See How Far America's Favorite Cars Can Travel on $50 of Gas

When it comes to buying a new car, you shouldn’t just concentrate on how much your monthly payments will be. You also want to make sure that you won’t be spending your entire paycheck on gas. The graphic below illustrates how big of a difference there is between driving a car that gets 35 miles per gallon versus one that only gets 20. It was created by HowMuch.net, a cost-estimate website that calculates data on everything from the cost of home inspections to how much money it takes to start a new business in different cities.

HowMuch.net used data from the Kelley Blue Book on the 10 top-selling cars in the U.S. and their gas efficiency ratings to create the animation below, which estimates how far you could get in each car with only $50 worth of gas, based on current prices published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

For the most part, as cars get smaller, they become more gas-efficient. The three trucks on the list—the Chevy Silverado, Ram pickup, and Ford F-Series—all had the worst fuel efficiency. The Silverado would only be able to travel 392 miles on $50 worth of gas right now, and the Ram and Ford trucks could only travel 413 miles. Compare that to the Honda Civic, which could travel 722 miles on the same amount of gas, or the Toyota Corolla, which could travel 639 miles.

The mileage is based on maximum estimates, so depending on whether you’re in stop-and-go traffic or cruising down the highway, your $50 might not get you exactly 722 miles in a Civic, but you can expect your money to go pretty far.

While we all know that driving a car that’s more efficient is good for your carbon footprint, this is an easy way to visualize just how hard those gas guzzlers hit your wallet.