Wall Street Journal's David Patton tells us about the pros and cons of Chevrolet's new hybrid SUV, the Tahoe, while cruising along the streets of Manhattan. (April 14, 2008)
Full Transcript
"This is dated back to the Wall Street Journal Online behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Tahoe, a large SUV built by GM and not necessarily the kind of vehicle you'd think to take into Manhattan where they have premium parking prices and premium gasoline prices but this is GM's first true full hybrid...it's a two mode hybrid that allows you to run only on electric power and it gets the same gas mileage city and highway...twenty miles per gallon."
"GM didn't just dropped in a hybrid engine...an electric engine...this is actually a fully engineered...to be much more fuel efficient than your typical... typical large vehicle...GM has put all kinds of different things: a lighter hood, lighter seats, a lot of removing of small bits...To make it the exact same weight as the regular non-hybrid Tahoe. With a hybrid and the gasoline engine, it has more than 330 horsepower so this is not an under powered vehicle because it's pickup truck based...it's not necessarily particularly efficient with space so...when you compare this to something say...a minivan which gets comparable fuel economy...this doesn't necessarily measure up in terms of pure space but it's a real large SUV it has a large towing capacity...ir has four wheel drive so...there are the trade offs in that case...It is kind of remarkable the electric engine, an electric motor can run the vehicle up to about thirty miles per hour...but in the inside there's a little gauge that says 'economy'...that encourages drivers to drive smoothly as possible that's...you know...light on the gas pedal and light on the brakes to get the maximum fuel economy...There's also...a setting that allows drivers to see the instant fuel economy."
"This also shows you there's some electronics in the engine that allow it to run as a four-cylinder eventhough it's a VA...it will turn on all four cylinders and run even more efficiently in the light roads and of course in the navigation system there's a display so that drivers can see...what the engine in the hybrid system is doing at any given time...whether the battery is charging or whether the engine is running... so there's definitely a lot of things GM is doing to focus on fuel economy in this particular hybrid."
"The hybrid system is...is almost transparent to the driver...you'll notice it a little bit in traffic when the engine is not running at all...But for the most part it is not something that drivers would notice all the time...that this is a hybrid...now...one...big...issue with this vehicle is the price... almost $53,000 dollars...Which is a lot of money for a pick up truck-based SUV...it does have a lot of content...leather, navigation, dvd for the kids in the back...Third row seats, four wheel drive which is an automatic four wheel drive to sort of set it and forget it... but when you're talking about the competition...I think a lot of luxury buyers wouldn't necessarily consider this similar to a Mercedes Benz ML or the GL which actually are roughly in the same price range...and are available as diesels...and actually get better fuel economy than this hybrid... thanks to their diesel engines...But here we are in New York City traffic and it's actually kind of the perfect thing because we're running just on electric...so despite the fact this is a large SUV...In some ways it could be the right vehicle for city driving...For the Wall Street Journal Online...I'm David Patten"
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