The 2012 Chevrolet Sonic is besting the competition for safety ratings, for now. The little sub-compact Sonic scored a five-star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to beat out the Ford Fiesta, which only scored four out of five.

Safety isn’t the only thing we’re pleased to say makes the Sonic great, it’s a peppy starter car that comes available with a six-speed manual and a turbocharged four-cylinder that had us scooting past the speed limit with surprising ease. It also comes with 10 standard airbags.

The Sonic still has to go up against its other competition: this year’s Kia Rio and Honda Fit, which both have yet to be rated. The 2012 Nissan Versa sedan also still has to be rated, but the verdict isn’t looking good for its hatchback brother with three of five in the frontal crash category and four of five in rollovers.

Poor ratings aside, the Sonic hasn’t won the race yet. It got four out of five stars in the rollover category, so there is still a chance the unrated cars can equal or best it.

Of course, that rating is coming hot off the heels of a recall over missing brake pads in the Sonic. We’re willing to assume the rating is based on completely assembled cars.

The Sonic is also a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Read Autoguide’s Chevy Sonic review here.

There hasn’t been a lot of buzz generated around the new 2012 Nissan Versa since its unveiling back in April at the New York Auto Show, so it’s completely understandable if one were led to believe that the Versa will manage limited success. On the other hand, Versa’s biggest competitor Hyundai Accent set off to an early lead as Hyundai managed to move a thousand more units than any subcompact, including the Versa, in its first full month of sales.

Surprisingly, this has become the perfect example of the tortoise and the hare as numbers now show that as of August, the 2012 Nissan Versa is the new best-selling subcompact in the United States– trumping the Hyundai Accent, Honda Fit, Ford Fiesta, Mazda2, Chevrolet Aveo and Toyota Yaris.

This isn’t necessarily to say that the Nissan Versa is a superior product, but as it is currently the least expensive car sold in North America at $10,990, individuals who buy the Versa won’t be too concerned about performance specs anyway. As for the numbers, the 2012 Versa comes with a 1.6 liter I-4, producing 109 horsepower and 107 lb-ft of torque. The CVT helps to optimize the Versa’s efficiency, achieving 30/38-mpg city/highway.

GALLERY: 2012 Nissan Versa/Sunny

The folks at Ford couldn’t be happier with the success of the Fiesta. After pumping plenty of dollars into a marketing blitz for the car ahead of its launch, in just 10 months on sale it’s now the most popular sub-compact in America, out-selling segment heavyweights, the Honda Fit and Nissan Versa.

With both of those models having dipped slightly over the past 12 to 24 months the Fiesta has seen a meteoric sales rise. Charted on a graph, the figures look like a pre-bust Enron stock chart. The Fit and Versa continue to be strong, however, which is more than can be said for the rest of the segment with sales of cars like the Toyota Yaris tanking, while the Hyundai Accent, Chevy Aveo and Scion models all seeing significant decreases as well. In fact, the only models that have seen an increase in the past year are the Fiat 500 and Mazda2, both of which are new to the market.

Having dipped below a 5 percent share of the market, the sub-compact segment does appear to be once-again gaining traction with higher gas prices that look to be here to stay.

Crunching the numbers, the folks at Polk credit the Fiesta’s strong sales to unique options for the sub-compact segment, a strong Ford brand, and the fact that with the Aveo no longer on sale, Ford is the only domestic automaker with a sub-compact model for sale.

[Source: Polk]

Click here to read AutoGuide’s 2011 Ford Fiesta review

As part of the celebrations for the World Environment Day, Chevrolet showcased an electric version of their Beat sub-compact car in India.

The Beat BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) is powered by 300 lithium-ion battery cells, which will take eight-hours to charge from a standard 240V house outlet. On a full charge, the Beat BEV can travel 130 km (80 miles), under normal driving conditions. Impressive numbers, but not exactly ground breaking. Power is sent to the drive wheels via a single-speed transmission.

At the launch, Karl Slym, president and managing director of General Motors of India said, “General Motors is committed to providing customers around the world with electrification technologies that will reduce their fuel consumption, helping them save money. GM India will lead in this ‘tailored for India’ demo program for battery electric technology, with Chevrolet Beat chosen as the best way to evaluate the technology. We are delighted that Chevrolet selected India as an important market to test battery electric technology, while recognizing the capabilities of our engineering team to help identify ways to make this technology more affordable.”

Will this particular version of the Beat just be a concept or will it go into production is not known at the moment. GM India is already offering a range of alternate fuel vehicles including the Chevrolet Beat LPG, Chevrolet Spark LPG and Chevrolet Aveo CNG to its customers.

Chevy is expected to bring a gasoline version of the Beat to North America as early as next year.

Along with a long-rumored hybrid technology partnership between Toyota and Subaru, Japan’s largest automaker is also preparing to supply Subaru with a new sub-compact model. Japan’s Nikkei is reporting that the new model will be based on the Toyota Ractis, but will be built entirely by Toyota.

The deal seems to be part of a continued partnership between the two automakers, with long-standing rumors of a shared sports car, referred to as the FT-86 or FR-S. Of note, Toyota supplies the Scion xB to Subaru, where it is sold in Japan as the Dex. Toyota also owns a 16.5 percent stake in Subaru parent company Fuji Heavy Industries.

Initially Toyota will supply roughly 10,000 models to Subaru each year, using the current Toyota powerplants, including either a 1.3-liter or 1.5-liter 4-cylinder. The move by Subaru is seen as a reaction to increasing trends towards small vehicles. It’s also likely a way for Subaru to meet increasingly strict fuel economy standards.

There are no plans for Subaru to offer this model in North America, although we have to think that eventually Subaru, like all other automakers, will have to offer sub-compacts globally in the near future.

[Source: Nikkei via Green Car Congress]

Just a few weeks after Toyota officially announced that it would build a hybrid version of the Corolla-based Auris in the U.K., new reports suggest a similar (but smaller) model is being prepared for Japan and Europe. The car would be built in Japan for the Japanese market and Toyota has plans to build a European version in France.

Priced at just 1.5 million yen ($15,760) the hybrid sub-compact would compete with the upcoming Honda Fit Hybrid in a growing segment. It is likely to debut in 2010 as a 2011 model.

The new model would not be badged as a Yaris, but rather as a stand-alone model (much like the Prius) and will be based on an all-new Yaris platform.

Demand for hybrid models has surged recently in Japan thanks to government incentives for green cars. In April the Honda Insight was the best selling vehicle in Japan, marking the first time a hybrid has ever topped the monthly sales charts there. It was bumped off the top spot in May by another hybrid, the new Toyota Prius.

[Source: Reuters]