Quote from Joab:
Sold my Lexus and Hummer and happily driving a 2009 Prius.
Literally cut my gas bill by 2/3 's and loving it.
$150 per month vs $450 
Up your ass, Exxon and Bush !!!
Let's run down the economics of your purchase.
Toyota Prius: $24,000 (depending on options)
Ford Focus: $15,000 (again, depending on options)
Let's pretend we only drive the Prius on the highway, where it gets 48 MPG. Just to skew the test, let's pretend we only drive the Ford on back roads ... it gets 24MPG (35 MPG highway...)
Okay, so ... we have a $9,000 difference to make up.
100,000 miles / 48 MPG = 2083
100,000 miles / 24 MPG = 4166
(4166 - 2083) = 2083
Let's be insane and say that gas is $5 per gallon (because, well, it might get there).
Basically, you would have to drive your Prius 100,000 miles to make up the difference. And that was skewed against the Ford's 35 MPG highway...
And, oh, by the way, that doesn't even begin to make up for the risk you have from the electrocution you can suffer from the batteries if you get into a car accident with most hybrid cars. And on top of that, most people are walking away from their car's value because they are flipping 1 or 2 year old cars for a new hybrid -- which means they are basically writing off 1/3 of their old cars value.
Sure, the Prius may pay off much sooner than a car like the BMW 335i ... but you don't buy a bimmer for the gas mileage. If you were interested in actually being economical, you wouldn't buy a Prius either...