Economy on a budget

Hybrid, electric and bi-fuel cars are hot topic at the moment, with manufacturers trying their hardest to outdo each other in producing the most fuel efficient vehicle. Initially we had the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic which are petrol – electric hybrids. We recently learnt about the Nissan Leaf, Toyota Auris and Honda CRZ, these are all very good cars, but what if you only had a budget of £1,500? Can you get decent MPG for that sort of budget?

Here are some MPG figures for new cars in the market that claim to be highly fuel efficient:
•    Toyota Prius – 72.4 Mpg
•    Honda Civic – 61.4 Mpg
•    Ford Focus Eco –  65.6 Mpg
•    Toyota Auris – 70.6 Mpg
•    Honda CRZ – 56.5 Mpg


All of the above models start from £16,000, so a fair bit off our £1,500 budget, below is a list of used cars with decent fuel efficiency:
•    Used Mondeo – 48.7 Mpg
•    Used Passat – 39.2 Mpg
•    Used Focus – 51.4 Mpg
•    Used Audi A4 – 4.9 Mpg
•    Used Peugeot 306 – 43.5 Mpg

All the above are diesel models, both the Ford’s offer the best Mpg and in my opinion pound for pound I would go for the used Mondeo over a Toyota Prius. The Mondeo is obviously a lot cheaper to buy, is mechanically less complicated, has excellent reliability and looks decent too.

As these new hybrids get older they will indeed offer much better value for money. Nissan has said the new Leaf will cost £28,000, which is a lot of money to recoup via fuel savings.