Honda Is America’s Most Fuel-Efficient Gas Automaker

Honda has the highest real-world fleet average fuel economy of any full-line automaker in the United States, according to the EPA’s 2025 Automotive Trends Report. The key phrase here is “fuel economy,” because when EV-only brands are factored in, Tesla is actually on top.

The report found that Honda had an average of 31.0 mpg across its 2024-model-year lineup, the most recent with complete data. That’s 3.8 mpg higher than the industry average, and 1.2 mpg above second-place Hyundai. Honda also saw a 2.7-mpg improvement between model years 2023 and 2024—much greater than the 0.1-mpg industry average—but the EPA’s preliminary estimates show it slipping to 29.6 mpg for the 2025 model year. That currently puts it behind Hyundai, BMW, and Toyota but, again, these are only estimates.

Honda’s first-place finish makes sense, in part because hybrids make up a growing number of its U.S. sales. They surpassed 400,000 units for the first time in 2025, and the Accord, Civic, and CR-V hybrids all raked in record sales for the third year in a row, Honda said in a press release. Toyota has a hybrid-dense lineup as well, but it also sells less-efficient models like the Tundra and Tacoma pickups and the Sequoia, Land Cruiser, and 4Runner SUVs. In contrast, even the new Honda Prelude gets 44 mpg combined.

However, the same report said Tesla achieved the equivalent of 117.1 mpg across its lineup of EVs for the 2024 model year. That’s actually down 3.4 mpg from the 2023 model year, but when the starting number is so high, it doesn’t make much of a difference in the rankings. Comparisons like these don’t make a lot of sense, though, as there’s always some level of artificiality involved in trying to measure the efficiency of an EV in terms of liquid fuel it doesn’t burn.

That’s why it’s not worth getting mad about the fact that Honda erased Tesla from the version of the rankings it published in its release. More problematic is Honda’s use of the term “electrified vehicles” to describe its hybrids, while also making the distinction between “electrified and gasoline vehicles” as if those hybrids didn’t also have gasoline engines.

Improving fuel economy has been a powerful tool for reducing emissions for 50 years, but EVs are an even more powerful tool because they produce no “tailpipe” emissions at all. The same equivalency factor that gave Tesla a 117.1-mpg average also helped Honda, because the Prologue was included in those calculations. Having cancelled its own next-generation EVs, Honda won’t have that boost in future years as other automakers continue to ramp up EV production.

The post Honda Is America’s Most Fuel-Efficient Gas Automaker appeared first on The Drive.