miles per gallon
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The 2011 Toyota Prius hybrid gets the best gas mileage rating of any car for sale in the U.S. market today. It's rated at 51 mpg city, 48 mpg highway, for a combined rating of 50 mpg--and that's a number no other car can match. At least, no other car that doesn't plug into the wall for some (2011 Chevy Volt) or all (2011 Nissan Leaf) of the energy it needs to propel itself. And plug-in electric cars, at least this year, remain very, very scarce, with long waiting lists at both Nissan and Chevrolet dealers, not to mention their high prices ($32,780 and $41,000, respectively, before...
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Toyota Corolla Gas Mileage
The 2011 Toyota Corolla is one of the best-selling compact sedans in the U.S. market. But its gas mileage isn't necessarily anything to write home about. The most fuel-efficient model is the one fitted with the 132-horsepower, 1.8-liter engine and a five-speed manual gearbox, a transmission many...
John Voelcker -
40 MPG And Safe: IIHS Names Ten Top Picks
Good occupant safety can come in small packages—even those that get 40 mpg or more. That's one of the themes of the latest round of crash-test results and safety ratings released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Overall, there are now ten small-car and minicar models in...
Bengt Halvorson -
High Gas Prices Changing Vacation Plans, Even House Purchases
There's more than a 3-to-1 chance that your gas price fell last week. The price itself depends largely on what state you live in, but the average price of a gallon of gasoline rose in just 12 states, staying the same or falling in the other 38, according to the average pricing on GasBuddy. But...
John Voelcker -
Guide: How To Get Good Gas Mileage AND Third Row Seats?
"We have not yet fully accepted the fact that we need a new car. Some call it denial. But we do need one." That's how our friend Gordon Platt began a note asking our advice on what cars he should consider as he sets out to replace the family's aging 2003 Toyota Sienna minivan. "What are your...
John Voelcker -
2012 Honda Civic Hybrid: Multi-Day Drive Review
The 2012 Honda Civic range, launched at last month's New York Auto Show, includes two models devoted to wringing out as many miles as possible from every last drop of gasoline. The one with the highest gas mileage is the 2012 Civic Hybrid, rated by the EPA at 44 mpg on all three test cycles: city...
John Voelcker -
Well, it's official. Despite news last week of a sudden drop in the wholesale price of oil, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. rose to precisely $4 a gallon, according to the respected Lundberg Report. That's 12 cents higher than just two weeks ago. Your price will likely be different, depending on what state you live in. Some analysts speculate that $4 or perhaps $4.50 will be the tipping point at which consumers change their driving patterns, working harder to combine trips, ride with friends, or otherwise reduce the miles they cover in whatever vehicles they own. Helped...
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Advice: Downsizing From A Subaru Wagon, Seeking Better MPGs
We tend to get a lot of "What car should we buy?" questions at GreenCarReports, and we'll usually respond with a list of questions to narrow down the choices. Recently, though, our high-school friend Sarah Sette in Baltimore sent the following note: We are car shopping, seriously this time. The...
John Voelcker -
2012 Honda Civic HF 41-MPG Model: Video Tour, NY Auto Show
Of the five separate 2012 Honda Civic models featured at last month's New York Auto Show, the Civic HF sedan is probably the most affordable tradeoff between gas mileage and purchase price. Its base price is $19,455. It's EPA-rated at 29 mpg city, 41 mpg highway, toward the top of the 2012 Civic...
John Voelcker -
Tell Us: Is 40 MPG Highway Irrelevant, Or Crucial To Save Gas?
If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll see new-car ads touting the magical "40 mpg highway" number in big print. You'll see a whole lot of car ads, in fact, for vehicles that include the 2011 Ford Fiesta SFE, 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco (with six-speed manual), 2011 Hyundai Elantra (all...
John Voelcker -
2012 Fiat 500 Cabriolet: Best Gas-Mileage 4-Seat Convertible You Can Buy
It's springtime, which means tornadoes for some of us, showers and muggy weather for others. It also means putting the roof down on convertibles after the long winter hiatus. Which led us to wonder: What's the best gas mileage you can get in a new drop-top car with four seats (or at least four...
John Voelcker -
Sales Of Small Cars Boost Average Gas Mileage For 2011 So Far
During the first quarter of 2011, small car sales accounted for 19.4 percent of all vehicles sold. That is a sudden increase in popularity--up 2.8 percent from the last quarter of 2010--and it helped propel the average fuel economy of vehicles sold in the U.S. during January, February, and March to...
Kurt Ernst -
Finally, here's our last video in the series we did on the new 2011 Hyundai Elantra. Since we tested that car a few weeks ago, the compact segment has only heated up. There's a new 2012 Honda Civic, an entirely redesigned all-wheel-drive 2012 Subaru Impreza, and the highly competitive 2011 Chevy Cruze that debuted this year along with the Elantra. In the compact segment, where gas mileage is increasingly important and most entries can be ordered with all the amenities that used to be reserved to big cars, any little problems can stand out. And while we liked the new Hyundai Elantra, it wasn't...
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Miles-Per-Gallon Is Just Stupid. No, Really, It Is.
Americans aren't stupid. We're just badly informed. And occasionally, stubborn. Why else would we ignorantly cling to using miles per gallon as the way to measure how efficiently a car uses fuel? But maybe you don't quite see the problem. OK, so here's a little test: Which saves more gasoline...
John Voelcker -
7 Ways To Save Gas And Go Green With The Cars You Own Today
Sure, it'd be nice to have a brand-new, more fuel-efficient vehicle. But not everyone is able to buy one of the growing number of new cars with at least 40 mpg highway mileage. So here are our tips for getting better mileage out of whatever vehicles are in your driveway right now, today, from...
John Voelcker -
AWD 2012 Subaru Impreza: 36 MPG Highway--NY Auto Show Preview
All-wheel-drive is an increasingly popular option in new vehicles, especially in areas of the country that get snow. But the security of having all four wheels powered in your car can be offset by the price of the option and, in most cases, a significant gas mileage penalty. And these days, it's...
John Voelcker -
One-Third Of 2011 Ford F-150 Pickups Sold With V-6
MPGs matter, it turns out, even to pickup buyers. Or, perhaps especially to pickup truck buyers. Just four months after Ford added an EcoBoost engine option to its top-selling F-150 pickup truck, the company reports that fully 35 percent of the 2011 model's sales are fitted with either that...
John Voelcker -
VIDEO: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, High Gas-Mileage Features
With gas prices top of mind for many drivers, the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco model seems perfectly timed. The model with a six-speed manual gearbox is EPA-rated at 28 mpg city, 42 mpg highway, for a combined 33 mpg. On our recent road test over a long weekend, we beat that slightly, getting 34.2 mpg...
John Voelcker -
To date, Buick and "fuel economy" haven't often been used in the same sentence. But the 2012 Buick LaCrosse, the brand's largest surviving car, will offer one engine option that's projected to deliver 25 mpg city, 37 mpg highway. That's not bad for a midsize near-luxury sedan (though 1 mpg lower on city mileage than Buick had hoped). We've just driven a development prototype of the 2012 LaCrosse fitted with the eAssist system that will be standard on the 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, the smaller of two engines (the other is a 3.6-liter V-6). Electric "boost" It includes not only a...
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VIDEO: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, Our Real-World Gas Mileage
Gas mileage is on absolutely everyone's mind these days. Strife in oil-producing nations, and the associated rising gasoline prices, have already led to a surge of interest in any vehicle's MPG ratings. Now production in Japan (source of most of the world's hybrids) is shut down, at least...
John Voelcker -
BMW Looking To Boost MPGs With TwinPower Turbo Three-Cylinder Engines
Expect to see smaller engines for BMW’s future models, as high fuel prices and greater environmental concerns push automakers towards engines with lower displacements. We’ve already seen this trend with the recent announcement of BMW’s new TwinPower Turbo 2.0-liter four-cylinder...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
VIDEO: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, Two-Minute Drive Review
The EPA rates the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco at 28 mpg city, 42 mpg highway, when it's fitted with the six-speed manual transmission. But can the Cruze Eco really reach beyond that magic 40-mpg number, which is highway mileage only? VIDEO: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, Our Real-World Gas Mileage On our...
John Voelcker -
High Gas Prices May Soon Turn Your Lovely Suburb Into A Slum
Americans rarely think much about zoning, but it governs almost every facet of how we live our lives. And unintended consequences of 50-year-old zoning codes may be about to turn some of our loveliest and quietest suburbs into the next slums. Why? Simply because they've been built too far away from...
John Voelcker -
2011 Mazda2: Lightweight Status, Small Engine Yield 41 MPG
At just over 2,300 pounds, the Mazda2 is a lightweight. It's about 200 pounds less than the Honda Fit, MINI Cooper, or Ford Fiesta, and a bit less than the Toyota Yaris even. And, Smart Fortwo aside, that makes it the lightest regular production vehicle for 2011. Lighter weight and smaller engine...
Bengt Halvorson