Consumer Reports doesn't love the new Prius C
 

<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MV_IL4mMmLo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The dashboard is horrible looking, I couldn't spend more than a minute driving that thing.

Isn't it just a Yaris hybrid? The best hybrids seem to start as hybrids, as opposed to conversion of existing gas cars.

It is a Yaris.

The most popular hybrids look different, so you can wear your environmentalism on your sleeve.

It's a Yaris platform, but not a Yaris. Different sheetmetal, interior, and powertrain, but other than that....

My wife had been thinking about the Prius C when it was first announced, but a Yaris platform hybrid doesn't sound interesting at all.

Exactly. A bottom-of-the-line hybrid, at that. The Yaris is the econobox of econoboxes. A friend of mine bought one and we took a ride in it. I offered to drive every time after that.

El cheapo has been taken to a new level with this car.

And what's with the center display?

Comical looking scene: Near the 20 second mark, the perspective of a dinky toy car driving past the Armco. I wonder what the lifecycle of them will be and perhaps in just 7 years good for recycled park benches.

"Steering feedback is mostly dead, robbing this car of being fun to drive."

IT'S A TOYOTA! What, did they expect them to build it with some soul?

I checked one out on the street. Didn't look too bad, my reaction was more "hmm, cute" than "ick, food stamps". Can't expect it to be a baby Lexus. No idea how it drives. Seems to me that - conceptually - the smaller the car gets, the less benefit you get from making it a hybrid since the conventional version is already very fuel-miserly. 35 is a big percentage improvement over 25, 45 is less of a percentage improvement over 35, 55 is less over 45, etc. I'm more interested in seeing hybrid drive trains (and other high mpg technologies like clean diesel, stop-start, etc) applied to the biggest vehicles with the worst gas mileage. Minivans, commercial vehicles, class 8 trucks, etc.

And yet, when manufacturers have done just that they are completely ridiculed by the public. The Tahoe/Yukon/Escalade comes to mind, but there are several others.

You're right though

does Honda make a hybrid Fit?

or better yet... a hybrid version of a newly designed CRX...

umm... the CR-Zs are hybrids.

What's disturbing is how poorly their specs compare to the original Insight, which they seem to be following. I guess they probably had no intention of producing an aluminum chassis for long.

the CRZ does not seem to get the same props as the CRX got

I have not driven one tho - just word of mouth & magazine articles info