Best Cars For Teens: 10 Cars To Suit Every Kind Of Teenage Driver (2024)

Nov. 04, 2023 11:00 AM ET by Gerhard Horn Tops / 14 Comments

It's interesting compiling a list of the best cars for teens because the requirements change completely from the perspective of a parent. When your faithful correspondent was young, the list of must-haves included power, a low curb weight, sharp styling, and loads of cargo space, in that order.

As a father, the requirements now include the best safety ratings, fuel economy, and above-average reliability scores. Luckily, the average teen's driving habits have changed over the years. While there is still a small group of dedicated gearheads, the vast majority of Gen Z couldn't be bothered with sports cars. The latest research shows there aren't many teenage drivers to begin with. Only 25% bother with a license, so there are fewer new drivers than any other group.

Why aren't there any new young drivers out there? It's just logical, according to Gen Z.

To older groups, their first new or used car was a symbol of freedom. Young drivers used to see the car as the first significant step towards independence. The average teen and young driver sees a car as an unnecessary financial burden. You get locked into a financial deal on an asset that continually depreciates.

Older models also tend to be cash pits, so you can't save money for stuff that's more important, like traveling and life experiences. Why spend money on a new car when you can tap a few times on your phone screen and an Uber driver will come to your door in a ratty Toyota Prius?

Still, some parents still believe that any new driver should have their own car, especially in small towns where driving services aren't as readily available. Uber also isn't practical for longer trips back home. Plus, there's the safety aspect to consider, and we're not talking about the IIHS Top Safety Pick Awards. There are some dodgy ride-hailing drivers out there, and female teen drivers would likely feel safer locked in their own cars where they have complete control.

With that in mind, we looked at the 10 best starter cars for teens, which are quite different from what we would have considered the coolest cars for teens.

CarBuzz is using updated criteria, chucking sporty handling out the window in favor of a Good or Acceptable rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. It's not sexy, which is why we dedicated the first half of the list to practical cars and the second half to vehicles with a bit of edge.

We like the idea of a Toyota Prius, and not just because the latest model is actually good looking and surprisingly rapid. But in case you were wondering, it has nearly 200 horsepower and can get to 60 mph in the low sevens.

A far more pertinent figure is 57. That is the amount of miles per gallon the entry-level LE does on the combined cycle. It also does 57 mpg in town and 56 mpg on the highway. You can also order it with all-wheel drive, in which case you lose one mile per gallon. It's fuel-efficient and kind to the environment, which is a winning combination for young drivers whose main goal in life is to attract the opposite sex. To teen drivers, fuel efficiency is the new 0-60. If your car has good ratings from the EPA, you're going to have all the sex.

Another reason to go for a new Prius is the standard safety features. With used cars, advanced driving assist features aren't guaranteed. The same is true for every other new car on this list.

All modern Toyotas equipped with TSS 3.0 come standard with adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection, lane-departure warning, road sign recognition, a proactive driving assistant, and automatic high beams. A rearview camera will be standard on all model years 2016 and onward. This is true for all cars, not just the Prius.

By buying a Prius, you're also giving your teen driver a nice financial boost. The Prius is known for having excellent resale value, so they'll score when the time comes to buy their first car with their own money.

The Volt may be one of the best cars for teenage drivers based on its plug-in hybrid nature. The top speed is also capped at 92 mph, so you can rest safely knowing that junior isn't out trying to set a new Cannonball record.

Chevy's PHEV was way ahead of its time, and its 53 miles of electric range is impressive even by modern standards. If the car is only used occasionally for short distances, your teen driver can go for a month without fuel. In hybrid mode, it will still average 42 mpg.

Because the Volt was ahead of its time, it never sold well. That makes it a great used buy because values have tanked. Just be aware that the car is a write-off if it needs a battery replacement.

For the final model year (2019), Chevy added several niceties to make the car more attractive.

Apart from the hybrid bits, the Bolt is also a safe vehicle, with decent-sized rear seats, and it boasts good cargo space.

There are quite a few best-selling small cars and medium-sized used sedans to pick from. The best cars in this category have always been the Toyota Camry, Corolla, and the Honda Accord, but we chose the Civic because it's a sublime car whether you buy new or used, and it's interesting.

The Honda Civic is here for all the right reasons, including stellar safety ratings, good fuel economy, a spacious interior for friends, and favorable reviews from various consumer reports.

The same is also true of the other sedans mentioned here, but there are other factors to consider when searching for the top cars for teens.

Teens want to be cool, and a Corolla just isn't. Older generations of the Corolla are just generic older vehicles with zero style and loads of substance. At least with a Civic hatch or sedan, you get a sharp-ish design. We're not saying a Civic is as cool as a modern compact SUV, but it's a big step up from the humdrum Corolla.

If your child isn't the least bit interested in cars and only sees it as a device to get from point A to point B, you can buy any of the sedans mentioned here.

Our research shows that most websites recommend the Toyota Highlander in this niche segment because it's a good safety pick, and car insurance isn't particularly horrifying. While on the topic, car insurance for any of these models is worth checking out before you buy, especially once we get to the more exciting stuff. While the monthly downpayment might be small, the car insurance premium could be quite large.

We checked, and the insurance premiums for the Subaru Outback are more or less the same. And if you buy new, you get one of the safest cars ever tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS recently updated its safety tests, and Subies continue to do well. It's one of the main reasons why the Outback also features on our list of the best family cars.

The Outback is also more interesting than the Highlander, though you do miss out on the additional seats. In Wilderness guise, it looks sensational and it's a handy off-roader.

Gen Z is also more into camping and adventure than you'd expect. Millennials are now officially the largest group of campers, but Gen Z isn't far behind. They don't just stand for protecting nature but also want to enjoy it.

The Outback is the perfect city/adventure vehicle, especially if you're looking at new cars. That said, other highly recommended vehicles exist in this segment. We'd recommend the Honda Pilot, Volkswagen Atlas, Toyota RAV4, or the Dodge Durango if you want to go American.

Stepping away from the new and used cars for teens, let's focus on one of the hottest segments in the automotive industry, compact SUVs. There are many to choose from, and they all basically do the same job equally well. We highly recommend the Honda CR-V, Hyundai Tucson, and the Mazda CX-5.

Out of all of these, we prefer the Kia Sportage, specifically the hybrid model introduced for the 2023 model year. It's even better as a plug-in hybrid, providing 32 miles of all-electric range. Combined with the funky exterior, that alone is enough to win a member of Gen Z over.

But you're the one footing the bill, so the Sportage also has to have a decent amount of safety features and acceptable fuel economy.

In terms of safety, Kia has been extremely generous. Every Sportage has advanced driver assistance safety features, including lane departure warning, rear cross-traffic alert, and blind-spot monitoring.

On the fuel economy side, the hybrid and PHEV do very well. This should be a selling point for teen drivers, too. As we mentioned earlier, MPG is the new 0 to 60 mph.

The standard hybrid is already fuel-efficient. According to the EPA, it consumes only 43 mpg on the combined cycle. The PHEV does 84 MPGe with the battery fully charged, but it drops to 35 mpg when depleted.

While we accept the fact that most teen drivers aren't all that interested in driving because Uber and public transport exist, there must still be thousands of new drivers raised by enthusiasts. That's why the second half of this list is dedicated to more interesting cars, and we're starting with the one that offers the best of both worlds.

The secret to the Golf GTI's success has always been that it's all things to everyone. From the fifth-gen onwards, all GTIs have a decent amount of safety features, and the fuel efficiency isn't half bad when you aren't hooning around. And then there's the Mr. Hyde side, which is highly entertaining but also safe. If you push a GTI to the limit, it will understeer. That's exactly what a teen driver with less experience needs, even if they think they want a tail-happy roadster.

A Golf GTI is also one of the best used cars, especially in the hot hatch segment. We wouldn't bother with an Mk8, which is basically an Mk7 with a terrible touchscreen interior.

In fact, we'd go all the way back to the Mk6, which gives you most of what the new car has but is more involving and with a higher-quality interior. Get one with a full service history, as several well-documented problems are easily avoidable if you buy a car that has been well looked after.

If your child is as much of an enthusiast as you are, they'll love you for buying them a Miata. But which generation is the best? Luckily, CarBuzz has you covered because we've driven every generation and came to a conclusion.

Some may see it as a hazard to buy a teen driver a rear-wheel-drive sports car because it could land them in trouble. You are 100% correct. Then again, the same thing is true of any vehicle. I had my first crash in a FWD Toyota Corolla because my girlfriend called and said her parents weren't home. She lived about five miles down a gravel road, and each time I went, I experimented more with getting the Toyota's ass out. Until the day it went out too far, and I made the rookie error of trying to brake instead of planting the throttle and countersteering. I went plowing into a field and learned a valuable lesson.

The more you mess around, the more you learn. You probably know the cruder version of that particular saying.

You could see the Miata as a bonding experience. Teach them some hooning tricks, and how to do them safely. They will do it anyway, so you could go along for the ride.

The Ford Bronco Sport is a small SUV capable of taking the fight to much larger cars. Though many view it as a crossover, it's capable of much more than the average lifted hatch with a rudimentary all-wheel drive system.

The only thing that counts against the Bronco Sport is that you pay a bit of a premium over rivals like the Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester, which make more sense with your common sense hat on. But young drivers lack common sense and will happily have you pay more for a bit of style, which the tiny Bronco has in spades.

If you can stomach the price increase, you'll be happy to know that this off-roader is perfect for a new driver. It may not be a top safety pick, but it received positive reviews from the NHTSA and the IIHS. You also get the latest safety features, like forward collision warning and adaptive cruise control.

Opt for the larger 2.0-liter turbocharged EcoBoost engine, and the Bronco Sport will get to 60 mph in less than six seconds thanks to 250 hp and 277 lb-ft of torque.

The Bronco Sport may not be as good on paper as some of its main rivals, but it has bucketloads of charm, especially if you're lucky enough to get one of the limited edition variants.

The Bolt EV deserves to be part of the logical side of this list if not for the highly publicized fire snafu, which wasn't GM's fault. The problem was eventually fixed, but the Bolt will forever be associated with being lit. Still, even after the fire problem, the Bolt saw a huge uptick in sales as people started appreciating the benefits of going fully electric more. Over the last two years, it has been such a hit that GM has confirmed it's working on an all-new model.

The Bolt is a modern car, which means it is equipped with all the latest safety tech. The NHTSA gave it five out of five stars after a series of crash tests, and it will be cheap to run.

A low-mileage 2017 Bolt with all the recall fixes done costs roughly $16,000, and there are more than enough used examples to go around.

Naturally, your Gen Z teen will love you for buying them a zero tailpipe emissions car, which is the ultimate statement of cool.

The Lexus LS400 is the best first car for a teenage driver because it hits all the right targets, even though it may be a bit offbeat.

First, it's more environmentally friendly than the Bolt above, though you may need to use some solid arguments to convince your teenager why. The whole zero-emissions thing is a lie, anyway. Just tell your teen that nobody had to dig anything out of the ground to produce the LS400 because it already exists, and that's the most environmentally friendly way of buying a car.

Secondly, it's as safe as houses. Actually, it's safer than houses because it's built to last longer. The LS400 is the poster child for cars that last a lifetime. On the safety front, it has everything you need. It has a rigid structure, seatbelts, airbags, traction control, and, most importantly, ABS.

You can buy a late model with 200k on the clock (hardly run in) for $7,000, and the best part is that you'll likely make your money back when your teenager finishes college and starts paying their own way. Or you could give them the LS400, which will be a nice little nest egg.

LS400 values are on the rise as more people start appreciating just what an achievement this car was. There aren't as many around as you'd expect, so you'll likely get more than you paid. The only downside is fuel consumption, but the V8 makes up for it by being one of the most reliable engines ever made.

All things considered, the LS400 is what both you and your teenager need. Plus, it was made in the '90s, and all of the best things were made during that magnificent decade.