Safest Cars With the Best Gas Mileage

Safest Cars With the Best Gas Mileage — ranked

Ranked by our ForCar Safety Score — NHTSA five-star crash testing (60%) combined with owner-reported injury severity (25%) and recall frequency (15%). Every vehicle here already aces the government tests, so the score is what separates them — across this group it runs 79–96/100, and of 126 qualifying models we show the top 40.

Safety and fuel economy together

EPA combined MPG of every five-star model we can match to fuel-economy data — the cars that refuse to make you choose:

MPG is the best EPA-rated variant of each model; electric ratings (MPGe) are excluded so the comparison stays honest. See the full fuel-economy rankings.

Which brands show up most

Toyota puts the most models on this particular list (11 of 126). That is not the same thing as the safest brand overall, which is measured as a share of everything a maker builds — here it is a share of 126 safe, efficient cars, not of the whole market:

For the share-based view see the safest car brands.

Five stars, and still recalled

Of the 126 five-star safe, efficient cars here, 115 carry 15+ recall campaigns and the median sits at 79 per model. A crash test measures one controlled impact; it says nothing about what the manufacturer had to fix afterwards — and across these 126 safe, efficient cars that is 79 campaigns for the median car. NHTSA publishes both records but never puts them side by side, which is how a 5-star Chevrolet can also be the most-recalled vehicle on the page.

Recall counts cover a nameplate's whole production history, so long-running models accumulate more — which is part of why the median here is 79 while 0 of the 126 have none. Check the exact car with our VIN recall lookup before buying.

Other safety lists

How we score safety