My informant who drives a VW diesel tells me his hired Prius (not plug in) revved so hard when the battery was low that it used 7L per 100km. He's told everybody they're only suitable for around town. Of course if the Hyundai Elantra LPG hybrid could use CNG instead and also plug in we might get the best of all worlds. Dunno if the minimum wage worker in Gosford who works night shift in the Sydney CBD wants to pay that sort of money though. Which is the top priority for long distance commuters..solar hot water, fuel miser car, moving closer or local job that pays less?

Boof, when I lived in Gosford and worked Night Shift in Sydney, I took the train...

(Also it's much easier to catch a few hours of kip than you can while driving up the F3!)

Don't know why anyone would think a Prius isn't a superb highway car, unless by highway you mean Autobahn and expect to cruise at 180km/hr. That it won't do. At 55 miles/hour I get 55 miles/US gallon (4.3l/100km) or better. My last long trip I averaged 61 (3.9), aided by the road construction keeping the speeds down. The small engine operates very efficiently at the power level required for reasonable highway speeds, plus with with small engine that need not actually run just to creep along, it does very well in congested highway traffic (which is plenty common, after all) and in the city. It's a very nice, comfortable highway cruiser for long trips.