Good fuel economy depends on what you’re driving. For a standard gasoline car, anything above 30 mpg combined is solid, and above 40 mpg is excellent. For SUVs and trucks, the bar is lower. The average new vehicle sold in the United States in model year 2024 hit a record high of 27.2 mpg, so that number serves as a useful baseline: if your vehicle beats it, you’re doing better than most cars on the road.
Average MPG by Vehicle Type
The national averages paint a clear picture of what’s typical for each class. Cars average about 24.4 mpg across all ages and models currently on the road. Light trucks and vans, which includes most SUVs and pickups, average 17.8 mpg. Motorcycles lead at 44 mpg.
Those figures include older, less efficient vehicles still in circulation. New vehicles perform better. Truck-based SUVs sold in 2024 averaged 25.7 mpg, up a full mile per gallon from the previous year. Since two-thirds of all new vehicles sold in 2024 were classified as trucks under federal regulations, the overall fleet average of 27.2 mpg is weighted heavily toward larger vehicles. A new compact sedan will typically land between 32 and 38 mpg combined, while a new midsize SUV falls in the 26 to 30 mpg range. Full-size pickup trucks generally sit between 19 and 24 mpg.
A simple rule of thumb: if your vehicle gets 10% or more above the average for its class, it has good fuel economy. If it’s 25% or more above average, it’s excellent.
Hybrids and Plug-In Hybrids
Hybrid powertrains push fuel economy into a different tier entirely. The 2025 Toyota Camry hybrid gets 51 mpg combined, and the Corolla hybrid hits 50 mpg. The 2025 Kia Niro manages 53 mpg. For a hybrid, anything above 45 mpg combined qualifies as good, and the best models now crack 50.
Plug-in hybrids use a different measurement called MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent), which accounts for the energy from both gasoline and electricity. The 2024 Kia Sorento Plug-In Hybrid, for example, rates 79 MPGe but drops to 34 mpg when running on gas alone. That gas-only number matters, because it reflects your real-world efficiency once the battery is depleted. If you regularly charge a plug-in hybrid and keep most trips short, you’ll see dramatically better numbers than the gas-only rating. If you rarely plug in, you’re essentially driving a slightly heavier conventional hybrid.
How the EPA Calculates Its Numbers
The MPG figure on a new car’s window sticker comes from EPA testing across five driving scenarios: a city cycle, a highway cycle, a high-speed aggressive driving cycle, a hot-weather test at 95°F with air conditioning running, and a cold-weather test at 20°F with the heater on. The results are weighted and adjusted to reflect real-world conditions.
The combined MPG number you see most often blends the city and highway scores at a 55/45 split, giving slightly more weight to city driving. This is the single best number for comparing vehicles, though your personal mix of city and highway miles will shift your actual results.
If you’re comparing vehicles using ratings from outside the U.S., keep in mind that European WLTP ratings tend to be 10 to 20% more optimistic than EPA figures for gasoline vehicles. A car rated at 40 mpg under WLTP testing might only score 33 to 36 mpg on the EPA scale. The EPA test includes correction factors for air conditioning and aggressive driving that the European test doesn’t emphasize as heavily.
Why Speed Matters More Than You Think
Your driving speed has one of the largest single effects on fuel economy. A midsize gasoline car peaks at about 45 mpg at 55 mph. Push to 65 mph and that drops to 38 mpg. At 75 mph, it falls to 32 mpg, a nearly 30% loss compared to the sweet spot. Diesel vehicles show an even steeper decline, going from 55 mpg at 55 mph down to 37 mpg at 75 mph.
Hybrids handle the speed penalty slightly differently. They lose efficiency more evenly across the range because their electric motors provide less assistance at sustained highway speeds. A midsize hybrid might get 55 mpg at 45 mph but only 33 mpg at 75 mph. The takeaway is the same regardless of powertrain: cruising at 55 to 60 mph instead of 75 mph can improve your fuel economy by 20 to 30%.
Weight, Tires, and Maintenance
Vehicle weight directly drives fuel consumption. Adding just 220 pounds (100 kg) to a passenger car increases fuel use by 5 to 9%. That’s roughly equivalent to carrying a couple of passengers or leaving heavy cargo in your trunk permanently. If you’re hauling gear you don’t need, removing it is one of the easiest efficiency gains available.
Tire pressure is another overlooked factor. With all four tires at 75% of their recommended pressure, fuel economy drops by 2 to 3% across all speeds. Let them fall to 50% of the recommended pressure and the penalty jumps to around 10% at city speeds and 5% at highway speeds. Checking tire pressure monthly and keeping tires at the value listed on your driver’s side door jamb is free and takes five minutes.
Modern vehicles also use automatic stop-start systems that shut the engine off at red lights and in traffic. This feature alone reduces city fuel consumption by 4 to 10%, depending on how much stop-and-go driving you do. If your car has this feature and you’ve disabled it, turning it back on is one of the simplest ways to improve your city MPG.
Putting It All Together
Here’s a quick reference for what counts as good combined fuel economy by vehicle type in 2025:
- Compact or midsize sedan: 30 to 35 mpg is good, 36+ is excellent
- Midsize SUV or crossover: 27 to 30 mpg is good, 31+ is excellent
- Full-size pickup truck: 22 to 25 mpg is good, 26+ is excellent
- Hybrid car: 45 to 50 mpg is good, 51+ is excellent
- Plug-in hybrid (gas only): 30 to 35 mpg is good, with MPGe in the 70s or higher when using electric range
These benchmarks shift upward by roughly half a mile per gallon each year as fleet efficiency improves. A “good” number today would have been “great” five years ago. The most practical approach is to compare any vehicle you’re considering against the current fleet average of 27.2 mpg and against other vehicles in its specific class, rather than holding every vehicle to the same standard.