TechTreak

Almost all the auto manufacturers claim to bring out the best fuel economy cars out of their garages. Every one wants to save fuel money and if you have decided to buy a new car, it is better to look for fuel economy calculators or maps.

Well, here we can just look at Edmunds comparison on gas mileage in four different cars. Edmunds chose the 2008 Ford Focus SES coupe (2.0 litre four-cylinder engine), 2008 Smart Fortwo (1.0-liter, three-cylinder engine), 2008 Toyota Prius (gasoline-electric hybrid) and the 2005 Volkswagen Jetta TDI (1.9-liter TDI diesel engine)

Though the EPA fuel economy is good for determining the overall fuel economy, Edmunds had a different perspective in determining the fuel economy. He knew that each car when driven differently would give a different fuel economy. Using a fuel economy cage match, he determined the fuel economy of each of the four cars in different driving situations.

The fuel efficiency was calculated based on five rounds — back-roads cruiser, city roller and highway flier (all these based on different driving routes), and Lowest fuel costs Greenest small car (bonus rounds based on calculation).

Based on the calculations, Edmunds found that Volkswagen Jetta TDI came top in the Back Roads Cruiser and Ford Focus came the last. Toyota Prius was the champs at the City Roller round and the last came was Ford Focus. While VW Jetta TDI was the best in the Highway Flier, the worst was Ford Focus. In the Lowest Fuel Costs round, the champions were Toyota Prius Coming to the greenest car, then again it was Toyota Prius.

Edmunds concludes that the overall champ was the Toyota Prius, which came top in three rounds. Well, t is always better to go for a fuel efficiency test rather than betrayed by the false claims of the auto manufacturers.