Glad to see the hybrid option.

Not too happy that it is yet another NEW behemoth on the roads.

It would be even better if ALL Aspen models were only available as a full hybrid...but that is unlikely anytime in the near term and they just want profits.

If luxury SUVs with crap gas mileage didn't sell so well, Chrysler would not even bother with this thing. I wonder what the 2008 mileage figures for the standard HEMI 5.7L 2WD Aspen is?

I guess the "Hemi" makes it all right!!

i´ll freak out if chrysler will be sold by Daimler in May...then will come up with all this good stuff making a "quantum leap" in engineering and making profits in 5 years and then being resold for 10times the price of today

Brad, the article says the current Aspen is rated at 15 mpg. If you get the upto 40% increase via the hybrid, that bumps it up to an amazing 21 mpg!

There is still a large market for "luxury SUVs". Really, the large SUVs that were truck based and were not targeted at luxury buyers are the ones that are having sales problems.

People still love to buy their Escalades and Navigators so they can have all the "bling" and show the neighborhood that they can throw down money.

heres another car thats going to help save the planet !

Last month we all were rejoicing at the increased sales of the Prius and its other Hybrid brethren, but what we aren't acknowledging is that there is still a very, very large market for large SUV's and Pick-ups. This is going to sound like a concession, but here goes anyway: Since people WANT large pick-ups and SUV's, why not give them what they want, but try harder to make them more efficient? This goes along with the "Provide them with good choices" comment I posted above. I think there are still quite a few things to be implemented, (this 2-mode Hybrid for starters), that can get us to a better place in terms of efficiency. I have often wondered how difficult would it be to make an entire vehicle virtually of plastic? You would think you could do most of the hood, body panels, and chassis members out of plastic, and design "flex points" as sort of shock absorbers for crashes, (think crumple zones). Just an idea but maybe food for thought. I wonder if any automakers read our posts? Does anyone know? Is anyone out there reading this affiliated with an automaker? Come to think of it, if any Automakers do read these posts, they would probably never admit it due to all of the hate/bashing that goes on here on a daily basis.

As I have said before, I have a 1989 Toyota land cruiser with
a 2500 cc5 cylinder diesel which still flys through the emission
tests and is able to return 30mpg, and if you need to pull a
tree stump out , snap it into low range and out it comes!
This car has no complicated engine management , in fact
it has no electronics at all !
Dont get me wrong I am not just bashing American products
although there does seem to be a level of unconsciousness within
the american industry that is particually worring , over here in
europe some of the products from Land Rover for example are
equally insensitive to the current predicament the planet finds
itself in . No amount of taxation will stop people wanting to own
monsters like this one , here in my small town in northern italy
we have two american SUVs, and strangely they are both driven
by guys whos vertical prowess does not exceed five feet !

How fitting: another aptly super-sized vehicle for our super-sized waistlines. This heap continues the status quo of vehicular mutually assured destruction. "I am indestructable behind the wheel of my megamonster ego-mobile."

Thank you Chrysler. Now we over-fed and over-pampered Americans can have a vehicle that simultaneously compensates for our own personal shortcomings while giving the appearance of "saving the planet."
Sarcasm over...

Folks, I really think moving away from these plus-sized vehicles is the trend we need to focus on here. Small car ubiquitousness will be challenged if the fear of getting hit by these mega monsters pervades.

Smaller cars are better. Small works in Japan and Europe due to the absence (and social stigma) of super-sized vehicles.

The automakers have been making cars more efficient for decades. The problem is that the size and power of vehicles has continued to increase faster than the efficiency. There is another problem. Hybrid SUVs have not been selling extremly poorly. That is because the kind of person who is going to buy an SUV isn't going to care very much, if at all, about gas mileage. Why pay extra for a few miles when you don't care about mileage in the first place. GM's offerings have been total failures and they have not even bothered to post sales figures.

The big sellers in the hybrid world are the Camry and the Prius. The Honda Accord hybird which emphasized power, is another flop. The Civic Hybrid has done fairly well.

While it is true that there will always be a significant number of people who care mostly about size and performance versus gas mileage doesn't mean we should encourage their behavior by providing an exemption for SUVs and trucks regarding the gas guzzler tax. This loophole should have been closed years ago. To treat sedans and SUVs differently just skews the preferences away from vehicles with better gas mileage.

Then again, now you are giving people an excuse to buy MORE of these monstrosities. "Oh, it is a hybrid and gets better gas mileage. Now I don't need to worry about having a small, efficient commuter car...I can just spend that extra money on a bigger engine, more luxury features (read as "weight"), and the hybridization."

Why is it that we now need 345hp to tow and carry the same weight we were towing and carrying 15 years ago with a 170hp 5.2L V-8 (190hp if you opted for the 5.9L V-8 R/T Ram)? Are contractors tools getting 2 to 3 times as heavy? Do they now carry 2 to 3 times as much weight to a job site?

Vehicles such as this will only serve to bring our average fleet fuel economy lower as people who may have been considering a car can now "feel more green" by buying a hybrid SUV (which by the way, by 2008 EPA standards averages 19mpg mixed mode versus the 15mpg mixed mode of the non-hybrid.)

Bullshit on the sedans, SUV with stability control are like tanks and would crush most sedans on impact.
I'm not one of these drivers by the way.
But this horse has left the barn on HP. Sedan now have 400+ hp. Your telling me Grampy needs 450hp in his cadilac that he never gets over 74 miles per hour in?

The safest vehicle by FAR on the road is the Chevy Astro van. Yes the ugly solid like a tank square has about 10% the death rate of most vehicles.

Richard? Chevy Astro van safer then others? Back that up with something please. The Astro is not as safe as a standard Ford Taurus or similar sized modern car. Sorry.

I just want a hybrid pickup truck, the size of the Chevy Colorado or Toyota Tacoma. Please make it a large 4cyl or small 6cyl and I will be interested in it. I want to be able to handle small and medium sized loads and yet drive it on the highway empty and get good mpg. Am I gonna hav e to buy a used 4cyl Ford Ranger instead????