It is the ignorant among us that will eventually destroy us all.

cmon Chrysler, put a 4cyl diesel or hybrid in the Jeep Patriot and I think you'll take share away from Toyota, Ford and Saturn on their hybrid SUVs...

Chrysler is so far behind the curve for miles per gallon that it's not even funny! The Jeep Grand Cherokee gets something like 13 or 14MPG average and I think it barely meets the pollution requirements.

What I find really interesting about this press release is that Chrysler is talking about a fuel effeceint V8 still, while the rest of the general population is swtiching to smaller vehilces that return great mileage. I know they have the new V6 engine coming in 2009/10 but what about the right now? Where are the vehicles that return greater than 30MPG? [The 4cylinder Sebring, The Compass / Patriot / Caliber are all effeceint I suppose] The first Hybrid vehicle that Chrysler will offer is going to be the Dodge Durango? Come on - like that is really going to do any good.

To me this press statement was more of a "Look over here - we're trying to keep up" kind of thing. I own two Chrysler veichles at the moment. Shoot I even worked there for a couple years but they have yet to offer a affordable diesel or hybrid vehicle so the wife and I won't even consider them for our next purchase.

Will be a TCH owner soon!

Today I heard over NPR news that Chrysler had signed a deal with a Chinese automaker (they mentioned the name, but I did not get it) to develop small, fuel efficent vehicles.

To me, this means that they are going to downright purchase chinese-designed and built small vehicles, and rebrand them as Dodge.
Chrysler has done that repeatedly in the past, purchasing vehicles from japanese and korean automakers, but this deal sets a new low.

In the meantime, they will continue to domestically build their Durangos and Rams and Grand Cherokees.

I also used to own a Chrysler Concorde, just sold it last week. I was very satisfied with the vehicle, and it gave an excellent mileage for a full size sedan. Don't have the actual data, but it gave a better highway mileage than my Chevy Tracker, even though the latter had a manual transmission and a underpowered 4 cylinder engine.

But they discontinued that line, replaced it with the mean looking and fuel thirsty 300M line.

Of course, I did not consider them for my new vehicle.

The U.S. has reached a point “where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics” that it would turn its back on the next great global industry, clean power — Rhone Resch

Fujian Motor Vehcile Corporation. It translates to SouthEast Motor Corporation.

South East (Fujian) Motor
Under the support of Central Government, provincial and municipal leaders, South East (Fujian) Motor Co. ,Ltd. ( SEM ) was founded in Nov. 1995, with registered capital of US $ 138 million and each party holding 50% of the JV shares. South East Motor City is formed by SEM and 35 key suppliers in the peripheral area, a complete auto manufacture system, capable of shortening development schedule and providing quick response to market concerns, immediate supply, and reducing transportation cost

It is the ignorant among us that will eventually destroy us all.

So I was at the Auto show here in LA two days ago and was shocked to see that the Durango will have a HEMI Hybrid out in 09.

It looked good and they say it will still have the towing capabilities.


Dodge

A "HEMI Hybrid". Oh that sounds very efficient.



Oxymoron if I ever saw one!

It may sound like an Oxymoron, but some people do need the bigger trucks, it is good to see that they will be Hybrids as well

Of the "Big Three", Chrysler is certainly the weakest. Technically they're not even Chrysler anymore but rather some equity firm called Cereberus (the hound of hell!) I seriously doubt Chrysler is putting any meaningful research into hybrids or any other green technology.