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Hybrid Mania Hits the Big Time

GMC's giant hybrid pickup truck doesn't gain much mileage, but our columnist says the new Sierra is still an improvement over its gas-guzzling predecessors

Web-Exclusive Commentary

By Gersh Kuntzman

Newsweek

Updated: 12:13 p.m. ET June 21, 2004

June 21 - Hybrid cars have become the panini sandwiches of the automotive world. If you've spent any lunch hour considering your options, you know what I mean. In New York, every little deli, every corner store, every bakery, every sub shop and even every gas station is selling these newfangled hot, pressed sandwiches called paninis.

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Well, hybrid cars--which are supposed to feature a fuel-saving, small gasoline engine and a self-recharging, battery-powered motor to supplement it--are becoming just as ubiquitous as paninis. How ubiquitous? Consider this: Even GMC, a company known for pickup trucks and SUVs so big that the "GMC" nameplate on the grille is bigger than my apartment, is even getting in on the act. Starting this summer, GMC will sell a hybrid version of its Sierra pickup truck.

How do I know this? Because the company called me up just to tell me. (I thought it was strange, too, but apparently, I have become my generation's leading authority on the hybrid auto--and when I say "my generation," I, of course, mean "my softball team.") This isn't the first time I've received such a call, either. A few months ago, I'd written another in a series of articles condemning Sport Utility Vehicles as wasteful and unnecessary (hold your applause), when a representative from a company called Ford emailed to offer me a chance to drive its brand new SUV hybrid.

An SUV hybrid?! Surely, this was nonsense, the mechanical equivalent of a Kerry-McCain ticket. But I drove the Escape SUV hybrid and was impressed. Thirty-three miles-per-gallon in the city! A smooth, super-low-exhaust gas-electric engine system! Complete engine shut-off at red lights or when coasting! Huge "HYBRID" decals on all four sides of the car, so your neighbors won't think you're wasting fuel! I gave the Ford Escape hybrid four stars, two thumbs up and one smiley gas pump. So after it was published, one could almost hear the marketing guy pitching the president of GMC, "We'll get Gersh Kuntzman to test drive our hybrid! That guy's a pushover for anything that has a hybrid decal on the side. They say he gobbles up hybrids like paninis!"

AMERICAN BEAT

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• Hybrid Mania Hits the Big Time
GMC's giant hybrid pickup truck doesn't gain much mileage, but our columnist says the new Sierra is still an improvement over its gas-guzzling predecessors

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Well, they had me down to a T--except for one thing: I don't like pickup trucks. Look, I have nothing against them for hard-working men who actually haul really heavy equipment from the warehouse to the jobsite. And I think they're great if you're a farmer who has to transport 40 bales of hay and you're giving Bessie the day off. But for a guy who never worked a day in his life (my hands are so soft I could be a ring model), a pickup truck just seems like a nice-sized car with an obscenely large trunk. I don't even have "stuff" to lug around. The best I could manage during the three days that I actually had the Sierra was when I didn't want to fold up my two-year-old's stroller and merely tossed it in the pickup. Such convenience hardly motivate me to rush out and buy a Sierra.

Plus, I don't live in a pickup-friendly neighborhood. After parking the Sierra on the street, I returned to find that it had been "ticketed" with an anti-SUV flyer. "VIOLATION," it read. "Driving a 13 mpg [miles per gallon] SUV rather than an average 22 mpg car for one year will waste more energy than if you left your refrigerator door open for six years, left your color television on for 28 years [and] left your bathroom light burning for 30 years. If everybody in the U.S. who drives an SUV drove a car instead, we could cut out Middle Eastern oil imports entirely." Apparently, just because I was driving a GMC Sierra, I was being labeled as part of the problem. No, I'm part of the solution. The problem is that the Sierra's "HYBRID" decals aren't big enough.

On the road, I had to admit I was impressed by the Sierra. I mean, this truck goes zero-to-60 in less time than it takes you to say, "Officer, there's no way I was going 80." And the driving position is so high--almost like driving an 18-wheeler--that I felt omnipotent. I treated fellow drivers with contempt, even cut off SUVs without compunction. And pedestrians? I treated them like a nuclear-mutated horror film monster treats small trees--as minor nuisances. I wasn't that fond of the truck's blind spot (Ray Charles would've seen more out of the right-side back window of a Toyota than I saw out of the Sierra), and at high speeds, the truck is twitchy, like a newborn foal just getting used to its legs.

But the biggest problem with the Sierra hybrid is the same problem I have with those run-of-the-mill sandwiches that my gas station calls paninis: The GMC Sierra is proof that the word "hybrid" has begun to lose its meaning. Toyota has a car called the Prius that can get 50 miles per gallon because its gas engine is practically lawnmower-sized thanks to an innovative, two-motor battery-powered parallel system. Even Honda's hybrid system (with its one electric motor and a slightly less high-voltage battery) is impressive. But the new GMC "hybrid" Sierra--the world's first "full-sized" hybrid, according to the company--is not a true hybrid at all, but a pickup truck with the same huge 5.3-liter gasoline engine as the normal Sierra, plus a low-voltage electric engine that only offers a few extra miles per gallon. Instead of 11-19 miles per gallon in the city, you'll get 17-20 miles per gallon. As we say in the land of the compact car: Big whoop.

I wanted to give GMC the benefit of the doubt, so I called GMC's power train chief engineer, Stephen Poulos. Under my merciless questioning (and by "merciless questioning," I really mean that my questions were so dumb that Poulos probably felt he could get away with being honest), Poulos admitted that GMC basically threw a small electric motor in their standard Sierra. "We wanted to increase fuel efficiency without redesigning the entire truck," he said. "Basically, we're going after the low-hanging fruit--like having the engine turn off at a red light or when you're coasting below 13 miles per hour." He reminded me that, generally speaking, pickup truck drivers need the hauling capacity of a full-powered truck, so a true hybrid wasn't an option. The 10-percent increase in fuel economy is just an added bonus for those times when you're just cruisin' around looking for chicks.

But give a guy some credit: He found a way to squeeze a little more mileage out of one of the world's most wasteful trucks. Yes, maybe the GMC Sierra is the vehicular equivalent to a lame panini--but remember, even the lamest panini is better than a boring old sandwich.

Gersh Kuntzman is also a reporter for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv