Yes I do try to get as good as I can with the civic. I am getting as close as possible to 60 as I can with the amount of hypermiling I can tolerate, and that's 44 mpg - if I could get closer to 60 in an insight on autopilot then by all means I would. The reason why? I'm telling you, when you drive that much it's nice to not have to put so much effort into it all the time. I didn't buy a hybrid so that i could work harder at driving, I bought it to get better mpg for my commute. It works both ways, of course I do better when I'm paying attention to FE, but with that much driving it's just not fun to do the FE challenge all the time. My drive is mostly empty freeway without much terrain, some small humps and hills but that's it, mostly flat. So cruise costs me a couple mpg but if it makes an awful commute more tolerable then so be it. I want to use my car as a tool, I don't want it to rule my life.

In order for these cars to feel accessible to the general public, you have to realize that they are going to want regular cars and to drive them like regular cars. If you go tell people they can't drive it like a regular car then they won't want it. I am for everyone driving more fuel efficient vehicles, if they want to hypermile great, if they dont then still great - everyone get better mpg. If you start designing hybrids around the hypermile freaks and leave off all the features that make a car comfortable to drive, then the cars will remain what they are - freaks - and nobody will want them. If you put reasonable features in them so that people will want the cars then we can all benefit from the increased FE no matter what our driving style.

I am quite impressed by the HCH that way - they put a nice feature set in it, so it's not a stripped-down economy car. It's a nice car to drive and has all the essential features IMO, so I think they did a good job there. The Insight is a bit more hard core for economy, the looks have less universal appeal, and the size also restricts its applications. So perhaps it's more designed for the hardcore FE buff, but items like cruise should still be available if you ask me. It's as bitg as car as I need, but if the essential comfort features aren't there, then I'm not going to want to be in it for three hours a day.