BUSINESS– When we talk of driving, it’s the most prestigious venture most youths and people in some communities look at to evaluate the level of one’s income and wealth. However, most people think it’s always expensive for them to acquire the drive of their choice.
Today we have taken an extra mile to establish for you some of the cheapest car models you can acquire and match the standard as well as getting you away from foot to self-driving.
Car and Driver’s rankings are normally arrived at from the results of our extensive instrumented testing of more than 400 vehicles each year and from our expert editors’ subjective impressions gained in real-world driving. We’ve ranked the Cheapest Cars based on their respective manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), and gave each car a rating based on roughly 200 data points encompassing acceleration, handling, comfort, cargo space, fuel efficiency, value, and how enjoyable they are to drive. We take rankings seriously because we want you to know everything about the vehicles that you’re interested in.
How to test and evaluate your vehicle
For more than 60 years we’ve been answering the objective questions—How fast? How quick? How much grip?—comprehensively, and with an authority based in experience that our readers have come to rely on. Our testing started back in 1956, just as the interstate highway system was coming into existence. At that time we went by the name Sports Cars Illustrated, and we tested the old-fashioned way: with a handheld stopwatch and not the high-precision GPS test gear we use today. More recently, we’ve added a panoply of static tests to measure cargo space, interior stowage pockets, infotainment response time, and the size of blind spots, among other things. While the Mustang fanboy may be upset his performance numbers don’t one-up the Camaro’s and, conversely, enjoys confirmation that the Camaro’s visibility figures are far worse, we hope all readers can appreciate our transparency and objectivity when it comes to test results. There is no question as to whether or not our test results are comparable because we follow the same procedures with all cars, without exception. “What are those procedures,” you ask? Read on for the full details on how we collect more than 200 data points on the roughly 400 vehicles that we test every year.
Performance Testing
Our dynamic testing is performed on a closed test track. What we do there can be compartmentalized into three basic categories: straight-line performance, cornering/handling, and top speed. The heart of our test equipment is the Racelogic VBOX GPS data logger. VBOX uses the U.S. government’s GPS satellite constellation to record speed, position, and acceleration. We have various models of this data logger in our fleet, ranging from 10-Hz units (that’s 10 points of data per second) to 100 Hz, and one of them even uses the Russian GLONASS satellite system in conjunction with GPS to deliver speed accuracy within 0.1 mph and positional accuracy within about six feet. Piggybacking it with a GPS base station (a device used to correct GPS positional inaccuracy) and a VBOX 3iSL (100Hz) can deliver positional accuracy to within one inch. The VBOX is what we use to measure acceleration times, braking, and top speed. Our VBOX 3i units (we have four of them) also have the ability to log vehicle data such as steering angle, engine speed, and throttle position through the vehicle’s CAN communication interface.
Acceleration
Straight-line acceleration consists of three different tests: the standing start (from which we pull all the zero-to-speed times), the 5-to-60-mph rolling start, and two top-gear acceleration tests (30 to 50 mph and 50 to 70 mph). The rolling start is a C/D creation, in which we creep along at 5 mph and then accelerate as hard as possible. This test illuminates differences in powertrain flexibility. The larger the difference between a 5-to-60-mph and a zero-to-60-mph run, the more lag an engine has; this is particularly relevant today with the flurry of turbocharged engines. Top-gear acceleration, in a manual-transmission car, where we simply goose the throttle and don’t downshift, highlights midrange power. In a vehicle with an automatic, the transmission downshifts (and the times are much quicker), so this metric represents a combination of transmission and engine responsiveness. And that means the times between vehicles equipped with manual and automatic transmissions clearly aren’t comparable.
Standing start.
The quarter-mile. A race from A to B. No matter what you call it, this is the test that most people care about. We test in street conditions, so launch traction is low and not the level of stick you’d find at a local drag strip. We also do not power shift, which is keeping your right foot pinned while completing a shift. It is up to the tester to determine the best launch technique, and this process can mean that some cars (for example, a launch-control-equipped Porsche 911) require just two or three launches to get the best possible time. Conventional automatics may only require five launches. High-power, rear-wheel-drive cars equipped with manual transmissions are the most time-consuming, and finding the sweet spot of balancing wheelspin and clutch engagement (usually in the 3000-to-4000-rpm range, but it varies depending on the car) may take 10 runs or more.
All of our straight-line acceleration results are the average of the best run in opposite directions, to account for wind. Ambient weather conditions—we record absolute barometric pressure and wet- and dry-bulb temperatures trackside—determine how much power an engine makes. Because of that, we also correct acceleration results to 60 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level. Cooler air is denser and contains more oxygen, allowing the engine to burn more fuel and make more power. Similarly, high barometric pressure produces more power than low pressure, and dry air has more oxygen than moist air. All of our standing-start acceleration times also include rollout, a short period of time (typically about 0.3 second) that we subtract from the acceleration figures. It’s a phenomenon that stems from the physics of the timing lights at a drag strip, where a car can be rolling for 12 inches or more before the clock starts. We recently changed our procedure to now use the industry standard 1-foot rollout.
When possible, we also measure a vehicle’s top speed. We often hit an electronic limiter during the straight-line testing, but some cars’ speeds are drag limited, meaning their top speed is limited because of air resistance. Fewer cars are redline limited, meaning their top speed is reached at redline in a gear—upshift and the car can’t go as fast. We don’t test the top speed of every car because cars have gotten ludicrously fast in the last 20 years and we don’t always have access to a safe place to do it.
Braking
Chassis performance testing answers two essential questions: how short can a car stop, and how hard can it turn. Our standard braking testing consists of six stops from 70 mph to zero. Five of them are done in close succession, with the sixth stop coming after approximately a mile of cooling so that we can roughly determine how well the brakes shed heat, which is otherwise known as “brake fade.” Stopping from exactly 70.0 mph is, obviously, a very difficult thing to do. So, we stop from between 70.0 and 70.5 mph, using a tape switch on the brake pedal so we know exactly when the brake pedal is first touched. Then we correct the distance to a true 70.0-mph start based on the average deceleration from that stop. To avoid any issues with a one-off accomplishment, we report the second-best stop from the group of six as our 70-mph-to-zero distance. On high-performance vehicles, we also measure 100-mph-to-zero distance. The best sports cars wearing high-performance summer tires can stop from 70 mph in the 140-foot range (we measured the new mid-engine Corvette at 149 feet), while heavier trucks wearing knobby off-road tires, such as the Jeep Gladiator Rubicon, require nearly 200 feet. When you need to stop in a hurry, those additional four car lengths it takes to come to a halt can easily be the difference between an elevated heart rate and a significant collision.
