Re: the Prius

In 1992 I bought a Honda Civic VX which got about 60 mpg commuting. No electric motors, no big battery, just a clever engine design with 3 valves per cylinder, and a pre-combustion chamber that burned rich, with a main charge that was able to burn lean via this arrangement. It also would shut down one cylinder when coasting. This was better mileage than the Prius, with not nearly so much to go wrong, and you didn't need an instrument to tell you how to drive it. I lived in Massachusetts then.
In 2002, the state effectively outlawed these cars by defining them to be uninspectable. The 3-cylinder ploy crashed their inspection computers, so they could neither pass nor fail this car, and there was no way except via bribery to get the required inspection sticker. So much for progress. Just one of may reasons why I now live in Maine.
MD