Your point is well taken.

I put about 40,000 miles on a car a year.
up till now i have stayed with japanese gas cars, and usualy get 250,000 miles out of them before i give them up for another one.

now i'm in shopping mode again. and for me, its very much a practical question/decision, and it all comes down to money.

lets face it, i wouln't be posting here if gas mileage did not matter. I admit, i'm hard on a car. rush hour traffic, two mountians to go over each way, and on the highways the traffic rarely goes below 80. my daily experience is probably not that unresonable for a commuter. id probably never see 50 mpg even on a car that could usualy get it. I usualy run 30-35% below the mileage i can get by going 55 on long flat drives.

I would be saving around 3,000 a year if i could get to the real world 50 mpg range.

my worries are reliability over the long haul. maintenance costs, fuel costs, cost of the car itself, and although i'm not looking for a speed deamon by any strech of the imagination, power when i need it is imortant.

I agree about the low sulfer and emissions, that is not here yet, or at least not wide spread (many new deisel trucks now require it, but who wants to re-fuel at a truckstop) but the partiulate filters being used in europe and in the usa on busses show promise.

but i'm digressing.
i'm leaning twards deisel mostly because i feel that the long term reliability is there. I dont think either has an advantage or disavantage from a mileage standpoint. unless we start comparing specific models, i think both diesel and hybrid are cabable of very good mileage compared to comperable gas cars.

i guess if the mileage with a hybrid was double over diesel, i wouldn't be having the conversation at all, id be driving a hybrid.

for me its all about the $ i spend between maintenance,car payments, and fuel each year.