Also, you're used to seeing highway numbers much higher than the city numbers, Compaq, so the relative comparison may be misleading. Maybe a better question would be: why is the city number so high?
It's just a matter of time before a plug-in retrofit is available for this car. I'll consider that a significant milestone, because it will essentially be the first "mainstream" family sedan with a plug-in (low/medium speed) electric range in the NA market.
And an interesting comparison to the Canadian market: the Prius has never sold nearly as well here as in the US, but sales of the Camry hybrid here represent "almost 28%" of all Camry sales, a much higher proportion than the US market.
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/a.../01/c9342.html