http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...news-highway_1
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So, what's it like? For sheer execution, you can do nothing but throw rose petals at the thing. The engine starts instantly -- as you would too if you were goosed with a 300-volt battery pack -- and falls into a serene idle. Once the gas engine reaches operating temperature, it will shut down during low speed/load conditions, and if you feather the accelerator just right you can make the Tahoe Hybrid sluice along at up to 30 mph in all-electric mode, just a 5,700-pound Prius. The vehicle's two honking 60 kW traction motors (wrapped around the transmission) are primarily responsible for the uptick in around-town mileage.
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GM has made a fair amount of bubbles calling it a "two-mode" system, though I'm not clear even now what the two modes are. I count three: electric only; gas only; and/or gas-electric, in which the operating system constantly ciphers the fuel-saving optimum between the engine's contribution and the electric motor's. If you wanted to send a congratulatory case of beer to anybody at GM, address it to the software writers -- whose ka-jillion lines of code keep the engine, transmission, batteries and motors in a constant state of reification. Spare a six-pack for the transmission's designers, for it is the transmission -- with its three planetary gearsets, two integrated motors (with their own reduction gears) and various other hardy fitments -- that allow the Tahoe to tow 6,200 pounds, a tonnage that would fatally herniate a Toyota Highlander Hybrid.
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Personally, I think the author was a little harsher on the concept of a hybrid SUV than merited. Also, they speculated that the hybrid part was not needed and everything could be accomplished with just a weight reduction program. Having been up close and personal with a lot Prius engineering data over the past two years, this is b*llsh*t speculation.
Late thought: strip a gas only Tahoe so all it has is a driver seat. Take everything else out so it is a bare bones shell and loan it to the writer to do their 'mileage' testing.
IMHO, GM would be well served if they could take future authors on a test drive with a data recorder. Then after the trip, print out how much energy was conserved by the hybrid system.
Bob Wilson