7 Luxury Cars With The Worst MPG

When you buy yourself a luxury vehicle, you expect the best. You want the best comfort, performance, style, and over-the-top technological features. After all, you are spending an awful lot of money when you get one that you do not want to be regretting your purchase. Because you expect the best, you probably also expect it to have the best fuel efficiency. If you are spending so much on the vehicle itself, the least the car manufacturer could do is produce a vehicle that lets you save a little on gasoline as it becomes your daily drive. Well, that is not always the case.

Sure, some automakers have made incredibly efficient luxury cars, whether they be gas-powered cars, hybrids, or all-electric vehicles. A hybrid car like the 2025 Lexus ES has a combined fuel economy of 44 mpg, allowing for a full range of 581 miles on a single tank of gas. That is the kind of efficiency the average person would kill for. Not everyone who buys a luxury car is so lucky. 

Some of these cars cost tens — or even hundreds — of thousands of dollars, and they burn through gas fast. If you are someone who only cares about the look, performance, and status of a luxury car, then fuel efficiency may not bother you. However, if you are someone wanting to get something that is actually efficient, here are seven luxury cars with the worst mpg that you should stay away from at all cost.

If there is one car company that exemplifies the highest peak of luxury, it is Rolls-Royce. Ever since the company was established at the turn of the 20th Century, the British automaker has made it its mission to deliver a penthouse on wheels. There's a reason that the starting price for the Rolls-Royce Phantom, which has had a century's long history, is a truly astounding $510,000 with models going all the way up to $1,000,000. For that price, you expect the best of the best, and mostly, you are going to get it. What you are not going to get is good fuel efficiency.

The Environmental Protection Agency places the Phantom's combined fuel economy at 14 mpg, placing it dead last on the EPA's gigantic list of luxury vehicles. That combined number does lean more towards its city mileage, which is a paltry 12 mpg, rather than the 18 mpg it gets on the highway. However, if you consider the typical usage of a Rolls-Royce, you are more than likely driving it around in an urban area than cruising down the highway. 

These mileage ratings are the same for both the standard Phantom and the Phantom Extended model. The car does feature a decently sized 23.8 gallon tank, but that still means you are only getting about 333 miles on a single tank of gas. While other cars on this list technically have better mpg efficiency, they have smaller tanks and have shorter ranges. Regardless, if you are putting down over half a million dollars for a Rolls-Royce Phantom, you don't want to spend an estimated $4,300 a year on gas.

The atrocious mpg rate of the Phantom is not exclusive to that Rolls-Royce model. The company produces another car that is just as atrocious in it fuel efficiency. That would be the Rolls-Royce Ghost. This is the cheaper alternative to the Phantom with a starting price of $370,000, so to say this is cheaper is a bit silly. This is still an absurdly expensive vehicle, and if you decide to buy one, you will be filling up that gas tank quite often because it has almost identical fuel economy to the Phantom.

For the Ghost, the combined fuel efficiency is 14 mpg, and for its city mileage, you can expect 12 mpg. These are the same stats as the Phantom, but the Ghost does perform ever so slightly better on the highway, as it is able to get 19 mpg according to the EPA. These are the same figures for every model of the Ghost, which includes the standard, the Extended, and the Black Badge models. Its fuel tank is slightly smaller at 21.8 gallons, so you are only going to be getting a range of around 305 miles on a single tank. 

So, despite it slightly outperforming the Phantom on the highway, the Rolls-Royce Ghost is just as bad or worse than its sister vehicle. The EPA also places the estimated annual cost of gas for the car at $4,300. You can probably afford that if you can buy a Ghost, but why would you want to spend that money if you don't have to?

Part of the reason the two Rolls-Royce models aren't fuel efficient has to do with their size. However, cars can have horrific efficiency for other reasons, such as trying to maximize performance. This is the case with the next model on this list, the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT. This is a coupé, so you might be fooled into believing it has great efficiency. However, AMG is the performance division of Mercedes, and all that division is concerned with is making an impressively powerful vehicle. The AMG GT 55 has an output of 469 hp and 516 lb.-ft. of torque, while the GT 63 is even more impressive at 577 hp and 590 lb-ft That power comes at the expense of efficiency.

The EPA places its actual mpg rate at the same level of the Rolls-Royce Ghost. The combined mileage is 14 mpg with it getting 12 mpg in the city and 19 mpg on the highway. This is the case for both the 55 and 63 models. These are the specs for the 2025 model year and are actually quite a big step-down from 2024, where it was able to get 17 mpg with 15 mpg in the city and 22 mpg on the highway. 

Those still are not great numbers, but they are certainly better than what you are going to get with a model from the factory today. The Mercedes-Benz AMG GT 55 and 63 models may give you the power you want behind the wheel, but you'll be spending thousands of dollars on gas per year after buying a car with a $137,550 starting price.

Although Mercedes-Benz is a luxury brand in and of itself, the company has further subdivisions within it, and one of them is designated for the most luxurious of the luxury vehicles. This is the Maybach division, which utilizes the highest craftsmanship the company can get to create vehicles that aim to be on par with the likes of Rolls-Royce in terms of style, comfort, and convenience. While that is its primary goal, the Maybach vehicles do not hold back on performance either. The 2025 Mercedes-Benz Maybach S 680 sedan utilizes a 6.0L V12 engine that can generate up to 621 hp and 664 lb-ft of torque. That is some impressive power for a vehicle that is seemingly made to just look beautiful, and you get all of this for a starting price of $240,500.

What you do not get with that price is good fuel economy. With that hulking V12 engine under the hood, you are able to only get 15 combined mpg for the Maybach S 680. Like with the Mercedes-Benz AMG GT models, the city mileage is only able to average about 12 mpg according to the EPA, though you do get slightly better range on the highway at 20 mpg. The car features a 22.2 gallon tank, so you are looking at a range of about 333 miles on a single tank of gas, leading you to spend around $4,000 a year on gas on average. That may be a drop in the bucket for people who can afford a Mercedes-Benz Maybach S 680, but $4,000 is still $4,000.

If Rolls-Royce is on one side of the coin when it comes to luxury British automakers, the other side of that coin is Bentley. After all, the two companies were joined at the hip at various times throughout the years, though the two have been entirely separate since 2003. While they are no longer related companies, they still have the same mission of delivering the highest possible level of luxury to those willing to throw down a couple of $100,000 for their vehicle. One of those cars is the Bentley Continental GT, or the convertible variation called the GTC. This is a car that has a starting price of $306,250 for a new 2025 model.

Another thing that Bentley has in common with Rolls-Royce is poor fuel economy. The Continental GT is a car that has a couple of different engine options, and no matter which one you choose, you will be getting some pretty terrible mileage. For the 4.0L V8 engine, the GT is able to get a combined mileage of 17 mpg. This factors in 14 mpg for the city and 22 mpg for the highway. 

The GTC model with the same engine is slightly worse according to the EPA thanks to its highway mileage going down to 21 mpg, lowering the overall to 16 mpg combined. Things get even worse if you put the 6.0L V12 in the car, giving you a combined mileage of 15 mpg with 12 city mpg and 20 highway mpg. It doesn't matter if you get the Bentley Continental GT and GTC. You'll be paying a lot for gas.

Most of the vehicles on this list are European-built cars. However, Europe is not the only continent that produces cars that have poor fuel economy. Companies based in North America are fully capable of manufacturing these gas guzzlers perfectly well, too. The worst of these luxury brands is Cadillac. Although the company primarily builds SUVs nowadays, there are still a couple of sedans in its lineup, and these smaller vehicles are still not particularly efficient. 

The worst offender of the fleet is the Cadillac CT5 sedan. Unlike the other vehicles on this list, the starting price for a new 2025 model is relatively low for a luxury vehicle at $48.990. While that price is tempting for those longing for luxury on the road who normally could not afford it, you will certainly be making up for the cost when it comes to buying gas.

With a 6.2L V8 engine under the hood, all you can expect in terms of mileage for a Cadillac CT5 is 15 mpg. This combined mileage is a result of it getting 13 mpg in the city and 20 mpg on the highway. While this is already bad, it is not helped by the fact that the car only features a 17 gallon gas tank, meaning you can only expect a range of about 255 miles on a single tank. While this is not the worst mpg efficiency on this list, it is the worst when it comes to total range. The EPA estimates you will be paying about $4,000 per year on gas, so maybe you should look elsewhere for a more efficient luxury car that is moderately priced.

The desire to have a high performance vehicle is so often what hinders a car's fuel efficiency, and that is the case when it comes to Audi as well. What makes it even more of a problem for Audi is that the most expensive gas-powered car that the company offers just so happens to be the least efficient as well. That car is the Audi RS 7 performance sedan, which has a starting price of $128,600. You can get a beautifully designed luxury vehicle from Audi for less than half the price of this sedan that has significantly better fuel economy than the RS 7.

What makes this particular model so disappointing when it comes to efficiency is that it is a hybrid. It pairs a 48V hybrid motor with a 4.0L V8 engine. Part of the whole appeal of a hybrid is efficiency, but for the RS 7, it is pretty dreadful. The EPA places its combined mileage at 17 mpg with it begin able to get 14 mpg in the city and 21 mpg on the highway. 

Granted, this engine setup does let you drive a car that can generate 621 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque, but you are sacrificing a great deal of efficiency — and a whole lot of gas money — to get that power. With a 19.3 gallon tank, you can expect to drive about 328 miles on a single tank. There is plenty to recommend about the Audi RS 7, but its fuel economy is certainly not one of them.