In Foreign Parts: From gas-guzzling loser to ultra-chic winner on envy street

I have never been vain about what I drive. For years, when people asked what kind of car I had, I would answer: "A green one." When I arrived in America almost five years ago, I picked almost the first vehicle I clapped eyes on. It was clunky, ugly, but perfectly serviceable.

How disconcerting, then, to realise that my new car is the very pinnacle of trendiness, at least here in California. Everyone who hears about it wants a look, and a few insist on a spin around the block. I've now lost count of the number of people who have said: "Cool. I wish I had one too."

The car is a Toyota Prius, and the thing that gives it such buzz in this buzz-driven town is that it is a hybrid, half-run on petrol, like any other car, and half-electric. That, in turn, makes it singularly fuel efficient and environment-friendly. In fact, in Californian bureaucratic parlance, it is known as an SULEV, a super-ultra-low-emission-vehicle.

At a time when demonstrators are marching in the streets against a Middle Eastern war with the slogan "No blood for oil", that puts my Prius – and, by extension, me – firmly on the side of the angels. And that has given rise to a curious social phenomenon here on Los Angeles's somewhat smugly liberal Westside that I can only call Prius envy.

People ask how long I had to wait for one. (I didn't; I just strolled into a Toyota dealership and there it was.) They ask if it was horribly expensive. (It wasn't; it cost less than my previous car, and I get a tax break too.) They ask what mileage I'm getting. (It's too soon to tell, but after 100 miles the gauge still says I have a full tank.) Best of all, they look at me with new-found admiration, as if to say: "Maybe you're not such a loser after all."

The Prius is also fun to drive. A computer screen shows which engine is working when and offers graphics plotting your exact fuel efficiency in five-minute chunks. Under about 10mph, the motor engine cuts out altogether, a bizarre sensation that makes you think at first that you've stalled, and then that you are driving a milk-cart. At traffic lights, the car makes no noise at all. Hybrids have found particular favour in Hollywood, where they are supplanting the previous trend for monster four-wheel-drives, known in the States as SUVs.

Cameron Diaz drives a Prius. I'm told Leonardo DiCaprio recently bought three of them. There have even been sightings of chauffeur-driven hybrids. Larry David, the comedian and co-creator of Seinfeld, not only drives a Prius, he uses one in his latest hit television show, Curb Your Enthusiasm (coming to British screens soon). In many cases, film and television personalities have switched directly from SUVs to hybrids, their consciences pricked by the gas-guzzling ostentation of their previous choice of motorised transport. Nobody epitomises this 180-degree change of heart more than Arianna Huffington, the political pundit and one-time conservative turned rabble-rousing populist. Until recently, Ms Huffington was driving an outsize Lincoln Navigator. Now she is not only driving a Prius, she is spearheading a nationwide campaign called The Detroit Project to get everyone else into one too.

Unsurprisingly, her message finds little favour in Texas, where wanton petrol consumption is a badge of pride (at least until a Middle East war sends fuel prices rocketing). But in California, which has always set the pace on environmental car regulation, the battle for the future is in full swing.

Diane Binder, a Westside mother married to a television actor and producer, recently sold her SUV and bought a hybrid after finding a protest sticker on her car that read: "I'm changing the environment – ask me how." Ms Binder told me: "My thinking was heading in that direction anyway, but the sticker spurred me into action. There is no justification for polluting the planet with huge vehicles we don't need."

So far, only Toyota and Honda offer hybrids to US consumers, but Ford is promising one this year and General Motors is rushing to catch up. But SUV production is also continuing apace, so the battle has not yet been won. In the meantime, I'm quietly loving my new car.