What's the best value hybrid car (including any tax offset) ?

How do you define value? Or would you prefer us to provide our own?

For example, a hybrid SUV isn’t going to get the best mileage, fastest acceleration, smallest size, lowest price, or least pollution… but it’s capable of many things the “typical” hybrid is not.

Please provide your own. I’m interested in a 4 door sedan.

Not a hybrid owner myself… but I like cars.

For a while there, I was worried that hybrids were a bit of a scam in that they cost more than you could recoup from gas savings, relied on untested technology, and employed some questionable materials that had a substantially more negative impact on the environment than the typical non-hybrid vehicle.

Then I read this article on David Pogue’s technology blog on the NYT where a software engineer provided clear argument debunking many of my concerns.

Cool! At that point, I was actually a bit of a fan of Toyota’s Prius seeing as it makes fewer compromises in some key areas… and has that legendary Toyota build quality and resale value.

Honda now has a couple of offerings. The all-new second-generation Insight has garnered some good reviews. To me it looks identical to a Prius (boo! how ‘bout some creativity, guys?!?) but costs less. Honda also is fielding an all-new Civic Hybrid that has reviewed well, too.

The same reviewer I linked for the Hondas above has also recently announced that he believes the 2010 Ford Fusion is the best gas-electric hybrid yet. That well may be. I hope it is. But I can’t imagine buying a Ford anything right now.

One of my car magazines just compared full-hybrids and chose the 2010 Ford Fusion. I went to look and it was April’s Car and Driver.