Last week, a team of Ford engineers, hypermiler Wayne Gerdes, and NASCAR driver Carl Edwards pushed a new 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid to its fuel economy limit, racking up 81.5 mpg–and $8000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

The foursome traveled over 1400 miles of highway and city streets in the greater (much greater) Washington, DC, area in about 48 hours. The Ford Fusion, a full hybrid, is rated at 41 mpg city, 36 mpg highway, and can get 700 miles on a tank of gas. This team, with careful driving but no modifications, doubled that.

I’ve been in the new Fusion hybrid for a short jaunt, and I was impressed with its capabilities as a gas-sipper and a comfortable sedan in the little time I had with the car. With the right drivers and a good-gas goal, it seems to be capable of more than I suspected, though real-life numbers are likely to be closer to the EPA estimates.

Image of the team breaking the seal on the gas tank at the end of their 1447-mile run on a single tank courtesy of Ford.

The brand-new Honda Insight is a big improvement, design-wise, over its predecessor. Granted, the aerodynamic shape has become familiar to us by now, thanks to the original Insight (with its covered wheels) and the uber-popular Toytoa Prius. But it’s got some moves of its own worth noting.

First is the informative dash. How do you want your information? Honda allows the driver to select what kind of input he receives, from current average miles per gallon to fuel economy for the last few trips. A glowing backlight behind the heads-up speedometer ranges from bright green to bright blue, depending on how hard you’re pushing the engine.

The Honda Insight isn’t a “true” gasoline electric hybrid, though it does have both a gasoline engine and a battery-powered motor. The difference is that the electric motor can only assist the gas engine; it can’t run on electric power alone, as the Prius or the Ford Escape can. Still, I managed a respecatble 44 mpg over about 100 miles of all-city driving.

Granted, the car itself helped me toward better fuel economy. I had the “Econ” button pushed nearly the entire time, which maximizes mpgs by regulating engine power and accessories. When I turned off the “Econ” mode, the gains in power and zip didn’t outweigh the gas-saving measures.

My only real complaint about the car is the split rear window. In the week I had the Insight, I never got used to the clear top window, pink-tinted lower window, and wide plastic bar between the two. A zippy car it’s not, but with a starting price just below $20,000 (not including destination charges or any federal or state incentives), it could be a game-changer in consumer’s minds.

Photos by Kristen Hall-Geisler.

This car was provided for review by the manufacturer at no cost to the reviewer.

Hyundai, for instance, is making a global push to establish itself in the small-car market. But not so much in the U.S. Its tiny five-door hatchback i10 model, for example, won’t be sold on American shores.  They’re looking instead to bring the larger i20 and i30 cars rather than the i10, which was designed with the European market in mind.

Though nothing is set in stone, not bringing the i10 to the small-car-starved dealerships here in the U.S. is a curious move for a company whose sales have been constrained by the limited availability of its current small cars, like the Elantra. Not even the i20, which is slightly larger and makes its debut in Paris next week, is officially set for import to the U.S.

Now that Wall Street and shifty mortgage schemes have the U.S. economy tanking and financing is hard to come by, the American car consumer’s wish for small, inexpensive, gas-sipping cars could become a demand. Everybody stand up and wave what few dollars you have in the direction of the i10 and the Ford Fiesta Econetic.