2011 Toyota Prius Rated No. 1 Fuel Sipper by EPA
I was thisclose to once again analyzing the country's addiction to trucks'”which outsold cars in October by the largest margin since December 2005'”when I came across the perfect antidote: The official list of the "Top Ten EPA-Rated Fuel Sippers" of 2011.* It was no shock to find the 2011 Toyota Prius still rated as the most fuel-efficient vehicle in America, but there were a couple of minor surprises worth mentioning.
Toyota's No. 1 is the Brand's Only One
It's perhaps only when you see a list like this that you realize just how impressive a package the Toyota Prius really is. The car puts up an EPA line of 51 mpg city/48 mpg highway/50 mpg combined; the next most efficient car, the Ford Fusion hybrid (and the hybrid versions of the Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKZ), achieves marks of 41/36/39. For the innumerate/lazy, the Prius tops every one of those ratings by more than 10 mpg. Yet the Toyota still starts with a base price of just $22,800 and at this stage in the game, it's morphed into a pretty sharp-looking ride.
And for those who think nearly $23K is a lot for a compact car, remember that the Honda Civic Si sedan opens at $22,400. The comparison is an apt one, since both vehicles charge a premium for premium performance. It's just that the Toyota's key performance metric is in the area of fuel efficiency instead of, well, performance. Another difference: The Prius actually gives you more of its kind of performance for the money than the Si does.
Interestingly, however, the Prius was the only vehicle from Toyota proper to make it into the top 10, although two Lexus were listed: The Prius' lux sibling, the Lexus HS 250h, along with the RX 450h. It makes me wonder if Toyota's green cred is going the same way as its reputation for quality.
Honda's Hybrids Make Their Mark
They aren't helping sales much, but Honda's three hybrid models accounted for four spots on the EPA's list: In a tie for third were the Honda Civic hybrid and the Honda Insight with a continuously variable transmission (CVT), the all-new Honda CR-Z in its automatic transmission configuration came in at No. 4 and the CR-Z with a six-speed manual brought up the rear in the 10th place.
That's the good news. The bad, as I hinted, has to do with sales'”or lack thereof. The combined October numbers on these models reached all of 4,046 units. Breaking out the data here shows the Civic hybrid finding 662 customers last month (up 187.2 percent for October, but still down 59.3 percent on the year), the Insight nabbing 1,965 buyers (up 17.2 percent for the month, but an increase of just 2.3 percent through October), and the CR-Z muddling along at 1,419 sales.
The CR-Z did get some pretty extensive exposure at SEMA, and that could help the car live up to its advanced billing as a sports hybrid coupe thing.
Ford, Nissan Play the Waiting Game
In addition to the Fusion/Milan/MKZ, the Blue Oval also put its hybrid Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner small crossovers on the list, along with their brother from another mother, the Mazda Tribute hybrid. As for Nissan, its sole entry was the Nissan Altima hybrid. Now, the story here is that these vehicles are all sort of stop-gap measures for their parent companies; I think execs at both automakers would agree none of them represent the peak of their respective companies' fuel-efficiency technologies. Nissan, of course, is betting big on the Leaf, while the Blue Oval is readying an all-electric Ford Focus.
Oh, and there was something called the Smart fortwo (in coupe and cabriolet setups) coming in at lucky No. 7 on the list.
The Prospects for a Fuel-Efficient Future?
With cars like the Leaf, Focus (electric and internal-combustion-engined), Ford Fiesta, Chevrolet Cruze and Chevrolet Volt all coming online in the near future, the task of finding a fuel-efficient car will only get easier and easier. Unfortunately, as truck sales show, getting people to buy one probably won't.
(*Note: The EPA list ranks vehicles solely in terms of city mpg. I contacted the EPA about this, and the response was as follows: "The reason that City mpg was used in the past was that window stickers did not used to display the combined average. The combined average is a harmonic mean calculated using 55% city and 45% highway so the city rating was favored in this ranking. Because the combined rating now appears on EPA window stickers, there is a very good chance that future releases of this top 10 list will move toward using the combined score, but for this year, EPA made the decision to remain consistent with past years and use the City rating.")