I agree with most all of your points. I understand that a 3 mpg gain means more the lower the base mpg is, and I understand that there aren't any 339 hp vehicles out there that get 24 mpg. I was talking about a car that would otherwise easily get 24 mpg without hybrid technology if it were reasonably powered, and now that it's super-powered it still gets 24 mpg. That's not a gain. The point is that getting 24 mpg in a passenger car is no environmental triumph, 340 hp or not.

From a big picrture standpoint, hybrids do not seem to be going in the direction of helping us consume less gas in total, they're giving us higher performance for the same fuel usage, which is not a fuel savings, it's a power gain. Not the same thing. This is not going to solve our energy crisis, it is just going to let us drive and accellerate faster without doing a thing to improve our situation.

Also, I don't believe there's anything magic about the hybrid as an emissions scrubber. X amount of gasoline burned in a hybrid ICE has relatively the same emissions as X amount of gas burned in a ICE without hybrid. You have to burn less gas to make less exhaust, or am I missing something? Getting more power for the same emissions is not going to eliminate any smog, it will just help us make smog faster.