In TEN years??? Oh well, I suppose Chrysler is in no rush to regain market share... too bad. I was hoping for an infusion of new blood and bold ideas with the Cerberus buyout. It seems Chrysler is interested in continuing the status quo.

What is the point in offering a 2-mode hybrid with a HEMI? That's akin to washing down an all-you-can-eat buffet with a diet coke!

I do agree with the last paragraph of reducing: weight, aero drag, rolling resistance, swapping accessories to electic power, and drivetrain losses. However, combined I would expect greater than a 5% improvement in fuel efficiency.

Reducing the average US vehicle weight by 20% (from 3,800lbs to 3,040lbs) should yield close to a 5% improvement in fuel efficiency in stop-and-go traffic in and of itself.

Reducing aero drag by 25% (Cd decreased from 0.35 to 0.28 w/ a small decrease in frontal area) would decrease power requirements at 70mph by 17.7%.

An improvement from 75% to 80% in drivetrain efficiency (would require swapping all accessories to electrical power) would decrease power requirements by 6.1% at 70mph.

Finally, a decrease in rolling resistance from a typical Crr= 0.012 to a more Prius-like Crr=.006 yields a 13.5% decrease in power required at all speeds.

I sincerely hope that this is a case of Chrysler being shrewd and setting up an "under promise and then over deliver" scenario. If not, then in about 4 or 5 years, when the oil crunch really sinks its teeth into oil consumers, they'll wish they had attacked fuel efficiency far more aggressively.

Displacement kills fuel economy. Use single or sequential turbocharging to reduce it while maintaining rated power, then use longer gear ratios to run the engine at lower speed and higher torque.

I can't say that I understand the point of a 5.7 liter V8 hybrid. Maybe for a school bus. Some of the other stuff sounds good though.

"I can't say that I understand the point of a 5.7 liter V8 hybrid."

Are you proposing that we shut down the large camper and personal watercraft industries, just so that the automobile industry only has to manufacture Prius-type vehicles?

Granted, not everyone that has an SUV/Truck with a large engine needs it, but there are still many, many people out there who need to tow 5000lbs+. So, until those needs dry up, why not make those vehicles consume 25% less fuel? How is that bad?

Are you proposing that we shut down the large camper and personal watercraft industries, just so that the automobile industry only has to manufacture Prius-type vehicles?

Strawmen - easy to make, easy to destroy.

Where do you guys get 10 years from?

They PROJECT sales mix of the ENTIRE US will be 15% diesel and 15% hybrid in 10 years.

Then they talk about everything they are doing RIGHT NOW with plans for MY 2009 and MY 2010.

This is encouraging news. For American auto makers this is as significant as the Nissan announcement of a really clean SULEV diesel that matched the best of gasoline emissions.

One of the concerns when Chrysler was sold was that the company would be managed for immediate profits, while methodically stripped of assets. In such a case profitable operations would be sold off, and R&D sliced to the bone. In short, a recipe to go out of business. Like Packard or AMC, as their products got more and more obsolescent. That doesn't seem to be in the cards, at present.

Over the last few decades, to is well known that Chrysler has replaced all its antique factories with new more modern ones. The last to go will be old Jeep, Delaware, and Old Trenton engine plants. One has been replaced, one is closing, and the other will close as part of the Phoenix V6 program. No longer will they competing or building vehicles in ancient facilities. The Auburn Hills corporate headquarters and design facilities are a marvel of the auto building world. Its advanced and protyping engineering facilities can reduce time to markert by as much as year or more.

This announcement says the products that they will build in those facilities will be technologically comparable to the best anywhere in the world as well.

All the initiatives planned with Mercedes Benz are still in effect. The 4.7 OHC alloy small V8 will be uprated and the development completed on its design. It was always a good start; just it wasn't technologically finished; now it has been. And this Semi-Hemi will inevitably replace some of the 5.7 Hemi installations.

Likewise the Phoenix V6s will modernize their V6 line and will be world class since they will be the standard Mercedes Benz V6s as well, with a few additional features perhaps. These too will displace some V8 installations. They will provide the hybrid drive power for some of the smaller trucks and full size sedans.

Since they are giving MB V6s, they still get access to MB's Bluetec diesel technology. The pre-announcement of the Grand Cherokee Blutec confirms this. I did not know that a Cummins diesel had been married to the MB Bluetec technology, and was in the marketplace, even now.

That Dodge Ram is the first production T2B5 drive train in production anywhere in the world, I believe. That itsef would merit a seperate announcenent on the se GCC pages. There is some significance that MB would allow its diesel cleanup technology to be married to a foreign diesel engine, as well.

They still get access to GMs advanced dual mode hybrid drive trains. These are the best such hybrid drive trains, a generation head of the best Toyota Prius offers.

Chrysler just released a world class line of I-4 gasoline engines, that are really pretty state of the art. These would provide superb ICEs for the hybrid sedans that they will be offering. Interestingly, Mitsu has a three cylinder ICE spun off this design. That engine would be a fine basis for a pure series-hybrid PHEV, similar to the Chevy Volt making the rounds of the auto shows. In tiny 3 cylinder mode at about 1.1 liter form, it would be a fine sustainer ICE generator. As a 1.8 liter I-4 it can serve as a standard hybrid drive train, for HEV applications. The engine already has the variable valve technology for both intake an exhaust valves that allows only a timing change to become an Atkinson cycle, like the Prius and Ford support.

All this technology will be available by 2010. On every level they will have the technology to match anything others are planning for the next two decades except HCCI. And they have the basic engine platforms necessary for that development as well.

Providing all these modern engines and drive trains will allow a general displacement down sizing along with a consequent improvement in fuel economy, at no loss in performance.

One has to look at the record of the new CEO and ask, even if Chrysler were dead serious about these plans; would they be bold enough to compete against Honda, Toyota and Nissan; and could the CEO pull it off.

Methinks, NO on both accounts.

Perhaps the personal watercraft, ATVs, small engine (lawnmower, etc.) segment should get its share of attention. These engines produce orders of magnitude excess emissions compared to automobiles. Perhaps a little effort, and bite my tongue, regulation, would result in a significant improvement in the emissions footprint of these small engine segments.

Small and occasional-use engines need to get totally different technology. Propane spark ignition and electric are two good candidates. Diesel won't be one unless it runs on DME. (Chrysler's role is in helping take away the cars as an excuse to let the little ones slide.)

They had a diesel hybrid design in 1999 under the PNGV program that got 70 mpg. Now it is going to take another 20 years after that for them to get around to building it.