In these days of $4 gasoline, automakers create a lot of noise about their cars that get 40 miles per gallon. The problem is, this usually means 40 mpg on the highway as rated by the EPA. And except for Hyundai, which has a pretty full lineup of fuel-efficient qualifiers, the 40 mpg club is composed mainly of specially equipped, limited-production, high-efficiency models.In other words, there are only a few cars in the 40 mpg club, and you'd have to do all your driving on the highway to realize the fuel-economy benefit from the handful of compacts and subcompacts that make the grade.

For cash-strapped motorists who actually drive in congested city traffic as well as on the open highway, here's a longer, more usable list: cars and trucks that deliver fuel economy of at least 30 mpg on the EPA's combined city-highway scale. All five members of the 40 mpg club are included here, but this list of 30 mpg vehicles provides a bit more variety for shoppers in search of significant fuel savings. The EPA creates its combined rating using a complicated formula that adds roughly 55 percent of the city rating to 45 percent of the highway rating.

With gasoline at $4 a gallon, a 30 mpg car with a 15-gallon tank costs $60 to fill. It delivers 450 miles of range for a fuel cost of 13.3 cents a mile. A 25-mpg vehicle with a 15-gallon tank would also cost $60 to fill, but it would deliver only 375 miles of range, so the per-mile cost of the fuel would be 16 cents, or 20 percent more.

Big Still Bad for Fuel Economy
There are no pickups, large traditional SUVs, minivans or sporty exotics on this list. If you've got to tow a boat, haul a baseball team in one vehicle or go 130 mph through the twisties in your local mountains, you won't do it in a 30-mpg vehicle.

"Big" and "fuel-efficient" still aren't on speaking terms, although as automakers continue to perfect gas-electric hybrid systems and fuel-saving technologies for gas and diesel engines, the day will come when those two descriptions can peaceably coexist.

As things now stand in the U.S., there are just 35 vehicles out of 327 from the 2011 and 2012 model years that can deliver 30 mpg according to the EPA's formula for combined city and highway driving. If you factor in the various body styles and trim levels of those 35 models, the tally of 30-mpg vehicles swells to nearly 60.