Cars are bought for different reasons. One of the most important factors that was ruling the purchasing decision a few decades back was the size and design of the car. Americans generally loved big comfortable cars and gave lot of importance to the looks. With oil prices rising and dwindling oil reserves,  more importance needs to be attached to fuel efficiency. Japanese automakers are famous for making fuel efficient elegant cars.

This article from Consumer Reports describes the method adopted to test the fuel efficiency and contains the charts that follow feature rankings of vehicles’ fuel-efficiency by category–from family sedans to sporty cars to SUVs. Anyone who plan to buy a car can definitely use this as a guide.