NickF1011 Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 (edited) It's your contention that they're trucks? :P Glorified pickup cars maybe, but they aren't sedans. And the Avalanche is definitely all truck. Might not be a really useful PICKUP truck, but it's definitely all truck-based. Edited May 22, 2009 by NickF1011 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pioneer Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 Avalanche is based on the Yukon/Suburban. Definitely more "truck" than a Ridgeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 Glorified pickup cars maybe, but they aren't sedans. And the Avalanche is definitely all truck. Might not be a really useful PICKUP truck, but it's definitely all truck-based. crimentlies, Nick, can't you play along with a joke? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickF1011 Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 crimentlies, Nick, can't you play along with a joke? No. :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critic Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 And the Avalanche is definitely all truck. Might not be a really useful PICKUP truck, but it's definitely all truck-based. The ugliest truck on the road bar none. You wanna talk about cladding? you wanna talk about shear uselessness? It has a face only a mother could love. Some back-alley mechanic with a coat hanger should have put it out of it's misery before it took it's first breath. So they moved the Aztek designers straight over to the pickup side of the room and this is what you got. If they put a belly pan under it, even the whales would shun it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickF1011 Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 (edited) The ugliest truck on the road bar none. You wanna talk about cladding? you wanna talk about shear uselessness? It has a face only a mother could love. Some back-alley mechanic with a coat hanger should have put it out of it's misery before it took it's first breath. So they moved the Aztek designers straight over to the pickup side of the room and this is what you got. If they put a belly pan under it, even the whales would shun it. Eh, I don't think the 2nd gen Avalanche looks too bad. Of course, that one is much more of simply a Tahoe with a bed cut into it than the first gen was. I would agree with you on that one though-- at least before they started making the cladding body-color. Even if it looked great though, one has to wonder what the heck the point of it is. They already sell Silverado 4-doors. Edited May 22, 2009 by NickF1011 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
630land Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 I hate when the rich elitists say 'raise gas tax'. They just want to see the "unwashed masses" not driving, so they can speed along in luxo tanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nelsonlu Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 (edited) From a fuel standpoint you are correct. But building a CNG vehicle, even a dual fuel (gasoline/CNG) is much, much less expensive than a hybrid. And hybrids still run on gasoline refined from "evil" imported oil ! Plus CNG works well on larger vehicles (like trucks). I don't think your ever going to see a dump truck, cement mixer or even an F250/F350 hybrid, but all of these are good candidates for CNG. I see plenty of hybrid busses where I work. Obviously, I have no idea how good their fuel efficiencies are. But as I posted earlier in this thread, the fuel economy numbers for hybrid SUVs are fine, compared to their gas versions. And I just compared the Civic GX and the Civic Hybrid. The Civic GX is about $1,000 more expensive than the comparably equipped Civic Hybrid. Edited May 23, 2009 by nelsonlu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xr7g428 Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 Actually Nelson you posted some not so accurate numbers. Here are the real numbers as reported by Popular Mechanics. Last year GM debuted a pair a full-size sport utes—the GMC Yukon and Chevrolet Tahoe—with gas-electric hybrid powertrains that promised to offer all the expected capabilities in a more efficient package. If the EPA ratings of the 2WD GMC Yukon Hybrid model we tested—21 mpg city and 22 mpg highway—aren't earth-shattering, those figures represent a 31 percent improvement over nonhybrid versions. We did our own test with a 2WD Tahoe and recorded a 25 percent real-world improvement in fuel efficiency. This is less than the 38% you claimed. The savings don't just come from the hybrid system. The hybrid system and the 300-volt battery pack add about 350 pounds, so GM took extra measures to reduce weight. The seats and wheels are lighter, and aluminum replaces steel for the hood, liftgate, front-bumper beam and the engine block. The diet paid off and the hybrid truck weighs about the same as the nonhybrid version, roughly 5900 pounds. Other fuel-saving tricks include cylinder deactivation that can toggle the engine between V8 and V4 modes, variable cam timing, and several body modifications that reduce the drag coefficient from 0.36 to 0.34. If you did the same things with the gas vehicle the improvement would further reduce the savings. GM sells hybrids for the same reason as every one else, to project a green image, and to help balance the CAFE numbers. Toyota has a higher fleet CAFE than Chevrolet, by the way. The physics really don't work very well until you can go to true diesel electric power when it comes to large vehicles that do real work. And I really don't count a two wheel drive Tahoe in this group. I am talking vehicles that have tow ratings of 10,000 lbs or more. Heavy trucks currently produce about the same amount of Co2 as the light car and truck fleet in the USA. If you want to see real efficiency, look at a diesel locomotive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xr7g428 Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 That is pretty wild, clean the atmosphere and make fuel at the same time, if they can make it work on a large scale. Of course we have no spare "carbon-neutral power". No one seems to want nuclear power (despite many advances such as CANDU and pebble bed reactors) and only a small fraction of the Big Stimulus "pie" is going toward build solar or wind power. Actually we do have spare carbon neutral power. Hydro and Nuclear plants both are able to generate significant amounts of power in non peak periods. Since there is no way to store this power, it is available very cheap and could be used to power a synthetic fuels program. Wind and solar are economically challenged because they are not demand scalable: They make power when the conditions are right, not when the power is needed. Synthetic fuels allow this energy to be stored in a form that has a very high commercial value. Wind and solar get a lot cheaper when you can store the power in the form of gasoline. No part of the Green Freedom program is not currently technically feasible. All technologies are weighted for low technical risk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nelsonlu Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 (edited) Actually Nelson you posted some not so accurate numbers. Here are the real numbers as reported by Popular Mechanics. Were they using EPA numbers? I was. I don't mean to suggest that their numbers are any worse than EPA's, but for us to compare apples to apples we should use EPA numbers, because otherwise, because we have no idea what their methodology is, even if their methodology is better, there's no way to compare other articles. The savings don't just come from the hybrid system. This is less than the 38% you claimed. If you did the same things with the gas vehicle the improvement would further reduce the savings. That doesn't explain the Fusion Hybrid. Other than the hybrid system, the only things that the Fusion Hybrid uses to optimize fuel efficiency that I can see that the gas Fusion does not are the wheels (which, while I'm sure are helpful, can't help that much, I think) and the CVT. While we don't know how much a gas Fusion will get with those wheels and the CVT, perhaps we can see from the Nissan Altima, which uses CVT in both the gas and the hybrid versions (and I believe the same wheels), and the Altima Hybrid is still about 31% more fuel efficient than the 4-cylinder regular Altima. (Yes, I realize that neither the Fusion nor the Altima is a large car; those are the closest samples we have.) Edited May 23, 2009 by nelsonlu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmc523 Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 The ugliest truck on the road bar none. You wanna talk about cladding? you wanna talk about shear uselessness? It has a face only a mother could love. Some back-alley mechanic with a coat hanger should have put it out of it's misery before it took it's first breath. So they moved the Aztek designers straight over to the pickup side of the room and this is what you got. If they put a belly pan under it, even the whales would shun it. Eh, I don't think the 2nd gen Avalanche looks too bad. Of course, that one is much more of simply a Tahoe with a bed cut into it than the first gen was. I would agree with you on that one though-- at least before they started making the cladding body-color. Even if it looked great though, one has to wonder what the heck the point of it is. They already sell Silverado 4-doors. I agree with Nick on this one. I absolutely hated the original with all the cladding. Then they removed the cladding (and a friend's dad got one of those), and it looked a bit better. I don't mind the 2nd generation at all (and that same friend's dad recently got a new one, and my friend has his old one). I see plenty of hybrid busses where I work. Obviously, I have no idea how good their fuel efficiencies are. But as I posted earlier in this thread, the fuel economy numbers for hybrid SUVs are fine, compared to their gas versions. And I just compared the Civic GX and the Civic Hybrid. The Civic GX is about $1,000 more expensive than the comparably equipped Civic Hybrid. Broward County Transit down here has quite a few hybrid buses, but as with you, I don't know how fuel efficient they are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
armadamaster Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 If you can name me one SEDAN that is classified as a light truck I'll see where you are going with this... The Dodge Magnum wagon shares it's platform with two sedans, the 300 and Charger, tha's as close as I can get you. If Chrysler was able to accomplish getting the unibody Magnum classified as a light truck, I don't think it would be a stretch for Ford to get an updated platformed sedan classified as a truck, especially since structurally they share more in common with a light truck design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papilgee4evaeva Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 The Dodge Magnum wagon shares it's platform with two sedans, the 300 and Charger, tha's as close as I can get you. If Chrysler was able to accomplish getting the unibody Magnum classified as a light truck, I don't think it would be a stretch for Ford to get an updated platformed sedan classified as a truck, especially since structurally they share more in common with a light truck design. Magnum's dead too. Shame, 'cause I kinda liked it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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