Real MPG: most economical SUVs (and the least)

Filling up with fuel can be an expensive business nowadays, so finding a car that won’t have you taking too many trips to the petrol station is important.

To make matters even more complicated, the official WLTP and NEDC fuel economy figures you see in sales brochures aren’t always reflective of what your car will achieve in the real world.

That’s why we conduct our own Real MPG tests to see what sort of fuel economy you can expect to get in reality, without resorting to any unrealistic acceleration or ‘hypermiling’ techniques.

Here, we list the SUVs that performed the best in our tests, and that’ll manage the most miles between stops at the petrol station.

How we test for a car's Real MPG

We carry out our Real MPG testing in laboratory conditions, and the cars undertake a real-world-inspired driving route using a rolling road that comprises urban, motorway and country driving. This ensures that no uncontrollable variables, such as weather or traffic conditions, will affect the accuracy of our results.

Each car is weighed and we make sure its tyres are inflated to the manufacturer’s recommended levels. Climate control is set to 21 degrees, or if the car has manual air conditioning, the temperature dial is set to the midway point and the fan speed to its lowest setting. All other electrical equipment is switched off.

The Real MPG results are calculated using the average data from an exhaust connection, which measures the car’s emissions at every second.