Primary data
Vehicle ratings come from the FuelEconomy.gov official bulk download. The stored snapshot was retrieved 2026-10-05. Each vehicle table links to its EPA record ID. The provenance file records the source URL and SHA-256 hash.
Scope and exclusions
This edition includes 11 approved manufacturers and model years 2020–2027. Regular gasoline, premium gasoline, diesel and battery-electric records are included if required fields are valid. PHEV, dual-fuel and hydrogen records are excluded. This avoids pretending that a single liquid-fuel equation models blended operation.
Energy and cost formulas
Liquid-fuel cost = distance in miles ÷ combined US MPG × dollars per US gallon. EV cost = distance × combined kWh/100 miles ÷ 100 × dollars per kWh. Monthly cost is annual cost divided by 12. EPA wall-energy consumption already reflects charging losses; no extra loss percentage is added.
Static examples assume 12,000 miles per year; regular gasoline and diesel $3.50/gallon, premium $4.00/gallon and electricity $0.17/kWh. These are illustrative user-adjustable prices, not current national prices. Premium and diesel require the appropriate local rate. Rounded display amounts may not sum exactly.
What comparisons mean
Cost ranges cover only included EPA configurations. Lowest modeled energy cost does not mean best car or lowest total ownership cost. Category peers share a published EPA vehicle class, not identical size, safety or capability. Annual summary medians count configurations equally and are not fleet or sales weighted.
Licensing and attribution
The Data.gov catalog record identifies this as a public EPA dataset and points to the EPA data license. We reuse numeric ratings and identifiers only. The source site's separate document and photograph restrictions are not treated as permission to copy articles, images or logos; none are copied here. No government endorsement is implied.
Updates and validation
The updater checks the published bulk resource, validates required columns, unique IDs and numeric bounds, and stops if coverage drops unexpectedly. Failed downloads retain the last good snapshot. Added, changed and removed IDs are recorded for review. New topics are queued as suggestions, not automatically published as AI-written articles.
Limits
Ratings describe standardized testing, not a guarantee of personal consumption. This project does not verify vehicle condition, price, compatibility or safety. See the EPA explanation of real-world variation.