The Honda Insight and Toyota Prius hybrid electric vehicles are the fuel economy leaders for the third year in a row, the United States Environmental Protection Agency said this week. In addition to being fuel-efficient, these vehicles are also among the lowest-emission vehicles available, the EPA added.
Manual (61mpg city; 68 highway) and CVT automatic transmission (57/56) versions of the Insight topped the EPA’s 2003 model year fuel economy guide, followed by the automatic-only Prius (52/45) and the manual and automatic versions of Honda’s Civic hybrid.
The remaining places in the economy top 10 were taken by the manual diesel Volkswagen Jetta [Bora] wagon, manual diesel Beetle, manual Jetta sedan, manual Toyota Echo [Yaris/Vitz-derived] sedan and the automatic diesel versions of VW’s Jetta, Golf and Beetle.
On the other hand, the Ferrari Enzo (8mpg city/12mpg highway) topped the EPA’s ‘gas guzzler’ list (the agency more diplomatically calls it the ‘Lowest Fuel Economy’ list.
Other gas hogs, listed in this case by vehicle class, include the new Lamborghini Murcielago (9/13), Bentley Arnage (10/14), six more Ferraris, two more Bentley models and two Maseratis.
US-made vehicles don’t figure in this list until number 10 with the all-wheel drive Cadillac Escalade and GMC’s K1500 Yukon and K1500 Sierra Denali (12/16). The GM trio are matched for prodigous fuel consumption by Ford’s 2WD F150 pickup and the rival Dodge Ram 1500 4WD as well as the British-made Land Rover Discovery Series II, which recently gained the previous Range Rover’s 4.6-litre V8 in place of the 2002 model’s four-litre engine.
