The way some automakers see it, the best application for hybrid technology is in humungous great trucks.

Improving the fuel economy of a gas-guzzler by 25 per cent, they argue, will leave more crude oil in the ground, and keep more CO₂ out of the air, than similarly improving the economy of a car that’s already fuel-efficient.

Up to a point, that makes sense. But here’s the problem: a 25-per cent less-greedy gas-hog is still a gas hog. Boosting fuel economy from, say, 17 mpg to 21 mpg won’t score many Greenie points when we could be driving non-hybrid cars that do 40 mpg or more.

To this, truck fans may reply that you won’t catch them driving their families around in bare-bones economy-car buzz-boxes, which is what most 40-mpg cars are.

OK, allow me to propose a compromise. How about a quick, refined, well-equipped midsize sedan that can do 40 mpg?

That’s the proposition we’re here to examine. Three hybrid sedans from GM, Nissan and Toyota that promise subcompact fuel economy with all the room, zoom, comfort and convenience that anyone can reasonably expect for under $35,000. Promise kept?

The players

At an MSRP of $27,575 the Saturn Aura Green Line is the bargain here, and for good reason. This is a mild hybrid. The philosophy: modest gain at the pumps in exchange for modest pain in the payments.

Aura’s 2.4-litre “four” and four-speed autobox are essentially the same as in the base Aura XE’s. Fuel is saved primarily by shutting off the fuel when decelerating or stopped in traffic.

A Belt Alternator Starter (BAS) replaces both the conventional alternator and starter motor. Its role is threefold: automatically restart the engine when the driver’s foot comes off the brake; assist the gas engine under hard acceleration; recharge the hybrid battery pack under deceleration. At no time, however, does the Aura travel on electric power alone.

At the other extreme we have the Toyota Camry ($32,000) and Nissan Altima ($33,998). Their full-hybrid systems have much in common, not least because Nissan uses Toyota’s proven hardware under licence: same NiMH battery packs; same electric motor/generators.

Like the Aura, both shut down the engines when stopped in traffic. Unlike Aura, they both can run on battery power alone for brief but useful periods at urban speeds. Under hard acceleration, their batteries also assist the gasoline engines to a significant degree.

Hybrid hardware apart, Nissan uses its own 158-hp, 2.5-litre four-cylinder engine, as distinct from Toyota’s 147-hp, 2.4-litre unit, and its own version of a continuously variable transmission (CVT). Nissan also programmed the electronics that constantly optimize the sharing of propulsive and recharging duties between the gas engine and electric motor/generator.

Even the bargain-priced Aura is not spartanly equipped. Standard features include ABS and stability control, automatic climate control (ACC), cruise, power windows and heated mirrors, alloy wheels, keyless entry, trip computer and power seat-height adjustment.

Additional or upgraded features on the Altima include eight-way power driver’s seat, dual-zone ACC, push-button starter, seat heaters and wheel-mounted audio controls.

Surprisingly, the $2,000-cheaper Camry appears to have everything the Altima has, and more; it’s the only car here with a 6-disc CD changer, for example.

At the track

No surprises on the Toronto Motorsports Park drag strip. While the Saturn’s 164-hp gas engine is marginally the most powerful it gets minimal assistance from the batteries. It's also burdened with a four-speed transmission geared more for fuel economy than sprinting. Bottom line: 0-100 km/h in a leisurely 10.8 seconds.

That’s a full two seconds slower than the Camry’s 8.8-second time for the benchmark sprint. For a four-cylinder midsize sedan the Camry is commendably quick; for one that’s also so fuel-efficient, it’s almost miraculous.

Yet the Altima — lighter than the Camry as well as more powerful — is quicker still, stopping the watch at 8.1 seconds to 100.

The rankings get re-arranged when it comes to getting back down from 100 in a hurry. The Michelin-shod Camry’s creditable 41.1-metre performance trumped those of the other two, which were a virtual wash at a mediocre 45 metres and change.

At the pumps

According to official government figures, the Aura is good for a combined city/highway 7.5 L/100 km. That’s only 8.5-per cent more frugal than the Aura XE’s 8.2 L/100 km. And it’s nowhere close to the 5.7 L/100 km credited to both the Japanese cars.

But at least in our real-world driving — 800 kilometres of mostly convoy driving, including, it should be noted, the thirsty work of performance testing — the Aura came closest to the government figures: 8.6 L/100 km.

As for the other two, the question is this: is the tank half full, or half empty? The half-empty viewpoint would see only the large discrepancy between their official 5.7 L/100, and the Camry’s actual 6.9 and the Altima’s 7.1. According to the half-full perspective, however, these are still outstanding achievements for cars of their size and speed.

On the road

If their official results are identical, why was the Altima a tad thirstier in our testing? Perhaps because its performance is much easier to access. Where the Camry’s throttle tip-in is gentle and demands an assertive right foot to extract brisk acceleration, the Altima responds strongly to small throttle openings. Some even called it jumpy. Its eagerness to get going, however, certainly makes it a sportier drive.

Sportier, but also less refined. Under a light right foot, the Camry’s gas engine is so muted — and its start-ups so seamless — that often you’re not sure it’s running. The Altima is far from rough, but the slight shunt when the gas engine kicks in, and the more noticeable buzz thereafter, leave no room for such confusion.

Then again, the Altima engine sounds happier at maximum effort than the Camry’s, which takes on a strained, wheezing note.

Even more impressive than the 0-100 times of the full hybrids is their part-throttle passing power. “An effortless swell of torque that elevates your speed like a turbo coming on boost,” one driver called it.

The Aura tries gamely. Its transmission is tuned to stay in the higher gears, but if you do provoke kickdown it lets the engine spin all the way out to 7,000 rpm before the upshift. The engine sounds happy doing it, too, even if the effects of its exertions are hardly neck-snapping.

But even driven gently the engine is never really subdued, and the four-cylinder rasp seems out of place in a car that otherwise has a substantial, mature feel. The engine stop/start function, however, is barely perceptible.

Turning to their chassis dynamics, all three share the same handicaps: tires constructed more for low rolling resistance than high cornering grip, and electric power steering. The latter is a proven fuel-saver, but on-centre precision and crisp responses are not among its core assets.

In the Camry, couch-potato chassis tuning prioritizes a plush, quiet rolling feel at the expense of handling tautness, of which there is little. Yet like many cars that skim softly over smooth or lightly scarred surfaces, its body motions become disproportionately more turbulent as bumps get bigger.

Stodgy steering and modest grip also characterize the other cars, but at least their suspensions have some muscle tone. “Sure-footed and planted, linear steering,” is how one comment described the Aura’s cornering comportment, then adding, “but not quite agile enough to be fun.”

The opposite is true of the Nissan. It seems to shrink around you, its nimbleness reinforced by a quick steering ratio. Possessing marginally more grip than the other two, and a firm but less flinty ride than the Saturn, the Nissan’s suspension is the best dialed in.

Under braking there is less regenerative being done in the Aura, and its pedal feel is consequently more “normal” than the other cars’. And it doesn’t whine in regen-braking mode the way the Japanese cars do.

At the wheel

Tilt-and-telescope steering is present on all three cars, and the Japanese pair also have eight-way power seats.

The Aura’s power adjustability, however, is limited to seat height, but not tilt, which for this driver enforced a low seating position to obtain adequate thigh support. That in turn exacerbated the view-blocking propensity of the Aura’s thick A-posts. The seat itself is comfy enough, however, and we had no particular ergonomic concerns.

Aura’s instrumentation is conventional, apart from an ECO symbol that lights up when the powertrain is running at its most fuel-efficient. There’s also a trip computer that includes a real-time fuel-consumption display.

At-the-wheel comfort should be easy to find for most body types in the other cars, yet the Nissan’s more useful range of adjustment was unequivocally preferred by at least two of our drivers. Credit the Nissan, too, for notably slender A-posts.

One driver castigated the Camry for poor under-buttock support. Another panned its meagre lateral bolsters.

Gauges in both cases are the crisp, glowing Optitronic kind. In addition to a trip computer and a battery state-of-charge gauge, the Altima replaces the tachometer with a large analogue dial showing power usage in kW. Is that helpful?

More useful would be real-time fuel consumption, like on the Camry’s analogue dial. Other Camry displays show state of charge, real-time energy flows between engine, battery and wheels, current-trip average L/100 km, and average L/100 since the last refuel. Annoyingly, the latter automatically resets only at each refuel; you can’t choose to reset it at any other time.

Cabin comforts

Although the Nissan’s back cabin has marginally less kneeroom, and the Aura’s is a bit narrower, these are all generously roomy five-seaters. My frame found the Nissan’s bench the most comfy, but there’s little wrong with the others.

But if you’re planning road vacations with the family, you’d better travel light or budget for a roof-top carrier. In hybrid sedans, the battery packs go where luggage otherwise could.

In the “mild” Aura the loss is limited to 1.8 cubic feet, which still leaves a useable 13.1. The Aura also preserves a full-width, albeit shallow, pass-through when 60/40 backrest is folded.

Nissan, however, doesn’t even bother with folded-seat access, and the pass-through in the Camry is so small you wonder why they did bother. Respective trunk volumes are 10.1 cubic feet (reduced from 13.1) for the Nissan and 10.6 (from 15.0) for the Toyota.

Conclusion

Now you want to know whether these cars can pay for themselves, don’t you? Sorry, there are too many imponderables. How high will the price of gas go? Depreciation? How do you separate the cost of the hybrid system from all the other luxury features packaged with it?

Take the Aura, for example. The Hybrid’s MSRP is $3,335 higher than its XE sibling’s. By the most simplistic analysis, that could take 24 years to pay for itself based on the NRC combined fuel-consumption, maybe 15 years if you do a lot of city driving.

But that ignores resale value, and assumes gasoline stays around $1/Litre. And what about the Hybrid’s extra features (automatic climate control, aluminum wheels, and StabiliTrak)? If those are things you’d want, knock maybe $1,500 off the “price” of the hybrid option.

Then there’s the whole issue of government incentives. The full hybrids qualify for a federal $1,500 rebate apiece, but the Aura gets none. In some provinces, however, all three qualify for a sales-tax refund ranging between $1,000 and $3,000. So, where do you live?

Let’s just leave it at this. The Aura costs thousands less than the full hybrids. Its simplicity also raises fewer concerns about long-term maintenance costs. But at a typical 20,000 km per annum and $1 per litre, it’ll cost you annually $300 more than the full hybrids to keep it fuelled. And its performance lags a long way behind.

For almost $2,000 less than the Nissan, with slightly better fuel economy plus Toyota reliability, the Camry has to be the left-brain choice between the other two. If, that is, if you can tolerate, or even prefer, a driving experience that one of our crew summarized as, “La-Z-Boy of the bunch… mushy suspension and seat limit spirited driving better than any legislation ever could.”

Us? We’d head for the Nissan store and tell the salesman we want to buy an Altima Hybrid. But, no way will we pay $2,000 more for it than for the equivalent Camry.

Let the dickering begin.

PULL QUOTES

“modest gain at the pumps, modest pain in the payments”

“Its eagerness to get going certainly makes it a sportier drive”

“you’d better travel light, or budget for a roof-top carrier”

PERFORMANCE