Best Small Cars of 2023, Ranked from Worst to Best

While trucks, SUVs, and crossovers continue to set sales records and take top billing in marketing materials, it's easy to overlook the essential goodness of the compact car—particularly hatchbacks. Reasonably sized, efficient, and often quite affordable, the compact has a righteous role. Thanks to tight competition and a surge in the availability of technology features, the traditional four-door-compact formula has become elastic, stretching to include everything from a box on wheels to sleek and sporty coupes. Whatever your needs, there's probably a compact car that will fill them. Here, we've arranged how the current compact offerings rank against one another, from worst to best.