Car brands

All car brands 61

Every brand we track, grouped by vehicle type. The number is how many models we cover; open a brand for its VIN decoder, recalls, reliability and safety.

Car brands by country

Where each brand actually comes from — by headquarters, not by where the car was assembled. A Toyota built in Kentucky is still a Japanese brand, and the assembly plant is a separate question.

Luxury and budget brands, by what they actually cost

Every brand calls itself premium. This is the same question answered with money: the average asking price of that brand on the used market, across 376,485 listings.

And the other end — the brands where the same money buys a much newer car:

Worth reading the second column too. A high average means the brand sells expensive cars and that they hold value — those are different things, and only one of them helps you when you sell. We broke that apart in which cars hold their value.

Car brands ranked by reliability

The ten brands with the highest average ForCar Reliability Score, out of every make we hold enough NHTSA data to score — the full reliability ranking of car brands goes deeper, with the age at which each starts to break. Click a brand for its model lineup, recalls and safety. On the cost side, see what any brand is worth used, current market prices and typical insurance cost by brand.

ForCar Reliability Score from NHTSA safety, recall frequency and complaint severity. Brands need real crash-test and recall coverage to qualify — low-volume marques without NHTSA testing are listed A–Z below but not ranked.

Safest car brands

Car brands by average NHTSA overall crash-test rating across their tested models (5★ is best). Open a brand to see which of its models earned a 5-Star Safety rating, or see the safest individual cars ranked across every brand.

Average of each model's best NHTSA overall 5-Star Safety rating. Source: NHTSA NCAP. Only brands with multiple crash-tested models are shown.

Car brands with the most recalls

Total NHTSA recall campaigns recorded across each brand's lineup. Higher counts usually track larger, older line-ups — not necessarily worse vehicles. Open a brand to see recalls by model and year, and the free dealer fix.

Recall counts are absolute across all tracked years — a brand with more models and decades of history naturally accrues more. Compare per-model on each brand page. Source: NHTSA.

Most fuel-efficient car brands

Car brands by average EPA combined MPG (or MPGe for electrics) across their rated models — EV and hybrid-heavy line-ups lead. Open a brand for its most efficient models, see the most fuel-efficient individual cars, or calculate real yearly fuel cost.

Average EPA combined rating across each brand's models (electrics counted as MPGe). Source: EPA fueleconomy.gov.

Electric & hybrid car brands

36 brands offer an electric, plug-in or fuel-cell model and 41 offer a hybrid in the line-ups we track. Click any brand for its electrified models, range and MPGe by year, or jump to the best electric cars and best hybrids by range and MPGe.

Electric & plug-in brands 36

Hybrid brands 41

Electrified variants from EPA fueleconomy.gov powertrain data. A brand may offer gas, hybrid and electric versions of the same model across years.

VIN prefix codes by brand (WMI)

The first 3 characters of any VIN are the World Manufacturer Identifier (WMI) — they encode the brand, country and vehicle type. Common WMI prefixes for major makes:

For example, a VIN starting 4T1 is a Toyota, 1G1 a Chevrolet, and WBA a BMW. To identify a brand from a VIN, read the first 3 characters and match them here — or paste the full VIN into the decoder above. The VIN is on the lower-left windshield, the driver's door jamb, or your registration.