Hybrid SUV Reviews

Peugeot is preparing to go hybrid, and they are putting there own unique spin on green technology. You might recall hearing about the “Prologue HYmotion” concept vehicle when it made headlines at the 2008 Paris Motorshow. Then we got a first look at the production version earlier this year when the Peugeot 3008 was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March. The hybrid version is still a couple of years away.

Can this really be true? From a brand that once owned the older car buyer market, that tried so hard to reinvent itself by latching on to Tiger Woods, will come Detroit’s first plug-in hybrid SUV? The announcement from General Motors that the technology once planned for the Saturn Vue will now instead end up in a Buick came as a huge shock to me. With the Saturn brand being sold off (along with Hummer, Pontiac, and the Saab story), there may not have been many other options.

Quick! What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a Hummer sport utility? For me it is “gas hog” but undoubtedly there are many others such as “environmental nightmare” - and few are positive. You can imagine my disbelief then when I started hearing rumors last month about a Hummer that was capable of getting 100 miles per gallon. In fact, with all the “fake news” sources on the Internet, I assumed this was simply another fabricated story to discredit SUVs in favor of smaller vehicles (or possibly the next hybrid video idea from Gary Busey).

Call it a cute-ute or a small crossover, the Rav4 (rav four) from Toyota remains one the the most popular SUVs on the road today. Originally introduced in the United States in 1996, the ”Recreational Active Vehicle with 4 wheel drive” has undergone three complete makeovers and a couple of mid-cycle refreshes and facelifts to get where it is today. Now, the sport utility that always seems to be reinventing itself might be in for its biggest change yet.

At a time when most car companies are eager to jump into the hybrid SUV pool, one auto manufacturer is reluctantly dipping a toe in. Audi, part of German giant, Volkswagen, is planning to release both a hybrid version and a diesel version of the cross-over vehicle, the Q5, in late 2010. According to a company spokesman, Audi is only building these hybrids to show people that it can.

We originally learned about Mercedes’ plan to develop a hybrid version of their popular M-Class in September of 2007, at the Frankfurt Auto Show. And while it is scheduled to go on sale later this year, news and updates about the green ML450 have been almost nonexistent. Although it’s common for manufacturers to keep some secrets prior to production, several factors point to the real possibility that the ML-450 will either be delayed or scrapped.

Like Milton from Office Space, did the LA Auto Show try to move Edward Furio to the basement?

Last June, we told you about the 150-mile per gallon hybrid developed by Washington state company, AFS Trinity Power Corporation. The “extreme hybrid,” the XH-150, is a plug-in hybrid SUV that does not sacrifice power, size, or drivability. Originally slated to be shown at this month’s LA Auto Show, the CEO of Trinity, Edward W. Furia, recently decided to pull the extreme hybrid from the show to express his and many others frustrations with the autogiants.

2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid SUV (updated 08/2008)

Back in late 2007, the hybrid world was a-buzz with GM’s news about producing a hybrid version of its popular luxury gas-guzzler, the Escalade. Well, the long wait is nearly over – the 2009 hybrid Escalade will be hitting dealer lots this fall. 

A Google search for “hybrid suv” included a newcomer in the top 10 results this week, and the title really got my attention.  GMC - 2008 Yukon Hybrid | World’s First Hybrid SUV .  Now that’s false advertising clever marketing, and although a more appropriate title might have been “GMC’s First Hybrid SUV”…upon further research we decided that this clever omission of truth was only due to headline contraints, later corrected to read “world’s first two mode hybrid suv”.