The average vehicle sold in the United States gets a combined highway and city EPA fuel economy estimate of about 20.4 miles per gallon (mpg). No matter which hybrid you choose, the EPA estimate will be well above that number.

The Honda Insight was specifically designed to get the best mileage and is the hands down leader when it comes to gas mileage. The manual transmission hybrids have EPA estimates of 60 mpg in the city and 66 mpg on the highway. Automatic transmission versions are rated slightly lower at 57 city/56 highway.

The next best choice is the current version of the Prius at 60 city/51 highway. Notice that the city estimate is higher than the highway estimate due to the car’s ability to operate on battery power alone at low speeds. The pre-2004 versions of the Prius are rated at 55 city/47 highway.

Up until model year 2006 the Honda Civic Hybrid was available with a manual transmission that was rated at 46 city/51 highway; the automatic at 48 city/47 highway. The 2006 the Civic Hybrid has been redesigned and is only available with an automatic transmission with epa mpg estimates of 50 hwy/50 city.

The Honda Accord Hybrid is rated at 29 city/37 highway.

The Toyota Camry Hybrid is rated at 43 city/38 highway.

The Lexus GS 450h hybrid sedan is rated at 25 city/28 highway.

Besides the GS450h, the SUV’s, get the lowest gas mileage of the hybrid vehicles, but they are respectable levels for their vehicle category. The Ford Escape is rated at 36 city/31 highway. That is much better than a non-hybrid Escape that is only rated at 22 city/25 highway.

The Mariner is rated at 33 city/ 29 highway. The Saturn VUE Green Line Hybrid is rated 27 city/ 32 highway. The Lexus RX 400h is rated at a still-respectable 31 city/27 mpg highway. The Toyota Highlander, being the largest of the hybrid SUVs gets the lowest mpg and is at 22 city/27 highway.

Appearance

A final consideration when choosing a hybrid is how it looks. You can choose a hybrid car that looks similar to others on the road today, or dare to be different and go with one that has a more unconventional styling.

The Insight and Prius are the two hybrids with unique, “space age” looks. People tend to have strong reactions one way or another when they see the cars; they either love it or hate it.

The rest of the hybrids vehicles tend to look exactly like their non-hybrid counterparts. Often the only way you can tell it is a hybrid is by the cars’ special emblems or markings, or by looking closely at the dashboard.

Conclusion

The aspects of size, price, mileage and appearance will give you a good base for beginning the process of choosing the right car. There is no substitute for taking one out for a test drive, though. It is fairly certain, with their reasonable pricing and excellent mileage, you won’t be disappointed.