Last week General Motors announced that it plans to produce the world’s first plug-in
hybrid SUV , in the form of a new yet-to-be-named Buick crossover. It seems that the sports utility-type vehicle will be resurrected and repurposed as a Buick. G.M. says the baby Buick will be the “first commercially available plug-in hybrid produced by a major automaker.” Tom Stephens, G.M.’s vice chairman, announced the new model will first be released in 2010 as a gas-powered vehicle, five-passenger S.U.V. available with two sizes of direct injection engines—a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine and a 3.0-liter V-6. The plug-in version planned for 2011 will [...]
Ford said its new Explorer SUV with a gas-saving EcoBoost engine has a fuel-economy rating of 20 miles per gallon in city driving and 28 mpg on the highway. According to the car maker those numbers make it the most fuel-efficient seven-passenger SUV on the market. When the Ford says, Explorer with EcoBoost has class-leading fuel economy it is talking about the class of gasoline-powered SUVs and not hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Highlander hybrid which has a rating of 28 mpg in both city and highway driving. This is the first application of this advanced engine in North America [...]
