As of mid-May, gas hit an average of $4.50 a gallon nationally, up 28% from a year ago, according to AAA. Americans in some states have been paying around $6 per gallon, which means fueling up a truck, like the Ford F-150, can run well over $150 per tank.
Those prices may take a while to come down. So if you’re in the market for a new car, SUV or truck this year, you might want to pick one that gets great gas mileage.
That makes the 2025 Automotive Trends Report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency worth paying attention to. Released in February, it covers every new light-duty vehicle sold in the U.S. through model year 2024 and gives consumers a clear picture of which vehicle types — and which automakers — deliver the best real-world gas mileage.
The EPA’s fuel economy estimates come from lab tests designed to simulate everyday driving. While the individual city and highway numbers match those on a new car’s fuel economy window label, the combined estimates differ.
The window label calculates combined mileage using a mix of 55% city and 45% highway, whereas the real-world estimates in this report use a 43% city and 57% highway split to better reflect modern driver activity.
How fuel economy breaks down by vehicle type
The simplest way to shop for efficiency is by category. The spread between the best and worst vehicle types is dramatic. Here’s the average real-world fuel economy for each class in model year 2024:
- Sedans and wagons: 33.5 miles per gallon (mpg) — the most efficient conventional class by a wide margin
- Car SUVs (most 2-wheel drive SUVs under 6,000 lbs.): 39.2 mpg — highest of any class, boosted by hybrids and electric vehicles
- Truck SUVs (most 4-wheel drive SUVs or those over 6,000 lbs.): 25.7 mpg
- Minivans and vans: 26.1 mpg
- Pickup trucks: 20.5 mpg — the lowest of any class
The car SUV category’s outsized number reflects how much electrification has reshaped the segment. Across the broader market, stripping out battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) causes the overall industry fleet average to drop from 27.2 mpg to 25.6 mpg.
American consumers have been increasingly gravitating toward purchasing larger vehicles in the last 18 years, which is slowing the progress in improving fuel efficiency, as the report notes:
“Fuel economy has also increased in all vehicle types since model year 2008, however, the market shift towards less efficient vehicle types has offset some of the fleetwide fuel economy benefits that otherwise would have been achieved through additional technology.”
The most — and least — efficient automakers
The EPA’s report also ranks the 14 largest automakers by fleet-average fuel economy for model year 2024 with an industry average of 27.2 mpg.
For electric vehicles, this is measured in miles per gallon-equivalent (mpge), which is the number of miles a vehicle can travel on an amount of electrical energy equivalent to the energy in a gallon of gasoline.
Here are the brands that beat the industry average:
- Tesla: 117.1 mpge
- Honda: 31 mpg
- Hyundai: 29.8 mpg
- Kia: 29.2 mpg
- Toyota: 29 mpg
- Nissan: 29 mpg
- BMW: 29 mpg
- Subaru: 28.7 mpg
- Mazda: 28 mpg
Here are the brands that come in under the industry average:
- Volkswagen: 26.5 mpg
- Mercedes: 26.1 mpg
- Ford: 23.4 mpg
- GM: 22.9 mpg
- Stellantis: 22.8 mpg
Where the efficiency gains come from
As noted, the overall fleet average hit a record 27.2 mpg in the 2024 model year, up 41% from 2004. The EPA notes that the increase in production of BEVs and PHEVs has influenced overall trends in recent years.
Honda, Toyota and Nissan stand out because their fuel economy holds up even when electrified vehicles are removed from the calculation. Their gas-only fleet averages are 30.1, 28.4 and 28.5 mpg, respectively — competitive numbers that reflect strong conventional engine efficiency.
Preliminary data for the 2025 model year show the overall average is projected to rise to 28.1 mpg, with car SUVs expected to average 37.6 mpg and sedans climbing to 36.2 mpg. Technological and design improvements are likely to boost fuel efficiency, as the report explains:
“Vehicle fuel economy is clearly related to vehicle attributes … namely weight, horsepower, and footprint. Future trends in fuel economy will be dependent, at least in part, on design choices related to these attributes.”
For shoppers looking to minimize fuel costs, the category choice matters as much as the brand. A car SUV from a top-ranked manufacturer can deliver twice the fuel economy of a full-size pickup — a difference that adds up fast at $4.50 a gallon.
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