• Pros

• Gets 44 MPG both city and highway compared to 25 city/26 highway MPG for the conventional Civic.
• Display shows long-term MPG, which is good to see -- and displays instantaneous MPG, which improves your personal driving habits.

• Cons

• Spartan interior. Feels like its 1992 again.
• Not sure we'd spend the extra nearly $5,000 to get the hybrid, considering the increased complexity, which is going to mean more costly repairs down the road.
• Annoying feature that would deter us from buying it: The instant you take the foot off the brake pedal from a stop, the engine starts. It creates an annoying rumble during start-up.
• Cannot "creep" with the car, which is quite annoying when you find yourself stuck in traffic. The engine starts and stops frequently, which forces you to change the way you drive to stop this from happening. The Prius doesn't do this -- it just creeps along on electric power.
• Kind of noisy on the highway
• Lousy rear visibility and, unlike other cars in this category, a backup camera is not even available as an option.
• Poor handling due to the lightweight of the vehicle.
• A sense of vulnerability due to the light weight, however the Civic feels especially vulnerable. You will feel less vulnerable, if you do predominantly city driving.
• Cheesy interior finish with flimsy interior construction. For example, when raising the window, the inner door panel bulges outward as the window nears the top of the doorframe.

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