Brand Race

How 14 automakers' new vehicles changed from 1980 to 2025: speed, power, and fuel economy.

The Race

Every year the EPA publishes the average horsepower, 0–60 time, and real-world fuel economy of the new vehicles each automaker sells in the U.S. Put side by side, those numbers turn into a 45-year race.

The typical new vehicle got much quicker. Its 0–60 time fell from in 1980 to in 2025, horsepower grew from to , and fuel economy still rose, from to , even as the average vehicle got heavier. In 1980 the quickest lineup belonged to ; by 2025 even the slowest, , beat that.

The charts below show which brands led, which fell behind, and when they traded places. How the data was prepared and what it can't tell us are covered further down.

The Data

Dataset: EPA Automotive Trends Report data, Detailed Data, A-1 View by Manufacturer¹
Publisher: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Accessed: October 3, 2026
Coverage: Model years 1975 to 2025 (2025 preliminary); 14 automakers, which together made of U.S. new-vehicle production
One row equals: One automaker × one model year × one vehicle type, averaged across every vehicle it built for sale in the U.S., weighted by how many of each it built
Used here: Six snapshot years (1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, 2025) and three views: all vehicles, cars, and trucks
Size: rows, 57 columns, 2 MB CSV

What the Data Shows

Vehicles

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The standings, decade by decade

Each line is one automaker's rank at each snapshot; #1 is at the top.

Hover a point or pick a brand above to follow it. A hollow marker shows a brand's first snapshot when it starts after 1980. A dotted line means the brand had nothing in that view at the snapshot in between.

More power, quicker launches

Each arrow runs from a brand's first snapshot (hollow) to 2025 (filled). Up means quicker, right means more horsepower.

The dashed gray arrow is the industry average. Late entrants' arrows start at their first snapshot, labeled with its year.

The whole field at a glance

Every brand in every snapshot. Darker squares are better: quicker, more powerful, or more efficient. Brands are sorted by their 2025 result.

2025 values are preliminary (EPA). Values are averages of each automaker's new vehicles, weighted by production. EPA estimates 0–60 times from vehicle specifications.

How the Data Was Prepared

The EPA export is small enough to work with directly. A Python script reads the untouched file, keeps what the charts need, and ranks the brands. Each step and its effect on the row count:

Why rows were dropped in the last step. EPA keeps a row for every automaker and year even before a brand sold anything in the U.S., or when it sold no vehicles of a type. Those rows are empty, so they were skipped rather than counted as zero. That is why Hyundai first appears in 1990, Kia in 2000, and Tesla in 2020, and why some brands have no trucks in early snapshots.

How the numbers were checked

Brand totals match EPA's own math. Each automaker's all-vehicle figure equals the production-weighted blend of its car and truck figures, to within 0.11%. That confirms the rows are being read the way EPA built them.
The rankings are clean. In every view and year, each brand appears once, ranks run from 1 with no gaps, and there are no ties.
The source file is unchanged. The script confirms the raw file's fingerprint before it runs, and the row counts at every step add up.

All checks run every time the numbers are rebuilt, and the build fails if any don't pass. The script and summary data are on GitHub, along with the steps to download the same file from EPA and confirm it matches.

What the Data Can't Tell Us

It describes what each brand sold, not how good its cars are. A brand that sells mostly pickups averages slower and thirstier, even if its sports car is the quickest on the road. The Cars and Trucks views help compare like with like.
Automakers are counted as parent companies. GM includes Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC; Stellantis includes Jeep, Ram, Dodge, and Chrysler; Hyundai and Kia are listed separately.
"Truck" is a regulatory term. EPA counts most SUVs and crossovers as trucks, so the Trucks view is mostly SUVs, not just pickups.
Electric vehicles are rated in energy-equivalent terms. EPA counts EVs in its fuel-economy averages using the distance they travel on the energy in a gallon of gas. Tesla sells only EVs, so its figure is far above the rest. Brands selling a mix of EVs and gas vehicles get a smaller boost.
0–60 times are estimates. EPA calculates them from each vehicle's power, weight, and other specifications, not from track tests.
2025 is preliminary. EPA's 2025 data come from automakers' projected production before the vehicles went on sale. 1975 to 2024 are final.
Not every brand is here. The 14 automakers make up most of the market, but smaller brands, like Volvo, Porsche, or Mitsubishi, appear only in the industry average.

Glossary

Model year: The year an automaker assigns to a vehicle, which usually goes on sale in the fall of the year before.
Production-weighted: An average where each model counts in proportion to how many were built. A model built 300,000 times counts 100 times as much as one built 3,000 times.
Real-world MPG: EPA's estimate of fuel economy in everyday driving, lower than the older lab-test figures that regulations use.
0–60 time: Seconds to accelerate from a stop to 60 mph. Lower is quicker.
Car vs. truck: EPA's regulatory classes. Trucks include pickups, vans, and most SUVs and crossovers.

Sources

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Explore the Automotive Trends Data, Detailed Data, A-1 View by Manufacturer (CSV export). Accessed October 3, 2026.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. About the Automotive Trends Data.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA Automotive Trends Report.

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