Are the prices correct for new vehicles? Can you provide some reference to the above assertion?
Trueprice for the Camry Hybrid (LE) is going for around $25,300. The Passat Diesel has less markup between invoice and MSRP and is negotiating less. The average paid is over $26,000.
As far as costs go, diesel is wildly more variable than gasoline. It could be $.10 a gallon more that gas, it could be a $1.00 more a gallon. It's very hard to judge future savings with that uncertainty.
With regards to actual costs, almost every basic maitenance cost is going to be higher on the passat than the Camry. Changing the oil is $75-$100 at the dealer vs $55 for the Camry (dealer cost) both are at 10,000 mile intervals.
The Passat has the high pressure fuel pump that has a very sketchy reliability history and can cost well into the $1200 range to replace.
DSG maintenance at 40,000 miles is $200-$400 depending on dealer. You have urea addititives every 10,000-15,000 miles. You've got a turbo that could potentially (and have) failed in under 100,000 miles of use. Plus you just have the VW electronic gremlin history there overshadowing the brand.
It's a nice car, it gets incredible milage and crusing range. It's certainly a much nicer driver than a Camry or an Altima, but you can't tell me that it's not more of a question mark in long term costs.
Where things get fuzzy with the Hybrid is long term (as in 10+ years) and the battery packs. I think the warranty is 8 years, 100k miles for battery pack replacement. There are many, many accounts of the packs lasting much much longer than that and having very minor loss in economy (1 or 2 MPG). Should the pack completely fail while you still owned the car it's a $5,000-$8,000 repair (dealer cost). I'm not aware of any major issues concerning premature failure or even long term reliability concerns with Toyota's hybrid designs. They've literally sold millions of these things and many of the issues have been hammered out at this point.
The Altima is the most conventional of the bunch with only the CVT being somewhat "uncommon" although Nissan has been working with them for close to 10 years. I'm not aware of any significant reliability issues or major costs with the prior gens. They were pretty decent cars. I would assume the new model would continue that tradition.