CAR GAZING
Yukon Hybrid offers big fuel savings
Full-size SUV gets 50 percent better mileage than the normal Yukon
By Derek Price
It's remarkable how much hybrid cars have changed lately.
A few years ago, the only hybrids you could buy were itty-bitty commuter cars like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid, which used small gas engines and powerful electric motors to get their mileage figures to stretch into the ionosphere.
Today, most people still think of hybrids as small, hyper-efficient commuter cars. But the technology has actually branched out to include all types of vehicles, from the massive Chevy Silverado Hybrid pickup truck to the powerful and luxurious Lexus LS 600h L, which costs over $100,000.
Hybrid drivetrains have come a long way from the days of the cramped Honda Insight.
You can even get hybrid-powered versions of big, heavy SUVs like the GMC Yukon. And when you think about it, that makes more sense than hybridizing tiny cars that are already fuel efficient to begin with.
Let's do the math.
The hybrid-powered Toyota Prius is rated for 45 mpg in the city, compared with 27 mpg in the similar-size Toyota Corolla. If they both drive 100 miles in town, the Prius uses 2.2 gallons while the Corolla uses 3.7. That's a fuel savings of 1.5 gallons for the Prius driver.
Remember that number.
Now let's compare the gas-powered Yukon, which gets 14 mpg in the city, with the hybrid version, which gets 21mpg in town. Over 100 miles, the normal Yukon would use 7.1 gallons of gas, while the hybrid would use just 4.7. That's a difference of 2.4 gallons, or almost a gallon more fuel savings than in our Prius comparison.
So if your goal is to save the world from evil hydrocarbons, you'd be much better off converting all the SUVs to hybrid power than you would to convert the small cars. You get a far bigger impact in the sheer amount of fuel being burned.
And best of all, you don't have to trade off the performance of an SUV to get these fuel savings. The Yukon Hybrid can tow up to 6,200 pounds with its 332-horsepower V8 engine, and it accelerates with the rumble and quickness of any other V8-powered monster. It doesn't lack for power.
Because driving a hybrid is as much about fashion and politics as it is practicality, GMC offers some options that make the Yukon Hybrid stand out visually. You can't miss the huge "HYBRID" stickers plastered onto its sides, along with more "HYBRID" markings on the front and rear glass and green logos sprinkled all over the body. It wants to scream about its ecological credentials.
Other than that, the Yukon Hybrid is basically like any other Yukon.
It has a few aerodynamic tweaks and weight savings that most people won't notice, but it drives almost exactly like the plain ol'
gas-powered Yukon. That's a good thing.
It's another reminder that hybrid technology isn't only used on small, fuel efficient imports. It's also available on big, muscular vehicles, which is really where it makes more sense anyway.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.)
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