If I did primarily city driving, I would own a hybrid in a heartbeat. However, in the rural/highway driving that I do, there isn't enough of a fuel savings to make up the price premium on the hybrid. There are a lot of new gas cars that get close to 40 mpg highway that are fairly inexpensive (my folks have a Ford Fiesta that they bought for $16k that averages 42 mpg).
As for SUVs, my '09 Forester is full time AWD and about the size of an Escape and I average 28-30 mpg.
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