"Although I am unimpressed with most modern hybrids as survival vehicles, the concept isn't wrong. If car ocmpanys would make them for reasons other than milage I would be impressed. For example, a properly designed hybrid could be great off road, using the gas engine for a generator and utilizing the high torque of the electric. That said, I want a little bit more flexibility than is offered by a Prius or Civic."

"I'm sorry, but if humanity has come to an end and I'm likely to die in the near future, I'm not banking all of my hopes on a Prius. As for being quieter, they're not that quiet than their full gas counterparts, and the performance loss is staggering. Plus, fuel economy isn't going to be that important once there aren't any cars to use the gas, and a Prius won't get very good gas mileage anyway. A Prius uses regenerative braking to capture kinetic energy that is otherwise lost during braking. Thus, you recharge the batteries when you hit the brakes, and in a post apocalypse commute you probably won't need the brakes very often. So, on the highway and such the Prius isn't really a hybrid at all, it's just a really heavy compact with a really underpowered engine."

"Ugh, you're explanation has a few holes in it. First off, the Prius doesn't have an advantage on the highway. The Prius uses regenerative braking to recharge its batteries. Actually, acceleration is not that much of a horrific problem for the Prius if it has a charge in the batteries, then it can use the electric motors and the gas engine for acceleration.
The thing is, if you have to drive a Prius hard, the mileage is terrible. On the show Top Gear, they drove a Prius flat out around their track, and had a new, V8 BMW M3 follow it. Because the M3 was barely idling along and the Prius was using every bit of its enigne's potential, the M3 got better mileage around the track than the Prius. So a Prius's gains may not be that great, and the drawbacks are just unforgiveable."