About that Prius at 80mph

....I saw in the paper that going from 77F to 20F reduces, on average, the fuel efficiency of standard vehicles by about 12%, but hybrid car fuel efficiency drops by about 34%.  The reason for this is simple; you cannot get as much current out of a cold battery as you can from a warm one, which is also why it's always cold when your battery fails  This means, of course, that the Prius that passed me going about 80mph on a 10F day was getting not about 40mpg, but rather about 25mpg.

Which is about what the Buick Regal I was loaned a couple of months back got in similar conditions, just without the fun of 265hp or any sense of "style". In other words, hybrids and electric cars really make no sense north of the Mason-Dixon line at all, and they really ought to have a "winter" rating for mileage and range to go along with the summer ratings.