Saturn's line-up easily meets your criterion of "anything remotely comparable."
Only for very remote values of remotely comparable, and accepting a huge penalty in the MPG department.
Might want to take a look at the total manufacturing energy footprint of a Prius, too. They're complex machines that soak up a lot more energy to manufacture, and have some rather nasty impacts when they've reached the end of their lives, too, with their battery packs.
The batteries aren't going to end up in the landfill, they get recycled. Surely worthwhile to reclaim all that nickel anyway. These are NiMH, not lead-acid batteries.
By now I'm sure you've learned that the EPA gas mileage figures are quite overstated because the gasoline motor shuts down during idle and braking. The old EPA test regime did not recognize that, and counted the downtime as free mileage.
Shutting down during idle and braking does save gas, especially in stop-and-go driving. It also cuts down enormously on pollution under those conditions, since gas engines often burn quite dirty at idle.
Maybe it doesn't save quite as much as the old Prius EPA figures claimed though. But we do live in the mountains, so our mileage always does vary.
Oddly enough, we come in within 1 MPG of the EPA figure on the Escape Hybrid, which is the closest we have gotten on any vehicle here.
You would think it would suffer from the same overstatement, if not worse, due to having the aerodynamics of a brick.
Meanwhile it seems more than a bit odd that the US government gives $3150 tax credits to buyers of Toyotas. GM workers coughing up tax cash to subsidize Prius drivers seems the heart of irony to me.
If GM had continued to build the EV-1, and had built upon that technology, they would be getting those subsidies too.
Instead, they sent all the EV-1s to the crusher.
:cry::grr::cry::grr::cry::grr::cry::grr::cry::grr::cry::grr::cry:
I'm not trying to be hard on you, just providing some counterpoint. If that picture in your post is your Ford Escape, then you have already shown strong cred with me.
It is. Traded in a RAV4 for it -- the Escape is bigger, more comfortable, and gives us around 29 mpg (it is the Escape HYBRID) compared to around 22 for the RAV4.
BTW, if you are lamenting the demise of the Del Sol, take a look at the Pontiac Solstice. Wow.
But my Del Sol gets almost 40 mpg. Does any other 2-seater convertible come even close to that?
Well there is one that doesn't burn any gas at all. An American company too. Very tempting!
http://www.teslamotors.com