What does it
cost to drive?
1,949 models with five or more years of EPA test sheets — cost per mile, cost per kilometre, annual fuel spend, and how each nameplate's economy has drifted across its entire run.
What the middle of the book costs
$2,286a year, fuel only
The median petrol or hybrid model here returns 21 MPG on the EPA cycle, which is $2286 a year in fuel over 15,000 miles at $3.20 a gallon — $0.152 a mile, or $0.095 a kilometre. Look up your own car and the book will do the same arithmetic on its own test sheet.
The band is the median petrol or hybrid model in the book: 21 MPG of the 80 this scale runs to. The square tick is the best test sheet on file, 74. The thirstiest entry manages 7, so the median car covers 3.0× the distance on the same gallon.
- Median economy
- 21 MPG
- Fuel, per year
- $2,286 at 15,000 mi
- Per mile
- $0.152
- Per kilometre
- $0.095
- Thirstiest on file
- $6,857 a year
Median of 1,910 petrol and hybrid models · fuel at $3.20/gal, fixed JUL 2026
Test figures — not road resultsSOURCE·US EPA fuel-economy test data·FUEL ASSUMED AT $3.20/GAL FROM JUL 2026·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How this is worked out
- Start from the EPA combined figure for the model year — a laboratory test cycle run to a fixed procedure, not a road result. Where a year sold several engines or drivetrains, the trims are averaged and the trim count is printed beside the row so you can see how much averaging is behind it.
- Fix a pump price. This site keeps one reference price, $3.20 a US gallon, fixed JUL 2026 and printed next to every dollar figure it produces. It is an assumption with a date on it, not a quote — put your own price in.
- Fix an annual distance. Every annual figure on this site uses 15,000 miles a year, roughly the US average. A cost per year with no stated distance is not a number, it is a mood.
- Divide distance by economy for gallons, multiply by price for the year's fuel, divide price by economy for one mile. The per-kilometre line is that last figure divided by 1.609344 — the same money, in the unit most of the world drives in.
- Stop there. No depreciation, no tyres, no insurance, no servicing. This is the fuel line of the ledger and it is labelled as one; depreciation usually dwarfs everything on it.
gallons/yr = miles/yr ÷ MPG fuel $/yr = gallons/yr × $/gal cost $/mi = $/gal ÷ MPG cost $/km = cost $/mi ÷ 1.609344
The full method, the licence note, and what a test figure cannot tell you →
The cheapest sheets in the book
SOURCE·US EPA fuel-economy test data·FUEL ASSUMED AT $3.20/GAL FROM JUL 2026·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Ranked within class, because a pickup is not a hatchback's rival
The thirstiest things ever put on the rollers
| Model | Combined | Fuel per year | Per mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lamborghini Countach | 7 MPG | $6857 | $0.457 |
| Aston Martin Lagonda | 9 MPG | $5333 | $0.356 |
| Aston Martin Saloon/Vantage/Volante | 9 MPG | $5333 | $0.356 |
| Bugatti Veyron | 10 MPG | $4800 | $0.320 |
| Lamborghini DB132/Diablo | 10 MPG | $4800 | $0.320 |
| Toyota Cab/Chassis 2WD | 10.5 MPG | $4571 | $0.305 |
SOURCE·US EPA fuel-economy test data·FUEL ASSUMED AT $3.20/GAL FROM JUL 2026·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Why the book exists when the EPA already publishes the figure
The EPA's own site has the MPG figures, and it will always be the authoritative source for them — this site does not pretend otherwise, and links to it on every page. What the EPA does not publish is the thing you actually want to know: what this car costs you per mile, what that adds up to over a year at your fuel price, how it stacks up against everything else in its class, and whether the nameplate has genuinely improved across its life or just grown heavier.
Those are all arithmetic on public figures. They are just arithmetic nobody official will do, because doing it means committing to a fuel price. This book commits to one, dates it, prints it beside every figure, and lets you change it.
