Since our other car is a 2003 Subaru Outback, I thought I'd chime in on that too.

With the rear seats folded down, I can place a single bike on it's side with the front wheel removed in the back of the Outback (I assume we're still talking about vehicles which can carry 2 or more bikes inside). I suppose I could fit another bike in there, maybe with a blanket in between, but I wouldn't want to try it unless I absolutely had to.

Like Irulan said, recent Outbacks have crummy gas mileage. I get about 21 mpg with our Outback, which has automatic transmission & AWD. I don't know how much better mileage one would get with manual transmission.

The Outback is great car, I like everything about it except for the gas mileage, which is the pitts IMHO. I was under the impression that more recent models have improved fuel ecomomy, but maybe that's not the case?

So from my experience, the Element gets much better gas mileage than the Outback.