With the recent spike in gas prices, the number of people visiting our hybrid vehicle websites is also on the rise – up nearly 25% over last month. One trend we’ve seen on our hybrid cars blog as well as this site is the number of people trying to compare two or more vehicles, either via a search engine query or by searching within the website itself.  Read more...

In March of 2008 we announced that the upcoming 2009 Saturn Vue hybrid, the one that would be built with GM’s 2-mode hybrid system, might possibly end up being the most popular hybrid SUV yet. What we were most excited about was the chance to finally see how the two mode hybrid technology would perform in a smaller, front wheel drive sport utility, rather than the much larger hybrid Yukon, Tahoe, or Escalade.

Then in November 0f 2008, rumors started circulating that the 2mode Vue would be delayed or “re-timed” and wouldn’t be launched in late ’08, but it would instead have to wait another 3-4 months. While the GM spokesman made it sound like pushing launch dates back was a normal process, I remember thinking that maybe there was a problem, or possibly the plan had changed.  Read more...

Quick! What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a Hummer sport utility? For me it is “gas hog” but undoubtedly there are many others such as “environmental nightmare” - and few are positive. You can imagine my disbelief then when I started hearing rumors last month about a Hummer that was capable of getting 100 miles per gallon. In fact, with all the “fake news” sources on the Internet, I assumed this was simply another fabricated story to discredit SUVs in favor of smaller vehicles (or possibly the next hybrid video idea from Gary Busey).  Read more...

Call it a cute-ute or a small crossover, the Rav4 (rav four) from Toyota remains one the the most popular SUVs on the road today. Originally introduced in the United States in 1996, the ”Recreational Active Vehicle with 4 wheel drive” has undergone three complete makeovers and a couple of mid-cycle refreshes and facelifts to get where it is today. Now, the sport utility that always seems to be reinventing itself might be in for its biggest change yet.  Read more...