Consumer Reports measured 48 miles per gallon overall from the Toyota Camry in its own track and road testing, a figure the organization called superb. The midsized sedan is now sold exclusively as a hybrid, so the number applies to every Camry a buyer can order. It is also the reason the car landed on the group’s list of 10 Top Picks for 2026.
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A 2.5-liter hybrid is the only Camry left
Toyota’s redesigned Camry dropped the gasoline-only version entirely. Every 2026 model pairs a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine with an electric hybrid system, and all-wheel drive is available on every trim. In the 10 Top Picks of 2026 list, published February 3, 2026 and credited to Jeff S. Bartlett, Managing Editor, Autos, Consumer Reports said the Camry hit a superb 48 mpg overall in its tests, and named it its Top Pick among midsized cars. The Camry, in other words, is not merely thrifty for its size; the group treats it as the benchmark for the whole category, and a pick that leans on fuel economy as much as on ride and space.
The organization’s Camry model page adds a detail about the test car: the 48 mpg result came from a front-wheel-drive version, so buyers who add all-wheel drive should not assume an identical figure. The same page lists the federal rating for the 2025 model at 47 mpg, which puts the independent result one mile per gallon above the government number.
Consumer Reports’ 48 mpg test
Consumer Reports does not take a manufacturer’s word for fuel economy. According to its description of how it tests cars, the overall number is derived from two separate fuel-consumption circuits. One is a public highway run at a steady 65 mph, driven in both directions to cancel out the effect of terrain and wind. The other is a simulated urban and suburban route at the track, with set acceleration and deceleration rates and a fixed amount of idling. Blending the two produces the overall figure that appears in the Top Picks write-up. The group’s testing page also notes that plug-in hybrids are measured with their electric range depleted, so the baseline fuel economy reflects the gasoline engine alone. The Camry is a conventional hybrid with no plug, so the 48 mpg figure needs no such adjustment and reflects what an owner would see without ever charging anything.
The consistency is the point. Because the method is repeatable, results can be compared across vehicles that the group has tested the same way. That matters for hybrids, where a driver’s habits and the weather can swing real-world mileage by several miles per gallon.
The Camry among the other hybrid picks
Within the same list, the Camry’s number stands out. The Honda Civic Hybrid reached 44 mpg overall, up from 33 mpg for the gas-only Civic, while delivering 200 horsepower and a 0-to-60 time of 7.5 seconds. The 2.5-liter, front-drive Ford Maverick hybrid pickup managed 37 mpg overall. The Camry is the largest of the three by a wide margin, yet it beats the compact Civic by four miles per gallon and the small pickup by eleven.
Fuel economy is only part of the case. Consumer Reports credited the Camry with balanced ride and handling, practical interior space, and controls that still use physical knobs and switches instead of burying everything in a touchscreen. It also said the car’s reliability score is stronger than the previous model’s, a claim that matters because the sedan is a fresh design and new designs are where reliability problems tend to cluster. Consumer Reports’ own survey page makes that warning explicit, saying that newly launched or redesigned models tend to score lower in their first and second years.
Price, trims and the fuel-savings math
The model page lists a 2026 base price range of $29,600 to $37,525, plus a $1,295 destination charge, across SE, XLE and XSE trims. The XLE and XSE add extra sound insulation for a quieter cabin, and the XSE offers a two-tone paint option. Consumer Reports does not state a price for the car in the Top Picks article itself, so the page figures are the only published range in the sources reviewed here.
For commuters, the arithmetic is simple. A driver covering 12,000 miles a year would burn about 250 gallons at 48 mpg, compared with 300 gallons at 40 mpg, a difference of 50 gallons that grows with every price spike at the pump. Toyota also sits near the top of the group’s brand reliability ranking, where Lexus, Subaru and Toyota lead the list, which is the other half of what a long-term buyer wants from a hybrid sedan. The two measures answer different questions: the 48 mpg result says what the car will cost to feed, while the brand ranking, built from owner reports on about 380,000 vehicles, says how often the car is likely to visit a repair shop. A Camry buyer gets a strong answer to the first and a favorable brand-level answer to the second, though the model-level reliability score sits behind Consumer Reports’ membership wall.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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