Why do some people buy new cars to save gas?

It seems like people complain about high gas prices so they go and buy these expensive gas saving cars. Usually a Honda or Toyota hybrid that's about $35,000 dollars. So what's the point of buying the car if you just wasted all that money. You could have just used that money for gas.
Don't you think it's better to just buy a cheap $1,000 dollar Honda and save all that money for gas? Because buying the new car you pretty much threw all the money away.

I have no idea

Its being about saving the planet. Not using as much fuel, but traveling more distance and not polluting as much.

Hypothetically, if lets say both a regular car and a hybrid car stays reliable in the same amount of years, in the long run, the regular car would cost more to run, the hybrid car will cost cheaper to get you from the same distances.

Yes, they eventually even out at some point, but in the long run the hybrid costs less to operate.

Penny wise & pound foolish. And they like to have a reason to buy themselves new things.

However, $1000 cars are generally not reliable. So MPG is not everything. You need reliability.

I drive a car that might be worth $800 wholesale, I wouldnt sell it for $1600. So i presume private party is about $1700 because Id think about selling it for that.
It has less than 90k miles and I drive very little.

But i would feel confident I could go out & replace it for $2000-2500.

New cars in some cases don't use as much gas. Fill it once and leave it for 2 weeks. The car I currently have eats up gas every 4 days. It's a long term investment. Saving up for a 35k car that won't cost you so much on gas every week means more money saved.