When people make arguments that they don't make economic sense, usually they omit the fact that oil and gasoline will rise in price due to the nature of a limited supply and growing demand. There is no avoiding it on a global scale, even if we can stop our growth in consumption (yeah right) the rest of the world will still have growth, especially as poor countries adopt our old technology. Each year as the price of gas rises there will be larger and larger 'savings' over the non-hybrid choice and this is rarely taken into account, you'll see stuff like "at $2.50 a gallon..." which totally ignores the fact that each year the price will rise from here on. This isn't related to nominal inflation of goods and services, although it probably will 'fuel' further inflation, it's not rising because of inflation.

2001 Prius Photos       2005 Prius Photos
1992 Mitsubishi Delica Diesel-WVO Hybrid Photos