I drove an Excursion to Wyoming and back last summer, and it was great. If I lived in the country I would own one, but it's too unwieldy for the city driving I normally do.

If Ford and other automakers think they can earn the love of the radical environmentalists by producing clean, high-mileage SUVs, they are in for a rude awakening. The issue has never been about the environment, but about the hatred for the prosperous enthusiasm that SUVs represent. There is nothing more American than a 4WD, and therefore nothing a radical environmentalist will hate worse, no matter if it goes a thousand miles on a tank of clean hydrogen.

This was clarified years ago during the great Cold Fusion flap. At that time, scientists were stunned and amazed when environmentalists greeted the possibility of clean, cheap, inexhaustible energy with blind hatred. The scientists were stunned. I expected nothing else, knowing the true motivations of such people.