Brain Death Rattle - Building SUV's into a storm

September 21 Detroit Free Press headline:  “GM has its future riding on new SUV’s.”  Talk about market timing.  They at least claim better mileage than the old ones.  Well, at least gas has fallen below $3.00 in Detroit; in NY, not so much.  

The Detroit News on the same day featured Ford’s move into hybrids.  The hybrid Ford makes is an SUV too, but at least it’s not the biggest SUV, although Ford is bringing out a new big SUV to compete with the GM biggest SUV.  Ford has a problem in that the company it buys the hybrid technology from is mobbed up with Toyota, which [surprise] gets first call on product.

Hybrids don’t do that much better than regulars on the highway, their advantage is city driving [where you brake more, regenerative braking saves more.]  Probably diesel hybrid is the way to go.

What’s needed is a real estimate of the risk of CNG engine particles vs. diesel particles vs. gasoline engine particles, in order to estimate health risks of various combinations.