The Best Car of 2024 Is the Honda Civic Hybrid

In the grand, glowing mural of NPC cars (for all you noobs out there, that’s a “non-playable character”), very few do anything to stand out. Every small car has a four-cylinder engine—maybe hybridized—and gets good fuel economy. Every small car is comfortable and reliable. And for the most part, every small car is pretty nice to drive.

But none of them have the charm of the 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid.

Why The Civic Hybrid?

The Honda Civic Hybrid is easily the best small sedan money can buy. It feels nearly as spacious as the larger Accord inside, with moving-houses trunk space and comfortable rear seats. Rear headroom is actually usable for taller people, and the front seats feel as wide and accommodating as any small SUV.

Then, there’s the baked-in excellence of the eleventh-generation Civic as a whole: Genuinely industry-leading interior fit and finish with zero rattles or shakes, while physical controls and premium materials abound—especially those wonderful knurled HVAC knobs. Those are the details that help the Civic Hybrid look and feel a class above its station.

The powertrain is something of a miracle. It’s the old 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder but tweaked for efficiency, further assisted by a new generation of hybrid system. It’s nothing special on paper, but it achieves astonishing fuel economy numbers: 50 city, 47 highway, 49 miles per gallon combined. It even outclasses the sportier Civic Si in output.

The Honda Civic Hybrid is easily the best NPC car money can buy.

In practice, it’s one of the loveliest hybrid powertrains anywhere. It feels substantially more powerful and responsive than the Civic Si’s motor, but returns real-world economy numbers far exceeding its EPA numbers. In a 300-mile New York-to-Connecticut road trip, my dash showed 56.7 mpg—a serious overachiever. The handoff between electric power and gasoline power is always imperceptible. And it’s smooth, with minimal noise and almost zero vibration making it to the cabin.

Most of all, the Civic Hybrid has charm. It doesn’t just do its job, it does its job exceptionally well. And it does so without gimmicks. The Civic Hybrid feels like a lost future that never arrived. What if we’d ditched our ambitions to build small cars with colossal screens and annoyingly intrusive driver’s assistance tech, and instead built something as simple and lovely and dignified as the Honda Civic Hybrid?

It’s simply a Very Good Car.

Runner-Up: Toyota Camry

Photo by: Ralph Hermens | Motor1

There are two constants in life: Everyone will die, and the Toyota Camry will forever be a perennial best seller. Since the first generation arrived on US shores in the early 1980s, Toyota has sold millions of Camry sedans in the 40 years since. After driving the 2024 model, it’s easy to understand why this car will forever be a smash hit.

The latest Toyota Camry builds upon the previous generation with a now-standard hybrid powertrain, a suspension update, and a sleek redesign. With that, this Camry looks better, drives better, and sips fuel like nobody’s business, returning up to 51 miles per gallon combined. There isn’t another car in the class that’s more efficient.

After driving the 2024 model, it’s easy to understand why this car will forever be a smash hit.

The turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder hybrid makes 242 horsepower, which means the Camry is no slouch, either. It has strong acceleration and solid top-end speed, while the balanced chassis and updated suspension make it more fun to fling around than you might think. We can only imagine what TRD will cook up for this new Camry.

And in an era where most cars are simply too expensive, the 2024 Camry costs just $29,495 out of the box. It’s still one of the most affordable cars in the class. There are dozens of reasons for it to be considered one of the year’s best cars.

— Jeff Perez, Managing Editor

Runner-Up: Lucid Air Pure

Photo by: Ralph Hermens | Motor1

The Lucid Air is no stranger to superlatives. Previous models have stacked the startup EV automaker’s trophy case deep: The 1,234-horsepower Sapphire trim is one of the fastest production EVs ever built; The Lucid Air Grand Touring has the longest range (512 miles) of any EV on sale, a crown it has retained since the Air debuted.

The newest addition to the Air lineup, the base-model Air Pure, is also excellent—even if it’s a little less headline-grabbing. All Lucid Airs possess the best coefficient of drag of any car ever sold to the public in America, at an astounding 0.197 Cd. Combine this with the Pure’s ruthlessly efficient 430-horsepower rear motor and a curb weight of 4,506 pounds, and this base model is the most efficient EV on the market. Its 88.0-kilowatt-hour battery delivers a staggering 419 miles of range, a distance most competitors take double the lithium—and the weight—to deliver.

The Lucid Air Pure is one of few cars that truly feels best in its cheapest, purest form.

If this were all the Air Pure could offer, it would still be enough to make this list… but it’s also a genuinely pleasant car. The cabin is a rare example of functional minimalism, with responsive software and well-engineered touchpoints delivering on the promise of luxury. It’s one of the best-handling EVs on the market, with responsive turn-in and communicative steering aided by its reasonable curb weight (for an EV).

At $71,400, the Pure undercuts its luxury competition by tens of thousands of dollars, delivers dozens upon dozens more miles of range, and demands absolutely no sacrifices from its buyers for doing so. The Lucid Air Pure is one of few cars that truly feels best in its cheapest, purest form.

— Victoria Scott, Staff Writer