Attack of the 3-Ton Hybrids  

IEEE Spectrum has an article on some green (and not so green) cars at the LA Auto Show - "Attack of the 3-Ton Hybrids".

The winner of the "green car of the year award" was the 2500 kg Chevy Tahoe Two-mode Hybrid, which redefines the meaning of the word "green" if you ask me. In its defence, the Tahoe is a 50% improvement on the non hybrid version, so I guess it will improve overall US fuel efficiency if drivers of other behemoths make the switch. However its not exactly aiming to be the best you can be...

You know what a hybrid car looks like—the Toyota Prius, right? At least that was the prevailing wisdom before this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show in mid-November.


Now a “hybrid electric vehicle” may well be a 2500-kilogram sport-utility vehicle with a huge V8 engine. General Motors and Chrysler together now have no fewer than five of them. But underscoring the cost of developing hybrid systems, all five—new versions of the Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Tahoe, Chrysler Aspen, Dodge Dakota, and GMC Yukon—use the same Two-Mode Hybrid transmission, jointly engineered by GM, Daimler and Chrysler, and BMW.


The Chevrolet Tahoe Two-Mode Hybrid even won the widely publicized Green Car of the Year award, presented annually by Green Car Journal. (Its jury included such luminaries as talk-show host Jay Leno.) Weighing in at about 2500 kg, the Tahoe Hybrid is the first of a long string of GM vehicles to be offered with the Two-Mode Hybrid system. 


Using the same space as GM’s six-speed automatic transmission, the Two-Mode Hybrid system is made up of four fixed gears, two 40-kilowatt sustained electric motors, and three planetary gear sets. With a nickel-metal-hydride battery pack, it improves the Tahoe’s city fuel economy 50 percent, from 17 liters per 100 kilometers to 11 L/100 km (14 to 21 miles per gallon). As GM has noted frequently, that’s the same city mileage as a nonhybrid 4-cylinder Toyota Camry.
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The LA Auto Show has worked hard to focus on environmentally friendly cars, so every exhibitor dutifully trotted out its greenest vehicles and research programs. 


After hybrid trucks came cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The biggest news was the North American unveiling of Honda’s FCX Clarity, a stylish four-door sedan—with a 100-kW version of the company’s V Flow fuel cell—almost identical to the FCX Concept seen last summer. 


The new vertical fuel-cell configuration, 65 percent smaller than the previous generation, is compact enough to fit in the center tunnel of this relatively low car. A lithium-ion battery pack sits under the rear seat; Honda says it is 40 percent lighter and 50 percent smaller than the ultracapacitor that stored regenerated energy in the previous FCX. The Clarity’s range is given as 435 km (270 miles).
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