices downward."

But Granholm touted the Biden administration's efforts to boost domestic oil supply and production.

“This president has moved in dramatic ways to increase supply,” she said. “By releasing 1 million barrels per day from our reserve, as well as calling on domestic producers, as well as international producers, we will be at record amounts of production next year.”

"This question requires a crystal ball that doesn't have cracks in it," Bernstein said. "And when it comes to seeing energy prices out more than a few weeks, it's awfully hard to do."

"At least for the next few weeks, we should be looking at something around where we are now," Bernstein continued. He says when Americans experience a trend like this they "could maybe see "a penny or so off a day of gas prices. He says which would continuously slowly descend beyond two weeks.

Bernstein, like many White House officials, has attributed Russia's invasion of Ukraine as the primary reason for high gas prices.

On Monday, Gallup released a survey which showed that 5.6% of Americans in July described their quality of life as "suffering," the highest since they began polling for that index in 2008. The amount of Americans who described themselves as "thriving" fell to 51.2%. Gallup said that economic factors are "likely a major contributing factor to these worsening scores."

Bernstein said that the savings at the pump offer "really important breathing room for Americans and households who have been challenged by what President Biden has called 'unacceptably high' inflation."

"That's been a very welcome trend," he said. "It's one that has some of our policy fingerprints on it, because the President released 180 million barrels of oil from our strategic reserves a few months ago, and did it sequentially a million barrels a day for six months. So that's still in the field, it's still contributing to the supply. So it's one of many reasons for that price decline."

Bernstein also pointed to the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed into law last week, that he said will "lowers the cost of clean energy" and aid the country in the long run.

The Brookings Institution estimates that the bill would save households an average of $1,800 per year by helping to "shift households’ upfront costs for technologies such as heat pumps, air conditioning, and induction stoves to payments that families can use immediately—effectively lowering the costs of these technologies."