General Motors, seeking to counter its image as a laggard in fuel-efficient vehicles, has switched plans for future petrol-electric hybrid models, putting a stronger system than had been planned in its large sport utility vehicles, GM sources told Reuters.
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In 2007, GM will offer a hybrid version of its Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon full-size SUVs that boosts fuel economy by around 30%, Reuters said, noting that, in January, GM had announced plans to offer a different petrol-electric system that only raised fuel economy by about half that amount.
GM has also changed the hybrid system and pushed back the sales date on its Saturn Vue compact SUV, which is smaller than the Tahoe and the Yukon and already gets better fuel economy, the report added.
In January, GM said it would offer in 2005 a hybrid system on the Vue that would raise fuel economy by up to 50%, or to nearly 40 miles per gallon (mpg) but GM will now use a weaker hybrid system on the Vue, which will raise its fuel economy by about 12 to 15%, or to about 30 mpg, and that vehicle won’t go on sale until early 2006, the sources told Reuters.
“We’ve changed some of the specific programmes,” one GM source familiar with the plans told Reuters, adding: “If you want to save more fuel, you want to put your systems on the highest consuming vehicles first, which are SUVs.”
Thad Malesh, principal of The Automotive Technology Research Group in Thousand Oaks, California, told Reuters that GM’s revised plans to raise the efficiency of its large SUVs are a smart move to distinguish the vehicle maker from Toyota and Honda which have moved quickly to add hybrids to small cars.
“I think it will really resonate with those (large SUV) buyers,” Malesh told Reuters, adding: “Any improvement from a very low number is valued by consumers more highly than if you give better mileage to a vehicle that already gets pretty good mileage. It’s pretty basic economics, it’s diminishing returns.”
To cut costs, GM will use on the Tahoe and the Yukon an adapted version of the hybrid system it developed for city buses, Reuters said.
“Certainly they can leverage all that experience,” Malesh told the news agency.
