 the suv strikes back obama would love to do this as henry payne explains  beijing municipal authorities have introduced stringent restrictions on new vehicle registrations on 1 january in the capital in an effort to ease congestion and air pollution the city authorities announced they will only allow 240000 new vehicle registrations this year roughly onethird of last year s total a monthly average of 20000 new vehicle registrations will be allowed this year or some 17600 passenger vehicles per month individuals can submit just one vehicle registration application and must prove they are local beijing residents or foreigners who have been working in beijing for at least a year a monthly lucky draw will be held to determine the successful applicants the first scheduled to be held on 23 january first limiting families on the numbers of children they can have now they re limiting cars too and we can t forget about that pesky free speech thing those autocratic chinese sure are making obama jealous with all their green ideas i wonder if the chicoms will be implementing a cash for clunkers program too after all authoritarian leaders should share ideas on how best to put their thumb on their populations meanwhile back in reality land trucks have and suvs have saved the auto industry in michigan while sales of the pansy little hybrids continue to drop  the larger vehicles continue to rise  chrysler group reported us sales of 11 million vehicles in 2010 up 17 percent compared to 2009 on the strength of its popular jeep grand cherokee and dodge durango suv products hellip ford sales were up 19 percent from 2009 on the strength of doubledigit truck and car sales and gm s resurgence came on the back of 17 percent growth in its chevy car and truck lines and a big 32 percent boost in gmc truck sales that is very good news as one of michigan s major industry is gaining momentum no thanks to the green weanies and their relentless drive to make michigan irrelevant regardless of their speeches about michigan being a leader in green ie overpriced underpowered technologies  