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The plug-in version has an electric range of 12 miles, but careful driving will get you more. I could get to work on electric alone.

http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/bv/frame_start.jsp?id=CC2-Prius-Plug-landing

Protip: Google before making a prat of yourself.

Hybrid Diesel:

Interesting, hadn't seen that. Sounds like it should get great mileage (and mediocre performance). But it kind of bears out my point - it is listed at £33,000 for the hybrid version (£23,000 in the article text refers to the base price of the DS5). Compare that to a Prius, which retails for about £22,000 according to Toyota.co.uk. Obviously the price difference isn't all up to diesel vs. gas, but it is a significant expense.

Then you would be impressed with Toyota's Hilux. (PDF).

32 highway, 23 city, 28 combined. Not sure what the '3/4 ton' refers to but, it can both tow and carry that. 1500 lbs = 680. kg, all of which it can handle without a problem.

Okay folks lets get it straight. The US isn't the only one that still doesn't use the metric system for everything.
http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/bv/generic_editorial.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0174202331.1222276069@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdadeffffejeicfngcfkmdfkidfgh.0&deepLink=YA3_Specification_new&nodiv=TRUE&fullwidth=TRUE&edname=specSheet_YA3&carModel=Yaris&imgName=bv/CarChapter/YA3/Imagery/YA3_spec.jpg&zone=Zone%20YARIS
Here is a link to a Japanese car company selling a car in the UK.
They give the fuel economy in MPG as well as KM per liter.
Drives me crazy when I get UK motor cycle mag. The give the fuel economy in MPG and the fuel tank size in Liters!

My compact MPV (Toyota Corolla Verso) drinks 6.1L (diesel) per 100 km, and still has room for strapping in 3 child seat across the back seat and plenty of torque for hauling trailers. On the other hand I only need to commute 30 km, so.... 4 cylinders isn't the end of the world.

I have a Toyota Corolla Verso, a seven-seater compact MPV which quite happily fits me, my wife and our four children. I don't know which children's seat you've got installed in your car, but we've got a Jané Indy Plus for our youngest, and it can hardly be considered small. It takes up one seat.

The only thing I can imagine is that you've got some kind of enormous cages for you cats. Seriously. My car can fit five adults and two children, and it's not much bigger than a hatchback. I find it incomprehensible that you can possibly require a SUV for your small family. It sounds to me as if you'd be much better served with an MPV or a compact MPV, or maybe an estate car. They all have loads of space, and your small child will find it much easier to climb in and out of.

The difference between the UK and the US on this is that although there may be times that it would be useful to have a big vehicle for hauling things around, it would be a complete and utter pain in the arse the rest of the time.

The UK has a population density of 250 people per square kilometre compared to 32 in the US, and most of our city centres are many hundereds of years old, which basically means that our streets are quite a bit thinner than yours and there's more cars on 'em. Many people in cities (including
myself) don't have off-street parking so it's a case of trying to find a space on the street fairly close to your house.

That coupled with a road tax related to engine size and petrol (sorry, gas) costing close to $6/gallon means that people just don't buy the behemoths that you see on US roads. The closest it tends to get are large 4x4s like these ones that would be dwarfed by your American SUVs.

I've got a Toyota Corolla Verso, which has up to seven seats to fit my family of six, and yet is only 14 feet long and has a 1.8 litre engine. If need to haul stuff, I can put all the seats down which creates quite a large space in the back. If I need to haul something really big, I'll just hire a van. Sure, it'd be nice not to have to do that, but have something big for everyday driving? In London? Forget about it!

I'm not aware of any "normal" 2WD vehicle on sale in the UK which would get 22mpg, even given the 1US gallon = 0.8 UK gallons conversion.

I don't know a lot about cars sold in the UK (I live in Denmark), but I went to Toyota's British website and picked out a random car (Avensis Hatchback 5 door). They range from 5.8 l/100 km to 9.5 l/100 km. According to Google Calculator that corresponds to a range of 25 mpg to 40 mpg. I'm sure that there are other cars in the UK, even "normal" ones, with better fuel economy than that.

I'm glad you like the Italian Job and minis in general. My brother is a mini fanatic. Anyway, the new minis actually use a Toyota engine, the same ones as are used in the Toyota Yaris. AFAIK BMW isn't developing hybrid engines but clearly Toyota is. So, it shouldn't be too long before they add one to the mini although there are factors like space for the battery which could be a problem in a small car like the Mini.

As a fan of Diesels, I'm looking forward to more availability of Bio-Diesel and a Hybrid Diesel which I believe Ford are developing. A few years ago I read an intresting article in Computer Shopper about how Hybrid cars are more efficient than an all electric vehicle. This is not only due to the fact that most of our electricity comes from fossil fuels but also the inefficent distribution system. It came with convincing figures, but unfotunatelly its not available on the net.