Originally Posted by kristian

I think that is arguably true. The Prius has a bigger battery and the electric motor is about 3 times more powerful than the Civic's which means it can propel the car without using any gas. The Civic uses the electric motor to improve accelleration, but it really can't motivate the car by itself. That being said, the gas engine (ICE) on the Civic is far "superior" to the Prius'. That is essentially the reason behind what Delta Flyer posted. Once you get the Civic up to speed, it rocks. However, it is only very good (relative to a normal gas car) in stop and go driving whereas the Prius is "great".

Your husband's commute sounds like my wife's. It is long enough for the car to warm up and operate efficiently, but the stop and go doesn't allow for exceptional milage. She drives the HCH as if it were a normal car and gets about 40mpg on the commute. If I hypermile (which she doesn't have the patience for), I can eek out about 45mpg on the same drive. For reference, she was getting about 28mpg in her old Protoge so the hybrid is still a big improvement.