What is Fuel Efficiency and which Vehicles are the Most Efficient

When we talk about fuel efficiency with automobiles we’re talking about how many miles per gallons of gas that a car “gets”, right?  Pretty simple.  That number will vary widely, especially today now that we’re getting lots of extremely fuel efficient hybrid cars coming onto the market.

This is the direction of the automobile, and everyone knows it, we need much more fuel efficient cars on the road.  With gas prices getting out of control and the political climate stirring up every few months, there is a lot of pressure on automakers to make cars as fuel efficient as possible, or even get them to run on something other than gasoline.

In fact, that is most likely the real future of the automobile – cars that run on hydrogen, electricity, and other cleaner fuels (solar?).  But, in the mean time the public wants cars that will run farther on the same amount of gas, it’s just getting to darn expensive to fill up the tank, but we don’t have to tell you that.

So, who’s winning the game, which cars are the most fuel efficient?  Well, the most fuel efficient cars on the market today are hybrids (cars that run on gasoline and electric power), but the problem currently is that the costs are quite a bit higher than a car that runs on gasoline.  That will not always be the case, but it is today and in the immediate future.

The Toyota Prius and the Chevy Volt are hybrids that get great gas mileage, but again, they are a bit more expensive than comparable cars in their class (especially the Prius).

Soon just about every car company will have hybrid models, because hybrids have sold so well, and this will eventually bring the prices down as well, so as Martha would say, it’s a good thing.

However, when looking at affordable cars with good fuel efficiency right now, maybe the best place to look would be at smaller cars (that run completely on gasoline) from brands like Kia, Toyota, and Honda.

Here is a comparison of a few models from these brands – the Toyota Yaris retails from around $11,500 and gets roughly 32 miles per gallon, the Honda fit, costs around $14,000 and gets 31 mpg, the Kia Rio can be bought for under $11,000 brand new and gets around 29 mpg.  These Asian brands own a large piece of this market, but American auto makers are starting to compete better and better each year, coming out with their own smaller, fuel efficient models (i.e. Focus – which will have an electric version in 2012) as well.
Lastly, there are so called cross-over vehicles, which are basically smaller SUV’s, they offer good space and good gas mileage.  An average fuel efficiency for newer model SUV’s in the marketplace might be around 22 mpg – which is a whole lot better than the gas guzzlers of the past.  These comparisons should give you a nice overview of the market today and what it offers.