When gas climbs past $4.22 a gallon and oil breaches $100 a barrel, something changes. Not in driveways — not yet. But in search bars, Americans start quietly reconsidering. A study by Car Mats Customs, using Google Keyword Planner data across 175 keywords and all 50 states, found that the Honda Civic tops search interest in 15 states — more than any other model. The Ford F-150, America’s best-selling vehicle for decades, comes in second. The search bar, it turns out, tells a different story than the sales lot.
The Map Nobody Expected
Practical beats political: the state-by-state search data defies easy red-versus-blue categorization.
The Civic dominates coastal and Midwestern states: Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, Florida, Hawaii, Washington, and Utah. The F-150 leads in 12 states — Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Arkansas, North Dakota — rural and work-oriented markets, though notably less dominant across much of the South than many would expect. The Toyota Camry tops 10 states, including Georgia, Kansas, and Kentucky, traditionally truck country. No clean political map emerges. The data refuses that narrative entirely.
A few standout figures reveal just how granular — and surprising — the state-by-state picture gets:
- Honda Civic: #1 in 15 states, the widest geographic reach of any model in the study
- Ford F-150: #1 in 12 states, generating roughly 74,000 monthly searches in Texas alone
- Toyota Camry: #1 in 10 states, including parts of the South where trucks historically rule
- Kia K5: tops searches in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi — a Korean mid-size sedan outpulling domestic brands on their home turf
- Tesla Model Y: leads California with approximately 135,000 monthly searches, the only EV to top any state
- Toyota RAV4: dominates Maine, Alaska, Minnesota, and Colorado; Honda CR-V leads New York and Rhode Island
Searching for Savings, Still Buying Trucks
Consumer anxiety surfaces in search data long before it shows up at the dealership.
The timing matters. Car Mats Customs collected this data in August, as oil prices surged past $100 per barrel and pump prices averaged $4.22 per gallon nationally by September 9. Cox Automotive’s Alex Bland, senior director of research and market intelligence, put it plainly: “Three-fourths of the folks we talked to said fuel economy is going to impact their buying decision in some way. Seventy-four percent told us they’re more likely to consider a fuel-efficient vehicle for their next purchase.”
And yet Americans still buy SUVs and pickups in massive numbers. Analysts caution the search data may “reflect frustration, aspirations, and curiosity more than actual future purchases.” The F-150 Lightning’s commercial struggles add an ironic layer — the electric version of America’s best-selling truck stumbled in the market precisely when fuel-efficiency anxiety is peaking.
California stands alone as the only state where an EV wins the search race. That aligns with real-world data: zero-emission vehicles reached 19.1% of new car sales in Q2 2026, with 75,597 battery EVs sold. Hybrids — despite survey respondents claiming to love them — barely register in top-search positions nationally, a notable gap between stated preference and actual search behavior.
Americans are Googling Civics and Camrys. Their driveways still hold trucks. Whether that search anxiety eventually reshapes purchasing behavior depends on one thing: whether fuel prices stay painful.
