Exactly! I actually did these calculations some time ago and have been fuming ever since. I was waiting to see if anyone else had pointed it out before, and, well, I never saw such a statement. Even among the hybrid faithful, the rebuttal seems more defensive than assertive ("Well, you know, regular cars don't do as good in the winter either...").

Oh, and by the way - I read somewhere that the 'new' EPA numbers will be, for the most part, an 'across-the-board' percentage reduction for all cars (ie more-or-less the same percentage for all cars, hybrid and non-hybrid). If that is true (and it seems reasonable to me), then the same calculations will show that hybrids look like an even better deal with the new numbers than the old. Keep that fact handy when the naysayers start in on you.