>>>>>>>>Too bad they can't make a hybrid (or any other high MPG vehicle) that competes with Toyota or Honda.
>>>>>
>>>>>Prius came my country last year. Sorry but it's so ugly car. Honda Civic hybrid we selling there from years. It's a more beatiful car.
>>>>
>>>>I got used to its look. First it looked like a tennis shoe to me. But then I liked the concept - this is not a hybrid car pretending to look like a regular car (as in case of the Civic), but a computer with engines and wheels, which proudly refuses to imitate a regular car. It's a car with an OS, no less.
>>>>
>>>>But it's still too expensive. I briefly considered it last time I was buying a car, and 1) there were hardly any used* ones for sale, 2) the ones that were, were about 50% above the price I eventually paid for a Matrix.
>>>
>>>I paid about 23K out the door for my Prius II new last summer. The gas savings make it a much better deal for me than a $5k less vehicle that gets 33% less MPG - I put a lot of miles on my cars.
>>
>>Interesting. The base Prius here is about £21K - which would equate to around $33.5K
>>A friend of mine had one. I liked it but couldn't justify it on economic grounds.
>>I bought a little 1100cc car that is surprisingly nippy and fun to drive, cost under £6K, and is supposed to achieve 65mpg.
>>Could have bought five of them for the price of a Prius......
>
>Most people I speak to around here seem to think the Prius is expensive until I tell them the actual price. List prices start at about $21.5K USD IIRC. Of course, when gas prices spike, dealers have a habit of tacking on a premium $$ because suddenly the supply dries up.

I read somewhere that Toyota are actually losing about $10k on every car they sell. The gov here have recently anounced a £5k 'grant' towards the cost of buying any 'all-electric' car. But that still means something like the Nissan Leaf will cost £24K. Given that there's a pretty wide choice of economical cars for around £10k the remaining £14k buys a hell of a lot of fuel.