I remember the Honda CRV had 50 MPG. Are there any other cars that have that same MPG or similar? I heard that in the 1970's Opel had a 200 MPG car that mysteriously disappeared during the 70's oil crisis.
No - A Honda CRV does NOT achieve 50 US MPG - not even 50 UK MPG.
A Honda CRV does 30 US MPG combined on a good day.
It's just an SUV based on the Civic, so naturally, efficiency can't be that great.
As far as high MPG cars, there are plenty non-Hybrid of cars that reach around 50MPG - but that's mostly in Europe.
For example, The Peugeot 2008 1.5L diesel theoretically does 54 US MPG combined (65.7 UK MPG) - and that's a reasonably sized compact SUV, with a conventional automatic and 6.7 inches (17 CM) of ground clearance.
As far as cars that reach over 50 US MPG, most of them are hybrids like the Toyota Prius, Hyundai ioniq, and Kia Niro - but all of those make huge compromises to achieve that economy (CVT/dry clutch DCTs, Atkinson engines, Driving dynamics, and so on)
The reality is that there's only so much energy that is in a gallon of gasoline - Some Toyota engines can reach 43% efficiency and that's about as good as it's going to get, moving a 2-ton car just requires that much energy.
There's the VW XL1 that does 240 US MPG, but they're a very rare collection item - not an everyday car (47 horsepower 0.8L Diesel-Hybrid with a huge battery)
I meant to say Honda CRX.
Nothing has happened to them, they're around countries in which there's demand - for example in Japan Honda still makes an ultra-efficient 50MPG manual 2-seater called the "Honda S660".
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But in Europe and the States there's no demand.
I'd guess these old 50MPG cars drive as miserably as my Corolla MMT that gets 40MPG (highway, under calm driving) while still having a 125 horsepower engine and weighing 2,800 lbs.
Unless you select "Easy Sport" it doesn't let the engine rev beyond 1,900 rpm and it shifts 4 times going from 0 to 25 mph (0 - 40 km/h) - so your acceleration is choppy, jerky and very uneven.
Same with cars like the Kia Niro (thanks to it being a more modern car without such obvious flaws - it's not missable, it's just boring) where unless you select "Sport" or unless you're flooring it, 40 horsepower from the Hybrid-drive is all you get (here it's easy to go beyond 50mpg).
And a similar thing applies to the Honda you're talking about, 1,500 pound, 62 horsepower and 0-60mph in 12 seconds if you're flooring it.
The reason you don't see these slow, terrible, tiny cars that have transmissions with dry clutches is because people do not want them in the US.
If you want to make THESE kinds of sacrifices - there's plenty of crappy high mpg cars all around the world:
- The 2022 Fiat Tipo diesel with the dual clutch automatic does 60mpg but it's a HORRID car (It's the size of the corolla, and not a tiny thing like the CRX - and unlike the CRX it has a reasonable amount of power - almost twice the horses)
- the 2022 Lancia Ypsilon TwinAir Petrol (yes, this is a 2 cylinder “stoke by stroke” 875cc with no throttle (as I understood it, air intake amounts are controlled with variable lift and timing)) has more power than that Honda and it still has a 56 MPG combined rating. It’s the 2nd best selling car in Italy (behind the Fiat Panda)
Early Subarus were advertised to reach "up to" 66 miles per gallon but that was not really possible in normal driving. (To the extent that those things could be driven normally on American roads.)
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I meant to say Honda CRX.