We liked the 35 miles per gallon of gas the Altima hybrid got in the city, and we liked the 33 MPG it got on the highway. Just in case you think I wrote these MPG figures down in reverse, because you recall that highway miles per gallon have generally exceeded city MPG, remember that when you're in a hybrid like this Nissan Altima your start and stop city driving results in energy being captured from braking.

We really liked the safety provided by steel "pipe-style" side-door guard beams that augment protection from roof-mounted side-impact curtain air bags.

The blond interior of the red brick Altima hybrid we test drove featured cloth seat trim and contoured reclining front bucket seats. For younger family members, the back seat features child safety rear door locks, as well as lower anchors and tethers for children (LATCH), and a tire pressure monitoring system.

We also found to be helpful the "RearView" camera with trajectory indicator that allowed us avoid getting smacked by passing vehicles while backing out and also helped us to avoid smacking ourselves into recycling bins and other objects behind us.

And we remain extremely happy about mapping systems that provide real-time traffic updates, as the XM NavTraffic data does in the Nissan Altima hybrid. Our feeling is that by helping drivers to make routing decision that avoid freeway gridlock, we'll burn less gas idling away in bumper- to-bumper traffic.