The 2012 mileage champ, the Mitsubishi i, at 112 MPGe.
The long-struggling Mitsubishi has finally landed at the top of the charts. In this case, the Environmental Protection Agency declaring the little Japanese battery-electric vehicle the most fuel-efficient automobile on American roads, averaging a whopping 112 miles per gallon equivalent.
That’s the Combined rating for the 2012 Mitsubishi i, which gets 126 miles in the federal government’s City cycle and 99 on the Highway. The little battery car is currently the smallest and least expensive of the new crop of electric vehicles, carrying a price tag of $27,990 – before the $7,500 federal tax credit for high-mileage battery vehicles.
As you might guess, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids dominate the 2012 rankings by the EPA, with the Nissan Leaf coming in second with a Combined cycle rating of 99 MPGe – which is designed to convert the power stored in a battery into its equivalent were the vehicle to be running on conventional gasoline.
Third on the list is the Ford Transit Connect Electric, at 62 MPGe – compared to 24 miles per gallong for the gas-powered Transit Connect — followed by the plug-in Chevrolet Volt, which the EPA rates at 60 MPGe.
Conventional hybrid-electric vehicles were clustered close behind Volt, the Toyota Prius getting 50 mpg, the Civic Hybrid rated at 44, The bigger new Prius v coming in at 42 miles per gallon, and the Honda CR-Z logging 37 mpg.
But the EPA found that a growing number of conventional, gas-powered vehicles are nudging into hybrid territory. At the top of the list: the new Scion iQ, at a Combined 37, matching the CR-Z. The new Chevrolet Sonic subcompact and Ford Fiesta both delivered 33 mpg.
But they were actual beaten by diesel-powered versions of the Audi A3 and Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen, both clocking 34 mpg.
Among those vehicles the EPA rates as “Large Cars,” the four-cylinder Hyundai Sonata topped the list at 28 mpg Combined.
The EPA also has released estimates for annual fuel costs based on its latest mileage estimates and the numbers reveal a wide gap between models in the same class of products. In the subcompact segment – which the feds base on interior volume, the little Mitsubishi i leads again, running up annual electric costs forecast at just $540 a year — while the Bentley Continental Continental Supersports Convertible is the ultimate gas guzzler in the segment with gas expected to cost $4,890 annually.
For the complete EPA report on the 2012 model-year, Click Here.