The best car vacuum 2025: lightweight vacs to keep your car spotless

Investing in one of the best car vacuums is the most convenient way to ensure the inside of your vehicle stays spick and span. A good car vacuum is practically a must-have if you have kids or pets, but it's a useful gadget for most drivers. It'll take care of dust, dirt, crumbs and grit that'll build up on your car's carpets and upholstery, and make the interior look good as new in a few minutes.

We've tested over 200 vacuum cleaners of all kinds at TechRadar, which puts us in a good position to recommend the best choices for different tasks. The best car vacuum will offer a good balance of power to portability: it needs to have enough suction to cope with a decent amount of dirt and enough battery that it can get around a whole car on a single charge, but with a design that's small and light enough to get into awkward footwells and dashboards. We also look for well-designed and useful detail tools, which are essential for getting into all the various nooks and crannies.

If portability isn't so much a concern, consider going for one of today's best cordless vacuums instead. These can all be converted into handheld vacs and will offer more suction and longer runtimes than almost any dedicated car vacuum.

We've tested all the models in this guide and can vouch for how well they perform. Read on for our pick of the best car vacuums around.

The best car vacuum 2025: quick list

The best car vacuums 2025: tested and recommended by experts

The best car vacuum for most people

The Shark UltraCyclone Pet Pro (sometimes referred to as the Pro+, and called the Shark Classic Handheld Pet Vacuum CH950UKT in the UK) is the best car vacuum for most people. It's a strong all-rounder when it comes to car cleaning, offering a not-too-heavy build, decent bin size and versatile design for an affordable price.

This mini vacuum comes with a motorized Pet tool and a Crevice tool as standard, and the US version also comes with a bristled 'Scrubbing brush' (we didn't test this). We found the Crevice tool was useful for getting into the awkward spots like behind foot pedals or inside door bins, while the wider Pet tool was perfect for larger, flatter areas like carpets and upholstery.

Its one power setting copes copes well with most tasks, and with the Pet tool attached this car vacuum handled both smaller and larger debris very well. However, we found that it needed more than one pass to pull up set-in dirt, and it struggled with the most stubborn of pet hair too.

There's an advertised 10 minutes of battery, but we managed to run our review model for a full 15 minutes before it ran flat. That's an acceptable runtime for a vacuum like this, and long enough for a full-car clean... provided you're relatively speedy. However, there are alternatives here that last longer.

Read our full Shark Ultracyclone Pet Pro review

The best small car vacuum

If you're looking for something compact and straightforward, the Eufy HomeVac H20 could be the best car vac for you. This dinky cleaner is much more streamlined than most of the entries in this list. Usefully, one of the attachments includes an extension hose, which is great for getting into awkward corners that lack the maneuvering room to position the entire vacuum. Each component feels sturdy, and when switching between the attachments, a satisfying 'click' delivers reassurance that all is in place and secure.

The HomeVac H20 offers two suction modes – Eco and Max – that you select by pushing a button on the main unit, beneath the power button. On test, our reviewer found the Eco mode was enough to suck up most light dust from their car, with Max helping in dirtier spots. However, even in that more powerful mode the suction isn't strong enough for larger or heavier debris. You'll need something with more oomph if you want to tackle stones or pet hair.

Battery life is good at up to 20 minutes on a single charge, and we liked that the HomeVac H20 could be charged using an in-car charger. Our tester made use of this handy feature on a few occasions – it's a real boon for larger cars that need more cleaning time.

The attachments and in-car charger make the eufy Clean HomeVac H20 a good option to have in the car at all times. It's not as powerful as some rivals but it's handy to have for quick cleanups.

Read our full Eufy Clean HomeVac H20 review

The best car vacuum for pet owners

The Dyson Car+Boat boasts far stronger suction and much longer battery life than any other car vacuum here, but it's also bulkier and heavier. All of that can be explained by the fact that this wasn't originally designed as a car vacuum: it's actually a V8 (one of Dyson's older cordless stick vacuums) with different tools and no wand.

In our tests we were very impressed by this vacuum's cleaning powers. It sucked up the dust and mud from our tester's car carpets with ease, and in Max mode it also proved up to the task of clearing small stones from her footwells. It's plenty strong enough to tackle pet hair, in which case the large dust cup will also come in handy. If you aren't dealing with pet hair, and assuming you're not trying to clean a lorry or a limousine, the dust cup will likely be a bit too big, though.

Of the three three bundled attachments, the Mini motorized head is useful for cleaning tackling larger, flatter surfaces like mats and seat cushions, while the Crevice tool is perfect for wedging into narrow gaps. We didn't find ourselves using the Combination brush/wide nozzle as often, but it's useful to have another option to amp up versatility.

Because of it's proportions, this vacuum isn't well suited to cleaning in tight spaces – a flexi hose, like the one included with the Black + Decker (#4) and Eufy (#2) would have helped with that. We also found it was annoying to have to keep the trigger compressed when trying to maneuver into awkward spaces.

Price-wise, the Car+Boat is expensive. The price is partly justified by the excellent performance, and could be worth it for pet owners who need the extra suction and larger dust cup. However, it's worth noting that almost all of today's best cordless stick vacuums can easily be converted into handheld mode, so you might be better off just buying one of those if you aren't worried about your vacuum being especially lightweight or compact.

Read our full Dyson Car+Boat review

The best car vacuum with a hose

The Black and Decker 12V Auto Flexi Vacuum is a budget-friendly car vacuum that delivers decent performance for a low price. It runs via a 12V corded connection and uses your car’s accessory power outlet, or the old 'cigarette lighter' socket, for power. Most of the models here are cordless, and while having to be plugged in can be annoying, the up-side is unlimited battery power. The dust cup is generously size, and particularly useful for car cleaning is the 1.5m flexi-hose – this lets you get into all the nooks, crannies, cup-holders and footwells.

There are some downsides though. There's a single level of suction, and it's not especially powerful. It'll pick up light debris but anything more challenging will require several passes and some perseverance. If you want something for ground-in dirt and pet hair, this won't cut it, either. Our tester found the design a little clunky, too – in particular the side-mounted bin-emptying mechanism.

Overall, this is a handy car vac for those who need something that’s budget-friendly and suitable for small, light cleaning tasks. If you need something more heavy duty you should look elsewhere.

Read our full Black and Decker Dustbuster Flexi Auto review

The best lightweight car vacuum

If you just want something very lightweight and streamlined for small car cleanup jobs, the Shark WandVac (called the Shark Cordless Handheld Vacuum in the UK) should do the trick. Shark also sells a version of this mini-vac that has a long wand and floorhead – if you want that extra versatility, look for the Shark WandVac System (that's the version we tested; the actual vacuum part is the same on both).

The benefit of this vacuum is that, like the Eufy at #2, it's streamlined and lightweight. Our tester commented on how comfortable it was to hold and clean with. The more compact design is easier to get into tight corners like underneath the seats, when compared to bulkier car vacs like the other Shark model at #1. It's also nice and easy to empty, and the suction is good too.

It's not perfect, though. The battery life is really very short, and the dust cup is small too. It's also a fair bit pricier than many of the models here, including the Ultracyclone at #1. If compactness is key, though, it's still a strong pick.

Read our full Shark Wandvac system review

The best car vacuum: specs compared

How to choose the best car vacuum

If you're in the market for a car vacuum, there are a few things you should think about. One of the first questions could be – do you actually need one? If you own something like the Dyson V8, it can shape-shift into a form factor that can work very well to clean cars with and comes with all the power, bin size and additional tools of a fully-fledged vacuum cleaner for great performance. Of course, this comes at a considerably higher cost than a dedicated car vacuum and can be heavier too.

If you decide you do need something more dedicated, there are several things to bear in mind. One of the first is whether you want corded or cordless. Most car vacs these days do run on a rechargeable battery, so do consider the battery life in these situations. Be sure to check whether it has more than one suction level to understand what the battery life figure refers to.

If you are going for corded, make sure the cord is long enough to allow you to do the full car.

Next up, think about form factor, including weight and how comfortable it looks to hold. Can you imagine cleaning a whole car with it, and does it come with the necessary tools for your situation? Crevice tools are particularly useful for cleaning cars, but pet owners will want to look out for specific tools to tackle pet hair if possible.

You might also want to consider the bin size, to be sure it has a decent capacity for a full car clean – if the bin is too small you might have to stop to empty it halfway through. Speaking of which, consider how the bin opens on the car vac and if it looks like it can be emptied cleanly. There’s nothing worse than losing half of your bin’s contents onto the floor – or worse, on you – as you try to transfer to the bin.

How we test car vacuums

To find the best car vacuums, we test how well each model can clean up a range of dirt and debris from different areas of a car. We use the same kind of things you'll be cleaning too: crushed digestive biscuits for our finer dirt test, and oats for the larger one. We also carrying out 'real-world' testing over a period of time too. This includes general car clean-ups, observing the handling of pet hair, and finding out how well they can get into tight spaces, like door bins.

As well as evaluating each vacuum's cleaning performance, we also consider the other things that would be important when making a buying decision, including how long the battery lasts compared to the manufacturer’s claims (or how long the wire is, in the case of corded vacs), how loud it is in use and the usefulness of any included tools for different jobs.

We also consider the weight and ergonomics, to understand if people are going to be able to use it comfortably to clean the whole car and if the bin capacity it has will make that possible.

Lastly, we rate based on how easy it is to empty the vacuum cleanly, and how easy it is to keep clean, as well as general feedback on ease of use.

Read more on how we test vacuum cleaners.

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