Chrysler killing Hybrid SUVs

Hello and goodbye, Hemi Hybrids. Chrysler LLC's full-sized hybrid SUVs -- the Dodge Durango Hybrid and Chrysler Aspen Hybrid -- have a new acronym associated with them: DOA. The just-launched SUVs head to the big junkyard in the sky as of the end of 2008.

Some of you are probably scratching your head and wondering why, after sinking all kinds of development and marketing money into the hybrid utes, is Chrysler taking them out behind the barn for one-on-one talks with the business end of a shotgun after just a few months?

Simple: Chrysler's financial situation is such that the automaker has moved up the timetable for shutting down the Delaware plant that builds the Durango and Aspen to December 31 of this year. As goes the plant, so go the hybrid SUVs. Hence, muerte.

Chrysler says the powertrain will return next year when it gets dropped into the new Dodge Ram. Write it down. You might want to use a pencil, just to be safe, though.

Alex Nunez is associate editor of Autoblog.com. His blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company.