Listed at 21 to 42 mpg, the 2026 Ford Maverick sits fourth on J.D. Power’s most fuel-efficient trucks page, behind only the Tesla Cybertruck, the Rivian R1T and the GMC Hummer EV. Every truck ahead of it is electric and rated in MPGe, which makes the compact Ford the first pickup on the list that burns fuel.
The 42 is the top of a range, and the way J.D. Power presents it blurs two different measurements. The Maverick’s figure reads cleanly as a headline, but an owner shopping on mileage needs to know which trim produces it.
Maverick at fourth among 2026 pickups
The J.D. Power fuel-efficiency page shows “1 to 10 of 20 top-rated vehicles” for the 2026 model year, sorted by Best MPG. Its first ten entries run: Tesla Cybertruck at 72 to 85 MPGe, Rivian R1T at 63 to 85 MPGe, GMC Hummer EV at 46 to 59 MPGe, Ford Maverick at 21 to 42 MPG, Toyota Tacoma at 20 to 26, Honda Ridgeline at 18 to 24, Hyundai Santa Cruz at 18 to 30, Nissan Frontier at 18 to 24, Toyota Tundra at 18 to 24 and Chevrolet Colorado at 17 to 24.
Within the non-electric trucks, the Maverick is first by both position and ceiling. Its 42 compares with the Santa Cruz’s 30 and the Tacoma’s 26. The comparison here covers the first ten entries J.D. Power displays; the second page of results, entries 11 through 20, sits lower in the same sort.
The gap is large enough to read as a different class of truck altogether, a point the ranking makes by placing the Ridgeline, Frontier and Tundra in a three-way tie at the same 18-to-24 range. The Maverick’s listed ceiling is 12 mpg above the next-best non-electric entry and 18 above the Ridgeline’s 24. J.D. Power describes the truck on that page as a “compact pickup truck” with a “full-hybrid powertrain available” and “exceptional fuel economy.”
A 42 that EPA assigns to city driving
J.D. Power labels its figure as combined MPG, but the 42 matches a different measurement. On Ford’s own Maverick page, the 2.5-liter hybrid with front-wheel drive is rated 42 city, 35 highway and 38 combined. The all-wheel-drive hybrid is 40 city, 34 highway and 37 combined, and Lariat models with all-wheel drive drop to 39 city, 32 highway and 36 combined.
J.D. Power’s own Maverick page carries the same 21-to-42 range and then reports the EPA-estimated combined figures for the hybrids: 38 mpg for front-wheel drive and 37 for all-wheel drive. Its expert tester recorded about 30 mpg in winter conditions in the hybrid AWD. The page also lists a non-hybrid 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine rated at 250 horsepower alongside the 191-horsepower hybrid, so the range spans two different powertrains.
So “up to 42 mpg” describes the best city rating among the Maverick’s powertrains, and the best combined rating on Ford’s page is 38. Both numbers beat every other non-electric pickup on J.D. Power’s first page, but they are different claims.
Santa Cruz, Tacoma and the J.D. Power scores
The next-ranked trucks show the spread. Hyundai’s page for the 2026 Santa Cruz gives 22 city, 30 highway and 25 combined for the standard 191-horsepower engine with front-wheel drive, 21, 29 and 24 with all-wheel drive, and 18, 25 and 20 for the 281-horsepower turbocharged engine, which is all-wheel drive only. J.D. Power’s 18-to-30 range for the Santa Cruz ends at the highway number, not the combined one, which suggests its ranges mix city, highway and combined values.
Toyota’s Tacoma page says its hybrid models are estimated at 22 to 23 mpg combined, with the hybrid powertrain delivering up to 326 horsepower and 465 lb-ft of torque. The Tacoma starts at $32,145 and comes in 10 trim levels, from the base SR to the TRD Pro at $64,350. J.D. Power’s list shows it at 20 to 26, a range whose top end sits above the 22-to-23 that Toyota cites for the hybrid.
The ratings behind the page are J.D. Power’s. The page’s footnote says the ratings reflect J.D. Power’s best available data and are updated each September, and on its broader best-trucks ranking it puts the Maverick fifth with a score of 82, behind the Tesla Cybertruck at 88, the Chevrolet Colorado at 84, and the Nissan Frontier and Chevrolet Silverado 1500 at 83. The Maverick page lists a price range of $25,021 to $45,192.
The 42 mpg figure holds on one trim and one measurement, and J.D. Power’s page does not say which, so the reading that survives is the narrower one: a hybrid compact pickup rated 38 combined and 42 in the city, ahead of every other non-electric truck on the first ten lines of J.D. Power’s list.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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