2009 Chevy Silverado and 2009 GMC Sierra
John Turzewski, Lead Development Engineer, Full-size Truck Hybrids talks about the difference between the 2009 Chevy Silverado/2009 GMC Sierra gasoline and hybrid.
General Motors partnered their patented two-mode hybrid system with Energy Storage System (ESS) and a Vortec 6.0L V-8 gasoline internal combustion engine that gets 332 @ 5100 rpm and 367ft.-lb.torque @ 4100 rpm. If you include the two-sixty kWh motors in the transmission you can get an extra 49 horsepower.
The fuel mileage for the two-wheel-drive gasoline version of the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra is 14 city/19 highway. Compare that with the two-wheel-drive Chevy Silverado hybrid or GMC Sierra hybrid at 21 city/ 22 highway. That’s a forty percent increase for city miles! My colleague, Ron, and I drove the city route set up by General Motors. I got 20.6 miles per gallon, Ron got 18.6.
With gasoline at $2.00, a gallon people are not as worried about an increase of 5 miles per gallon, but people are worried about money. The difference between the 14 city miles for the gasoline and the 20 miles I got in the hybrid is over $600 a year. For one truck. January of 2009 saw Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra sales fall 35-40 percent. Even with that fall, General Motors is set to sell 775,000 of those two trucks. If all of those trucks were hybrids the nation would save $4,650,000 annually.
