Buying less expensive and more fuel-efficient cars is a growing trend, fueled by high gas prices, stagnant wages, rising costs of living, and the ongoing struggle for consumers to avoid and even eliminate personal debt. For many households, there simply isn’t room in the budget for anything but the basics, and that includes the car in the driveway.
There’s good news for people finding themselves in this situation. Buying an inexpensive car that gets terrific gas mileage is no longer an implied sign of financial failure. Here’s why:
- First, small cars aren’t the penalty boxes they used to be. If it’s been awhile since you rode in a new one, you’ll be surprised by the combination of comfort, quality, design, and technology found in today’s more affordable sets of wheels.
- Second, the social movement toward environmental responsibility and recent studies that claim conclusive evidence of man-made global warming make driving a small, high-mpg vehicle a badge of honor rather than shame.
- Third, while there’s no denying the importance of vehicle weight when it comes to surviving collisions with other vehicles, today’s crop of compact cars boasts an impressive array of safety features designed to protect you in a crash.
- Fourth, practicality and comfort no longer take a back seat to restrictive packaging requirements in modern small cars, which sometimes feature more passenger and cargo room than vehicles that are much larger and heavier.
Our list of vehicles includes 12 different models that average 33 mpg or better in combined city and highway driving, according to the EPA, and start at less than $20,000, including the destination charge. Remarkably, 8 of the 12 vehicles get the same mpg ratings: 33. So we’ve listed those 8 models first, in alphabetical order, then countdown the rest of the bunch until we reach the most fuel-efficient car under $20,000. But before we show you the results, a few disclaimers are in order:
- When driven in the real world under normal conditions, most vehicles do not consistently achieve the fuel-economy scores the EPA claims they do. That’s because your driving style, vehicle maintenance (including tire pressure), weather conditions, geography, and the added weight of junk in your trunk conspires to lower your fuel economy. However, because the EPA is the only organization applying standardized methodologies to predict fuel economy, it serves as the best source for the information when comparing one car to another.
- We conducted our original research for this article on November 7, 2011. It is possible that some data has changed, or new data has been released, since that time.
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