I feel a Hybrid is not a electric car with a petrol engine when you need more range to go out of town but a Petrol car with an electric motor giving more power when needed or when going slow in traffic or driving around the local car park. As I stated my sons RAV4 Hybrid will only do full EV mode below 30kph (18mph). As others have stated a Prius gets 69MPG with the engine going 70% of the time because the electric engine is used when the petrol engine is at its most inefficient.

They suit where I live, 3 km's of 50kph zone to get out of the suburb and I am on a 80kph road with everyone doing about 90kph.

I would be much happier if Toyota etc. offered a plug in version for Australia. I don't understand why, maybe the invertor to charge the battery weighs too much for the benefit it will get.

I absolutely hate Diesel. I guess it is good for new cars but riding my bike I often smell that horrible smell and get covered in black soot from some older Diesel driving past, it seems as soon as they are out of warranty people get them serviced at other places than the dealership and they get tuned to make a lot of soot.

I also had my most expensive trip in a Diesel. Visited the UK in September 2006 to visit relatives and hired a Golf from Europe car at Heathrow. They said we upgraded you to a Seat Diesel which will save you some money, it went fine but when I got back to Heathrow the closest petrol stations were out of diesel, I drove around and no Diesel anywhere just nice good old Petrol. I went back to Europe car and was told I had to return it full and gave me the addresses for a few more petrol stations, still no Diesel. I ended up going back and saying there is nothing I can do but put petrol in it which I guess you would not be happy with, the grumpy guy said well we have heaps but we charge a filling fee, I said well just fill it up and I will pay as I have a plane to catch, he said we will do it later and charge your credit card bill. When I got home no letters from Europe car, no e-mails but my next credit card bill had a charge from them for $513AUD. I have no idea what their per litre rate was but the exchange rate was 2.48 so a bit over 200 UK Pounds. Even with todays high prices I have not put in over $100AUD. So much for the free upgrade saving me money.