Will be enough to ensure the survival of the last dinosaurs?

Another huge vehicle with a huge V8, with a hybrid. Hmm. Something's a bit off, here.

Why doesn't American Car Mfg's get it? Or any of them, really--except Honda.

I cannot wait for Honda's new Hybrid--Affordable Hybrid--I should say. 50mpg and $18,000-ish. Not too shabby.

Nate

An improvement, but still behind the curve. Possible next steps: reduce vehicle mass, downsize engine to turbo, DI V6 or I6.

Of course, fewer vehicles of this size are going to be sold as the high cost of gas helps people focus on what their real needs are. This phenomenon is going to have a much larger effect on fleet fuel economy than hybridizing these oversized beasts.

Lip-stick on a pig.

The reason US manufacturers are sticking a hybrid option with only the big v-8 options is shady. Under the current CAFE rules a car with a green option such as a hybrid option immediately gets taken out of the the average fuel economy for the fleet. GM/Ford and chrysler do it to make themselve look greener in the public eye and profit by not haveing these gas guzzlers included in the averages.

Hemi Hybrid! Now that's an oxymoron if I ever saw one. The truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

No matter how much "green" lipstick you slap on these vehicles- they're still pigs! I mean, really, what is the combined fuel economy benefit one can expect from vehicles with this configuration?

All over-stuffed vehicles with combined fuel economy estimates of less than 30mpg need to go the way of the dinosaur!

Some of you folks are really insufferable. This is GOOD NEWS, 25% overall gain on one of the worst offenders.

25% means the avg, based on 12K a year, saves 150 gallons a year over last years gas only model. If they are selling 2K units a month, that equates to saving 3,600,000 gallons of gas each year. At $4.00 a gallon, that's a $600 a year savings for the owner.

Why must you always pound the negative!!!

These things should fly out the door at these prices; all the socker moms will be flocking to the salesrooms to buy their four wheel drive to take the kids to school and save gasoline like crazy. All this metal and weight for a mere $50,000 or so...what a steal!... for the auto company maybe!

Lad, your not helping. The family across the street has 5 children. I can understand why they might need a behemoth. If they trade their old guzzler for one that is 25% better. That is a step in the right direction.

Joseph,
the reason they "pound the negative" is that we're waiting and hoping for the auto co's to bring us a highly fuel efficient car at a price we can afford and they throw this dirt in our faces.
where are they putting their energies? who can afford a 50k price? not many of us.

This is good. For the people who are going to ignore the recent hysteria and buy a Hemi Durango anyway, converting to the hybrid Durango will save more gas than 3 geeks trading in their 1992 Volvos for Priuses. Now we just wait for GM to quit forcing us to buy big cars – or have they already stopped? I’m always a little confused how that works. As to the hysteria about gas prices – of course that’s not a bad thing, but we need to do everything sensible and moral to stop importing oil, including a 25% reduction on the consumption of the biggest gas hogs.
Options that are NOT real, include most that start with “If everybody just…” or “ If Detroit put a much effort in developing …” unless there is some plan to make these courses of action attractive to those at whom they are aimed. I also am "waiting and hoping for the auto co's to bring us a highly fuel efficient car" but since were just waiting, maybe we should whine less about how they do the work.

@Joseph:

"The family across the street has 5 children."

While I sympathize with your reaction to the preponderance of negativity here, there is little reason for behemoths in this day and age. Years ago my family of five somehow suffered along in a thing called a station wagon. All five of us with luggage, food, soccer balls and board games piled in and drove across the entire country and back (about 6,000 miles)on vacation.

Don't want to sound like a "I walked six miles to school" guy but these big V8s at $50k plunge middle class into debt, sully the atmosphere, continue the oil addiction and... spoil the children. 'Nuff said.

While I don't really understand having 5 kids, those families do need a vehicle. Unfortunately (or fortunately) you can't transport 5 kids legally anymore in a station wagon (or the back of a pickup truck). They require various safety seats (and kids are fatter these days).

But it seems the best choice for a big family would be a hybrid (or diesel) minivan. They have more room than SUVs and are safer (and I don't know too many large families that go offroading together anyway). Toyota makes a hybrid minivan but has chosen not to bring it to the US (despite many requests). Chrysler would have had the PERFECT opportunity to be the first to introduce a hybrid minivan....but it looks like they missed the boat.

Realistically, people are still going to need large vehicles. I think there is definitely a market for vehicles this size. How many of you people actually live in the 'flyover states' where many people have things to pull? How many of you people have a large family and need the space?

I like the idea of a 22-25mpg large SUV. Regardless of fuel economy, some people still HAVE to buy these. Why not make the best of the situation?

The only station wagon that can carry two adults, two car seats, two booster seats, a teenager and all their crap, is the dodge. It doesn't get any better mph than their behemoth. As for the old family truckter, we had one too, on a good day it got 12 mpg's.

Additionally, I would like to point out the laws of supply and demand economics. By reducing your consumption of gasoline, you are doing nothing to change the overall paradigm of transportation energy. Only by having high prices for a sustained amount of time will automakers and energy companies commit the R&D money to alternatives.

Is the government going to bail Exxon out if the price of oil crashes? No. They'll be happy to take their taxes, though. These companies make smart business decisions (mostly) in where to allocate their R&D money. The more oil you consume, the higher the price goes, and the sooner we ultimately switch to a better source.

I'd prefer to see the 1970's/1980's station wagons on the road with updated hybrid drive trains. Those old wagons weighed about 4,000 lbs. Today's SUVs weigh closer to 6,000 lbs. It's no wonder they get such bad gas mileage. The aerodynamic profile is much better in the wagons than SUVs or minivans too. I'd bet you could get 35 mpg with a hybrid drive train in one of those big wagons from years ago. Stable, safe, aerodynamic too and little danger of rollover accidents.

A friend sold Durangos. He said to stay away from them.
They were in the shop more than they were on the road.
I'm sure the hybrid will be no different, except maybe
more shop time. Dodge needs to rethink their direction.

why the hell are any othem wasting time and money on SUV hybrids ?
start making the real chamge to compact and subcompact PHEV an EV's.
How stupid are these people running these companies.

now a vw passat weighs 4000 lbs

"now a vw Passat weights 4000 lbs"

False.

VW Passat curb weight 3,305 lbs
VW Passat VR6 4Motion 3,829 lbs

The VR6 4Motion is the largest and most capable sedan VW makes. At nearly 50K when loaded, VW doesn't sell many of these.

Nate H. - There's really nothing surprising here....the American Big 3, which is heavily unionized and reliant on an aging infrastructure and supply network throughout a lot of the rust belt, will make the fewest changes possible in order to survive and protect the economies of scale it has left. While all the newer and/or smaller and/or more nimble foreign automakers can adapt more rapidly to what the consumer really wants and needs, the Big 3 have to go through their unions and figure out how use old plants to the maximum extent possible (ie. everyone has to protect their job). The end result is primarily more of the same with little innovation - as we're seeing. What we need a game-changing technology that can be mass produced cheaply and bring radical disruptive change to the auto industry....but that is doubtful (for the time being anyway).

I expect that despite the lower price tag, these anachronistic monstrosities will sell at an equally abysmal rate to the Yukon hybrids. Great technology. Too bad they decided to waste it on an overweight, V8 powered brick such as this. It seems to me like a more practical first application would have been to mate the tranny with a nice modern ICE like the GM ecotec 4 cylinder, and put it in full size taxicabs and police cars and sell to fleet owners, for whom the huge fuel savings might actually offset the high upfront cost. But then again what do I know. I'm sure gas will be back down below $1.50 in no time, the Prius fad will end, and we'll see a 6000 lb SUV in every driveway.

I forgot to mention heavy duty pickups and or delivery vans for fleet owners (maybe a gas version of the Sprinter) would probably make good sense, too.

Private consumers who are trying to project a Green image likely aren't going to buy a $50,000 V8 powered 4wd SUV to get groceries or drive the kids to soccer practice. People who are in the market for such vehicles probably are neither concerned about the price of gas nor projecting a Green image.

In Europe we have millions of MPVs like the one below which can transport 5 or more kids with (relative) ease:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_s-max

other models are Renault Grande Espace, Citroen C8, etc etc. so imagine my surprise that in the US your only option is a 3-ton, 6-litre, gas-guzzling tank. Ford is an American company so I wonder why it has not introduced an MPV to the American market?>