According to Consumer Reports, “the Prius is one of the best values you can buy,” and although the Prius “doesn’t have the least expensive sticker price in its class, . . . its excellent fuel economy of 42 mpg overall and solid resale value help give it a low owner cost.”

Furthermore, a study by Carnegie Mellon University finds that “General Motors Corp.’s Volt electric car may be too expensive to buy and operate to displace Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius hybrid as the industry benchmark for cutting fuel use and cutting carbon exhaust.”

However, GM defends the Volt, asserting that the “baseline cost of the lithium-ion batteries used by the Volt” will not be as expensive as the study claims.

Meanwhile, Toyota is testing plug-in hybrid versions of the Prius in Europe, and this “testing phase is a lead-in to the release of a lithium-ion battery-powered pure electric vehicle to be offered in Europe in 2012.”

It will be interesting to see how the market responds to the Prius plug-in and the Volt.

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