Quote:
Originally Posted by ecomodded
A spade is a spade so it gets to park in the spot , embarrassingly , with its shameless 20/23 mpg city/highway mileage.
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Let's look at this from a different perspective. My Taurus is rated 18/25 according to fueleconomy.gov. We're talking about a smaller, lighter, more aerodynamic 5 passenger sedan. With the amount of city driving I'm doing as of late, I'd probably save a bunch of gas with a Tahoe hybrid. Heck, despite the EPA rating I'm willing to bet I could pull similar or even better numbers out of that Tahoe on the highway than I can with the Taurus.
We could even go more modern and do this. A 2013 V6 Camry (2013 is when the Tahoe hybrid was discontinued) is rated 21 mpg in the city. We're talking about a 1mpg difference between a lightweight, aerodynamic 5-passenger sedan and a 7-passenger brick.
Granted, moving up to a more comparable model year adjusts the highway mileage to put the sedan far ahead at 31. But the sedan doesn't seat seven, and we're still comparing apples to watermelons.
My point is, the Chevy does pretty damn well for what it is. Sure, they went nuts with the Hybrid stickers. But it does what it's supposed to; it massively improves fuel economy. Is improving the fuel economy of a thirsty, popular SUV less important than improving the fuel economy of a Corolla? GM could, and has, put a bunch of effort into smaller hybrid/gas vehicles. But rather than only do that (looking at you Japanese automakers), they've put effort into practically every vehicle across the board, including trucks and SUVs.
Hell, they should be
praised for this.
There are far better vehicles to spend time hating. Toyota, for instance, that automaker so often heralded as a champion of fuel economy, makes this pig:
2014 Toyota Sequoia
2WD, 5.7L 8 Cylinder:
13/17