Was browsing the Honda UK site and noticed that their Civic Hybrid is much better equipped than ours and much cheaper than the Prius. It has foglights, leather seats, leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob, heated front seats, rear cupholders, rear centre armrest, height adjustable driver's seat and CD with RDS and front-seat side airbags (I think it's std in US?). Optional is a DVD sat nav. A 5-spd manual is the only option. Max speed is 111mph with 0-60 in 12.8 secs. It runs on the Acura EL alloy wheels (195/60R15 spec). It costs around £14,000 while a base Prius T3 starts around £17,500 and tops out around £20,000
A comparison: http://autos.msn.com/research/compare/defa...00109&v=t100141 The Prius has more rear seat room and better gas mileage. I do not think the Civic would be eligible for 'car pool' exemption.
Interesting -- the price difference in the US is not as extreme as the U.K., apparently. Since I bought the Prius over the HCH for engineering reasons (I think the HSD is too d*mn cool), my judgement of which is better is clouded by that. However, if they had both had HSD, I probably would have gotten the Prius because it's a hatchback.
