Hey all. Been hypermiling for 7 years and wanted to highlight a cool compact car, because there isn't a lot of discussion on newer cars here.
Back in 2018, i set out to buy a new Honda Insight. I was impressed with the car's power and comfort but the low visibility really bugged me. The slowness and funky design of the new Prius also was off putting. What i really wanted was a hybrid with a manual. I test drove a Honda CRZ with a stick and was extremely disappointed with the MPG.
So i decided to test drive every subcompact on the market and the Mazda-2 based Yaris put out the most impressive mpg i've seen. Promptly bought one, with a stick, on discount for $14k.
In 60mph average driving, i can regularly see 55-65mpg. My best highway run so far has resulted in 68.7mpg.
In order to get the 40mpg highway rating, you have to be doing 75-80 with the AC on. The car is vastly underrated. Even against a headwind doing 70 with the AC on, i'm still in the mid 45mpg!
The car has decent power and is nice looking for a subcompact. I can pull a 0-60 in about 9 seconds, so it's quicker than a prius, mirage, etc.
The car has a CD of 0.3 but a very small frontal area. It glides almost as well as my '01 Honda Insight in neutral. There are no under body panels and i think the aerodynamics would improve a lot with them. I'm still in warranty, so i haven't modded the car at all.
Unfortunately due to nobody buying them, Toyota is cancelling the Yaris overall. It's really sad because the last generation is leaps ahead of the past ones. You may be able to pick one up cheap in the future. But it's an interesting ecomodding target IMHO
