I'd like to add my .02 cents here.
It's nigh
impossible to compare fuel consumption for different drivers on different routes... and even the same driver on the same route will get different fuel economy figures throughout the year... so
fuel economy figures you see posted by others (including me) are suggestive, NOT final.
A
highway FC of about 17 km/l is just right for an efficient 1.8 liter engine... my 2.0 can do 14-16 km/l on the highway. But that's NLEX-style highway driving... typicallly, it'll be about 14 on the SLEX and in rush-hour NLEX... our city economy with the Civic 1.8 5AT was in the 8's... very similar, in fact, to the economy of the Mazda3 and the Corolla (1.6 AT is in the 9's...).
The Vios
is pretty efficient, but we've seen lows of 9-10 km/l in heavy traffic. It's not immune to traffic... the same can be said of the Honda City, actually. While light to moderate traffic can yield 10-13 km/l, some owners of these cars are seeing 8, also, depending on their commute. Both cars can do 20 or more on the highway.
Diesel is definitely the way to go, in terms of fuel cost... the Tucson, though, when we had it, averaged 8.7 km/l in all-city driving. That's because it's relatively large and has an old 4-speed automatic. In terms of peso per kilometer, it's pretty good (better than the MT Carens we tested), but it's not the be-all and end-all of mid-sized fuel economy. That'd still be the Ford Focus TDCI.... well... at least till we get a test unit of the Hyundai i30 CRDI, which is said to have beaten the Prius in competition... I can't wait...
Mini-cars are an oddity. Many have really old and anemic engines. The 1.0s of the Chinese cars we've tested so far have given really crappy traffic economy (9-10 km/l... and that's in manual mode, even!). The Koreans are a little better... (9-11 (Hyundai i10 1.1 AT), 10-14 (Getz 1.1 MT))... but the best I've ever seen is the Suzuki Alto 800cc, which got an amazing 16 km/l in city driving... and we beat the hell out of that little car!
