In a wild and far off place called Europe, most of the vehicles are run off a magical potion called diesel. While the diesel of yore was smelly, worked poorly in cold climates and mostly used on large trucks, the people of Euroland have remedied this over the last 30 years, to create refined products some of which get over 100MPG with careful driving. In fact, almost every car in Europe is available as a diesel version which get 30% or better fuel mileage and come with the small downside of slightly less HP, but the huge upside of loads more torque.
And now the icing on the cake... BMW which started exporting the 335d (diesel version) to the US last year has come out with a smaller engined 320d capable of (drum roll)69+MPG. Even with normal driving, this means that the BMW is getting mileage significantly better than the 45-55MPG attained by a Prius or the new Honda Insight.
Not that I have anything against the Insight or the Prius, but if MPG was my motivator, and I had a little extra money I'd take the BMW. In Black.
As of Aug-26-2009 BMW has announced that the 320d is not for American tastes. I beg to differ.
With the BMW, you could skip the pansy connotations of le Prius.
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