How does your car rank in fuel efficiency? A few years ago I probably couldn’t draw much attention to the topic. Now with the soaring gas prices I might have 1 or 2 chiming in to see if there’s a way to save money. You can find tips all over the internet on how to cut down on your fuel cost. They are some good tips out there, and I suggest you looking at some of them.

Obviously two sure fire ways to save money on fuel cost immediately, is to drive less and have a fuel efficient car. There is some staggering number out there if everyone just had the correct air pressure in their tires, then the U.S. could save millions, if not billions on gas each year. I am more concern with a quick fix, then trying to accumulate a lot of little things. Your car is a quick fix. If your car is a Toyota brand, then you might be better off than most.

This is what I done. I didn’t look at the current cars on the market. I decided to go back a couple of years, and see where we were with our cars right before these latest gas explosions. So 2004 is the year I chose to go to, and explore cars then. This way you don’t have to go buy a brand new car. You might be able find a good deal on a used card, and that was a leader back in 2004 with fuel efficiency.

Number 1 on the list is the Honda Insight. This car isn’t going to get you any speeding tickets with its 3 cylinder engine. You are going to be able to get great gas mileage. It gets 60 miles to the gallon in the City and about 66 miles on the Highway. In 2004, it’s estimated annual fuel cost was $405. Now today most people use a full tank of gas each week. It’s taking about $40 and more to fill up that tank every week. In about 10 weeks at that rate or 2 1/2 months time, you will spend the annual cost it takes for the Honda Insight. Now that is a 2004 estimate, and I’m sure the Honda Insight would be 600 to 800 dollars in 2007, for annual fuel cost. You still can probably see the huge savings that this car offers.

Now to list some of the other fuel efficient cars of 2004:

Toyota Prius
Honda Civic Hybrid
Volkswagen Diesel New Beattle/Golf/Jetta
Honda Civic
Toyota Echo
Toyota Scion XA
Toyota Corolla
Toyota Scion XB
Toyota Celica

So you can see that Toyota has some great cars, when it comes to saving money. The above list is from most efficient to the least. So the higher up that list you can go, the more money you will save. Even owning the last car on the list in the Toyota Celica, you’re still looking to save hundreds of dollars for this year, and probably the years to come. There doesn’t appear to be any relief from high fuel cost for at least the next 5 to 7 years. I would really be surprised to ever see a gallon of gas go to under $2 again.

Note: Est. annual fuel cost is CNN/Money’s calculation based on 15,000 miles of 55 percent city, 45 percent highway driving and a gallon of gasoline costing $1.71, which was the national average for regular gasoline on March 2, 2004.
For cars using diesel fuel, the price is assumed to be $1.69, the national average for diesel fuel on that date.