General Motors' (NYSE: GM) GMC had an ad on last night's Super Bowl for the first time in years. It cost something in the neighborhood of $5 million to broadcast, and if you're a GM stockholder, you might want to ask: why did GM waste so much money?

The ad (you can see it below) is a spare, black and white cartoon of a human figure rolling a large boulder up a hill. The figure works immensely hard, pushing the rock for over 45 seconds -- an eternity in Super Bowl ad time. Finally, he gets the rock to the peak of the mountain. Fade to a white GMC Yukon hybrid, which, according to the ad, gets 50% better mileage than a regular Yukon.

When Toyota Motor Co. (NYSE: TM) unveiled the Prius hybrid passenger vehicle way back when, the automaker was hailed as being at the forefront of eco-friendly carmaking. Although the Prius has become a best seller in the hybrid category, other automakers have chimed in recently and have begun making competitive vehicles. At the same time, Toyota has continued to make gas-hungry vehicles in the same vein. The newer Toyota Tundra and Sequoia are two examples.

The newer Tundra is Toyota's largest truck ever, and it has a gas engine that's just as meaty as many large truck engines have ever been. So, the pioneer of marketing what is arguable the world's most popular hybrid is now being chastised to making such energy-hungry engines in its newer, larger 8-cylinder engines.

While Toyota is busy placating both the rain forest crown and the 'power at all costs' crowd, rival General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) is rolling out the new Chevrolet Tahoe SUV, powered by a gas-electric hybrid. Generally, it's quite an oxymoron to hear that an SUV has a hybrid engine. But, GM's claim of up to 50% better gas mileage in city driving is nothing to sneeze at. GM's not the only one -- Ford Motor Co.'s (NYSE: F) smaller Escape SUV has had a hybrid option for quite some time, and all other manufacturers are starting to realize that making an eco-friendly vehicle is becoming more important than horsepower ratings to the average customer.

Toyota certainly is not out, but it's increasingly becoming the target of environmentalists who claim double-talk by the Japanese automaker when it comes to making eco-friendly vehicles. Toyota certainly does not need any more problems than it has had this year.

It's quite a feat for a standard household or a small business to produce little to no waste each day, but that premise was taken home at the Baltimore, Md. transmission plant of General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM). The world's second-largest automaker said that its automotive transmission plant is now recycling and reusing all involved parts as a result of the manufacturing process as well as converting all energy produced by 'waste' products. This means the plant is not producing a single bit of waste that needs to be taken to a landfill. In fact, the plant now is not sending anything at all to any landfills anywhere.

The Baltimore plant makes 189,000 transmissions annually and was set to deposit more than 7,500 tons of waste to nearby landfills. Well, no more, according to GM. The plant is now being charged with manufacturing a dual-mode transmission in concert with BMW and DaimlerChrysler, which will be made available in its full size SUV vehicles later in 2007. These include the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban and GMC Yukon and Denali, among others.

It's a fascinating move from GM in that the plant that will be making a new type of transmission meant to be used with both electric-based propulsion as well as traditional gasoline engines will be producing no landfill waste. In my book, that's a huge 'green' score for GM in the race to produce more energy-efficient vehicles while not trashing the surrounding environment with waste products that are just as polluting. In other words, kudos to GM on this one.