The Best New Cars for Teens at Every Price Point

When shopping for a car for a new driver, priorities may be different than they would be for someone with years of experience on the road — namely, safety features will likely be of the utmost importance.

“When shopping for a car for a teen, parents should look for safety features that can help prevent crashes, while also helping the teen develop their driving skills,” said Jamie Page Deaton, former executive editor of U.S. News Best Cars. “Features like forward collision warning and front automatic braking can help when a teen has misjudged stopping distance. Lane-keep assist can provide real-time feedback as teens learn to hold their lane position. Of course, teens and their parents should not be dependant on these features, but they can provide a little bit of a safety net to new drivers.”

Parents may also want to choose a car that allows them to track their teen’s car usage.

“Features like smartphone apps or teen driver settings can help parents monitor or limit their teen’s driving,” Deaton said. “These are great tools, though parents should use them to continue the conversation about safe driving with their teens, not to play ‘gotcha’ or spy.”

No matter what your budget, there are cars available that provide many features that can give parents peace of mind when their teen hits the road. Here’s a look at U.S. News’ 2024 Best New Cars for Teens at every price point.

The Hyundai Elantra was chosen as one of U.S. News’ 2024 Best Cars for Teens because it is packed with a number of safety features including forward and reverse automatic braking. These features come standard on the base model, which has a sticker price of $21,625.

The 2024 Kia Soul was chosen as a best SUV for teens thanks to its safety and dependability, with a noteworthy reliability rating (87 out of 100) from J.D. Power.

Reverse automatic braking, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert come equipped in the S trim, which starts at $22,690.

A high fuel efficiency — 54 mpg in combined city and highway driving — and a plethora of safety features make the 2024 Hyundai Elantra Hybrid an excellent choice for teens at this price point.

The base model comes standard with lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, and forward and reverse automatic braking. It also includes BlueLink, which allows parents to set geofencing, curfew and speed alerts. The starting MSPR for the Elantra Hybrid is $26,250.

The 2024 Hyundai Tucson comes standard with forward and reverse automatic braking, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert.

The SEL trim — which starts at $29,560 — has BlueLink available as well.

The 2024 Subaru Legacy is equipped with a substantial number of safety features, including forward collision warning and lane-keep assist.

The Limited Trim also comes equipped with Subaru Starlink, which allows parents to monitor their teen’s safety from afar.

The Limited trim has a starting MSRP of $31,945.

The Hyundai Tucson Hybrid comes equipped with a wide range of safety features, including forward automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert. It also comes standard with BlueLink, which allows parents to monitor their teen’s driving. And because it’s a hybrid, it gets efficient gas mileage as well.

The 2024 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid has a starting MSRP of $32,575.

The Toyota Camry Hybrid comes standard with the Toyota Safety Sense suite, which includes technology like a pre-collision system with pedestrian detection, lane departure alert, automatic high beams, lane tracing assist, road sign assist and full-speed range dynamic radar cruise control.

The 2024 Toyota Camry Hybrid is one of three hybrid cars to be chosen as a best car for teens.

“There is nothing special about a hybrid powertrain that makes a hybrid a good choice for a teen driver — though a lot of teens will appreciate the lower carbon emissions and spending less on gas,” Deaton said. “A lot of hybrids made the list this year because car companies tend to load their hybrid models with lots of active safety features. Since those are the same features that can help keep teens safe, selecting one of the hybrids from this list just makes sense.”

The 2024 Camry Hybrid starts at $28,855.

The Subaru Outback comes standard with front automatic braking and lane-keep assist. Upgrading to the Onyx trim adds blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and reverse automatic braking.

There’s also the option to add the Starlink Safety and Security package, which allows parents to set a variety of safety alerts such as boundary, speed and curfew alerts.

The Onyx trim starts at $36,105.

Photo Disclaimer: Please note some photos are for illustrative purposes only and might not feature exact models, base models or the cars’ specific trim levels. As a result, some of the cars in the photos might have different MSRPs than the ones listed in this article.