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It depends on how much you drive and what distances you cover. If you're a city dweller and mostly sit in traffic, a hybrid makes more sense - it saves fuel precisely in stop-and-go conditions, plus the battery recharges when you brake. But if you live outside the city and do a lot of highway driving, the hybrid loses its edge because a regular engine works better there. In that case, a regular gas car might be cheaper to maintain.
The second thing is the cost of the car itself and service. Hybrids are pricier upfront, and even if you save on fuel, it takes a long time to break even on that difference. Plus if the hybrid system breaks, repairs can get expensive. With a regular gas car everything's simpler and cheaper, but fuel consumption is higher.
I'd suggest calculating not just the liters in the tank, but your total expenses over several years of ownership. Figure out how much extra you'd pay for the hybrid when buying it, how much you'd save on gas, what repairs might cost. If you drive little or mostly on the highway - gas is simpler. If you rack up big mileage in the city each year - a hybrid makes sense.
The main thing is to calculate how much you'll actually drive in a year and what percentage of that will be in the city. A hybrid really is more fuel-efficient in traffic, but there's one thing people often forget: the battery degrades over time, and fixing a hybrid system costs way more than maintaining a regular engine.
If you're planning to keep the car for 5-7 years or more and spend more than half your time driving in the city, the hybrid will pay for itself through fuel savings. But if you change cars frequently or do a lot of highway driving, a regular gas engine will be cheaper to maintain.
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