Let’s start with the fact that pickup trucks occupy a very different marketplace than standard passenger cars. Truck buyers need their trucks for one primary thing –to carry and move stuff. Just picture, carpenters, plumbers, farmers, and you get the picture. Frankly, secondary to this mission is fancy styling, fuel economy, and other non-commercial factors.
However, that being said, General Motors felt that there would be a market for a line of pickups trucks that had a hybrid technology incorporated.
After all, environmental sensitivity is quite wide spread now and most American’s express a degree of concern for good old Planet Earth. So from this intuition (and probably tons of market research) was born the Chevrolet Silverado, the Hybrid edition.
It should serve as no surprise that the Silverado Hybrid shares the same technology as the hybrid versions of the Chevrolet Tahoe, Cadillac and GMC Yukon. All three (actually four) are built using the same drivetrain technology platform. In particular, a 6.0 litre, 332 HP V8 gasoline engine with nickel-metal hydride battery packages and a two-mode EVT (Electronically Variable Transmisson). If you’re not familiar with it, the EVT is a real marvel in engineering. In the same space as an ordinary Chevy truck’s six-speed automatic are two electric motor/generators, planetary gearsets and four traditional hydraulic wet lock-up clutches.
So how does all this stuff work? In simple terms, the first mode is for slow speeds when the truck operates solely on electric power, or a combination of the electric and gasoline power. When the truck comes to a stop, the gas engine shuts down. Electricity for the battery pack is supplied by capturing the energy that is normally wasted when the brakes are applied. Mode two operates at faster highway speeds. The electric motors work with the planetary gearsets, so the EVT is capable of an infinite range of gear ratios just like a continuously variable transmission. CVTs are known for optimizing fuel economy, but can’t handle heavy loads. GM’s version of the CVT does so by locking the planetary gearsets to let the four heavy-duty fixed gears take over when carrying heavy loads or towing trailers.
The Silverado Hybrid is only available in a four-door “crew cab” body style with a short pickup box. There are, however, two trim levels and a choice of either two- or four-wheel drive. As the salespeople at Reedman-Toll Chevrolet in Langhorne, PA tell us the two-wheel drive version of the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid sports some nice stats for a full-size pickup. It can tow up to 6,100 pounds and the bed can haul a little more than 1,400 pounds and still deliver a strong 20 mpg city/23 highway. And, let’s be honest, 23 mpg may still seem terribly inferior to your average Toyota Prius economy but try hauling a load of sheetrock to a job site in a Prius hybrid.
