Overview
- WalletHub’s top five most efficient states are Vermont, California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts, with California at 84.76, Washington at 81.29, New York at 80.84, and Massachusetts at 80.36.
- The five least efficient are South Carolina (#48), West Virginia (#47, 28.24), Alabama (#46, 29.76), Mississippi (#45, 33.28), and Arkansas (#44, 35.57).
- Home efficiency was measured as residential energy consumption relative to NOAA degree days, and auto efficiency combined estimated miles per gallon with vehicle-miles per capita from FHWA data.
- WalletHub weighted home and auto components equally on a 0–100 scale using federal datasets from the Census Bureau, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, the EIA, and the FHWA.
- Energy Central flagged that tourism and out-of-state driving could skew the auto metrics and noted many lower-ranked states are in the South, with state policy suggested as a key influence.