Does
the Tahoe hybrid make sense? Congress?
Friday, January 25, 2008
What's
the purpose of SUVs?
Not long ago, as I walked around the LA Auto Show
pondering the significance of the Green Car Award going to
the Chevy
Tahoe hybrid, I found myself checking out some
Mini-Coopers. Since the Mini is a hot little car, I
thought I'd put together a story for the small cars
section of Soultek.
As I looked around, however, I was shocked to realize that
many Mini's only achieve fuel economy in the low 20's in
city driving - around the same city fuel economy of GM's
new dual mode hybrids, such as the Tahoe hybrid and the GMC
Yukon hybrid.
Suddenly, I realized that maybe large hybrid
SUVs were important. If you need a large vehicle to
tow your boat up to the lake, then a Yukon hybrid is
probably the perfect vehicle.
I posted this realization shortly thereafter and GM's CEO,
Rick Wagoner, cited my post during his opening remarks at
CES to justify large, hybrid SUVs.
But, does a significant improvement in city fuel economy
justify large SUVs?
For instance, according to a test
drive by Edmunds, the Tahoe hybrid doesn't provide as
big of an increase in fuel economy on the highway as it
does in city driving. In fact, the staff at Edmunds only
achieved a 19 percent increase in fuel economy, or a 3.1
mpg improvement. Now the conventional Tahoe that Edmunds
compared to the hybrid Tahoe did not have exactly the same
sized engines, so those fuel economy numbers seem slightly
sketchy.
Also, like other hybrid
vehicles, the biggest efficiency gains are often seen
in city driving, and here both the Tahoe and Yukon hybrids
will see bigger gains compared to their conventional
brothers and sisters.
Still, are these the kinds of vehicles that people should
be driving in the city in the first place? That's a matter
of consumer choice I guess.
What really got me going, however, was that the Edmunds
article couldn't stop pointing out that the Tahoe hybrid
costs about $9000.00 more than a conventional Tahoe, which
seems retardedly too divergent. Such pricing almost makes
me question the legitimacy of GM's dual mode hybrid
technology altogether, almost.
Then, I started to think about cheap gas. If consumers
paid the real cost of gasoline at the gas pump - easily
about $8.00 to $10.00 per gallon - a Tahoe or Yukon hybrid
would actually be quite cost-effective compared to
conventional SUVs.
Sadly, while politicians continue to blame US automakers
for foreign oil dependency, the Tahoe hybrid proves that
it's cheap gas perpetuated by politicians that is the real
problem. Without a gas
tax, it seems it will be almost impossible for
automakers to do much about foreign oil dependency any
time soon.
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