>Dragan,
>
>Ah, politics the other anti-efficiency enegry sink.
>
>It's good that this current mini-crisis is getting people to think alternatives.. not so much that the all the car manufacturers will abandon SUVs though. *frown* I think the oil and steel lobbies have too much vested interest to let right-sizing determine motor vehicle size.

You wouldn't believe the size of some cars I drove back home :). Some were actually lot smaller than a Yugo. Even nowadays, Volkswagen is producing smaller cars - but you wouldn't hear about it here. For this market, VW is never making anything smaller than a Golf and bug. Look at Polo and contenders at http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/road_tests/?id=35 and try to imagine any of these here :).

Recently I've read in the local newspaper about experiences of the people who drove hybrids for a year or two - all of them are sworn to buy a hybrid again, except the few who think they need something bigger, and beg Toyota to make a hybrid SUV :).