Fuel Economy Ratings for 2 Vehicles, & a Special Volvo

The new, 2013 Honda is Accord is more refined, comes standard with a manual transmission still, and nets better fuel economy ratings from the EPA than the old Accord did. Check out my full cover of the 2013 Honda Accord if you want more information than just a base price and gas mileage. Speaking of the base price, it is $22470. The price rises to $34220 for the top-level Touring trim, though, but the base LX still comes well-equipped.

Anyways, the manual four-cylinder Accord gets 24/34 city/highway miles per gallon, the CVT Accord ($800 option in the sedan, $850 on the coupe) is rated at 27/36 city/highway miles per gallon, the V-6 Accord sedans with a new 6-speed automatic transmission is up to 21/34 city/highway miles per gallon, and finally the sporty V-6/6-speed manual transmission combination only available on the coupe is the most gas-guzzling at 18/28 city/highway miles per gallon, while the V-6 coupe with the automatic is strangely down to 21/32 city/highway miles per gallon from the V-6 sedan.

The Accord isn't the only vehicle to get fuel-economy nudges for the 2013 model year, the Ram light-duty trucks that were refreshed for 2013 also have improvements. The Ram 1500 V-6 with rear-wheel-drive gets 17/25 city/highway miles per gallon, V-6 4-wheel-drive models nets 16/23 city/highway miles per gallon, the old 4.7-liter V-8 with rear-wheel-drive is good for 14/20 city/highway miles per gallon (the highway rating is up one tick), the 4.7-liter V-8 with 4-wheel-drive cedes one miles per gallon on the highway, but the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8's fuel economy ratings remain as before (14/20 city/highway miles per gallon for rear-wheel-drive, 13/19 for 4-wheel-drive).

And finally, we have the Volvo C30 Polestar Limited Edition. You may remember a C30 Polestar concept with 405-horsepower from 2 years back, Unfortunately, this C30 is not that. We do get the 2.5-liter 5-cylinder engine's power massaged to 250-horsepower and 273 pounds-feet of torque, gains of 23 and 37 respectively over the base C30's engine. It's just a unique blue paint job, black wheels, a subtle body kit, and other minor modifications for improved handling to make the differentiate the Polestar Limited Edition from the other C30s from there. The Polestar Limited edition is packaged basically as a R-Design C30 with the middle-of-the-road Premium Plus package. It will cost $32445 and come with a standard manual transmission, though a 5-speed automatic is optional. Only 250 copies will be arriving to the United States.

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