The Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic are in a class by themselves in terms of fuel efficiency, there are an awful lot of other small cars, some even smaller than those two, but nothing that comes close in fuel efficiency. I think getting that efficiency requires careful end-to-end tuning out everything that other manufacturers haven’t done. Also superficially both vehicles look kinda expensive for what you seem to get but they are well built so when/if they quit making them I think you’ll see used vehicles with 100,000 miles selling at “new” prices.
I love my Corolla. 22 years old, 200k miles, runs perfectly fine. Never broken down on me. Even the interior is pristine, no rips in the drivers seat upholstery - something I’ve seen happen in a matter of years in other cars.
I felt bad when that story came out about Toyota engineers pulling the panels off a Tesla and being in shock. Sure, Tesla has done some amazingly innovative engineering. But the interior of a brand new Tesla is more rickety than my clapped out Corolla. Toyota engineers shouldn’t feel bad, they build cars that last, and that really matters to a lot of people.
We had a 2003 Toyota that only lasted ~125,000 miles, with multiple major repairs needed before then, head gaskets, transmission issues, etc.
Finally, the catalytic converter bit the dust around 120k miles, the car was driven for a little bit more and then traded in, since the cost of repairs exceeded the value of the vehicle.
The first 12-13 years of the car were great, but the last 5-6 were terrible. Maybe we got extremely unlucky, but I just don't see where the legendary reliability stories come from. Seems like they are survivorship bias in the other direction.
With any remotely reasonable assumption about the (opportunity or actual) cost of funds, that Corolla has cost more for someone to buy than it has to fill with fuel for that 22 years and 200K miles.
Building durable, reliable cars is more economically beneficial to owners than squeezing out another mile per gallon. (If you wanted to change that, you'd need to dramatically increase the tax on fuel.)
Daihatsu Charade 3 cylinder diesel was the best fuel economy of any car I've ever owned including relatively modern hybrids. That thing more than once made me doubt if the fuel meter wasn't simply broken.
