The FedEx Corporation announced today that it planned to replace 30,000 of its delivery trucks with energy-saving, environmentally friendly hybrid-powered vehicles.

The company said that it had already purchased 20 such trucks to begin building what would be one of the first big commercial fleets of hybrid vehicles. The new trucks — powered by both diesel engines and electric motors in a mix controlled by onboard computers — will be introduced over the next several months in four American cities.

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Drivers of Hummers and hybrids have something in common after all.

Both are dissatisfied with how much gas their vehicles consume, according to a closely watched survey of initial quality by J. D. Power and Associates released today. Fuel consumption was listed by drivers of both General Motors' Hummer H2 and the fuel-efficient Toyota Prius hybrid as their top complaint - though Hummer complaints dwarfed those for Prius.

Fuel consumption was the second most common driver complaint industrywide, the highest ranking for fuel consumption in the 17 years of the annual survey; it had never before cracked the top five.

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General Motors Corp., moving ahead with plans to boost the fuel economy of its light trucks, plans to equip several large SUVs with new fuel-saving technology starting with 2005 models.

The automaker is expected to announce today that the 2005 GMC Envoy XL, Envoy XUV and Chevrolet TrailBlazer EXT will become the first vehicles equipped with so-called "displacement on demand."

Displacement on demand reduces fuel consumption by electronically adjusting the number of cylinders in an engine that fire at any one time, depending on driving conditions.

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A new set of ads attacking Detroit automakers for failing to deliver more fuel-efficient vehicles is sure to revive the debate over fuel economy and national security.

The television commercials, beginning today, in Detroit and seven other U.S. cities, argue that the auto industry's failure to produce a 40 mpg SUV has increased American dependence on foreign oil.

It is the latest salvo in an increasingly media-oriented drive by environmental and religious groups to change the politics of fuel economy.

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The average fuel economy of the nation's cars and trucks fell to its lowest level in 22 years in the 2002 model year, the Environmental Protection Agency reported today.

The technological and engineering leaps of the last two decades have been poured into everything but fuel economy, according to the agency's statistics. Since 1981, the average vehicle has 93 percent more horsepower and is 29 percent faster in going from 0 to 60 miles an hour. It is also 24 percent heavier, reflecting surging sales of sport utility vehicles.

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A group of state legislators moved today to undercut revised regulations by the Bush administration that give utilities and other industrial plants more flexibility in complying with air pollution standards.

The legislators introduced a state bill that would effectively revive the old federal regulations as a new state requirement. The legislation passed its first hurdle tonight in a State Senate committee, and it is being closely watched by other states as the first legislative challenge to the revised regulations, which many environmentalists have criticized as lax on polluters.

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Regulators said last week that 42,850 people died in traffic-related deaths in 2002, the highest number since 1990.

That's the population of a small city, like Chapel Hill, N.C., said Jeffrey W. Runge, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Rollovers of S.U.V.'s and pickup trucks accounted for more than half of the 734-death increase from 2001 to 2002, according to the traffic safety agency.

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