As you read this -- well, provided you're reading it after 6:30 am or so Pacific time -- I'll be towing our race car (and I use that term loosely) in the general direction of the 24 Hours of Lemons race at Thunderhill in northern California. Now, last time I towed the car to a race, I did it the old fashioned way: With a Dodge RAM 3500 pickup powered by the famous Cummins turbodiesel. The Dodge drove as if I was towing a load of feathers, and returned a respectable 16.7 MPG.
This time, I'm trying something a little different -- I'll be towing the car with a 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. GM says the four-wheel-drive Escalade Hybrid will tow up to 5,600 lbs, which is just a few hundred pounds more than we need, and its 14,000 lb gross combined weight rating (GCWR) means we can add another ton or so of passengers and cargo without risking a Darwin award. EPA fuel economy estimates for the two-wheel-drive Escalade Hybrid are 20 MPG city/21 MPG highway. I'm driving an all-wheel-drive version, and the EPA estimates are... well, I actually don't know, because the extra weight of the all-wheel-drive system pushes the Escalade into a higher weight class and makes it exempt from EPA testing. (You'd think Cadillac would publish the numbers anyway, as a point of pride.) Whatever the numbers are, they've got to be better than the non-hybrid Escalade's estimates, which are -- Prius owners, you'd better sit down for this one -- 11 MPG city and 14 MPG highway.
So far, I've been averaging 18.8 MPG in mixed driving with no trailer but about 200 lbs of race-related cargo in the back. We'll see what a trailer and a crappy race car do to the Escalade's fuel economy. Any guesses? -- Aaron Gold
Related: 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid test drive on About.com SUVs
Photo © General Motors
Whether anyone likes it or not, there will always be a need for vehicles like SUV’s and trucks. People will need a decent tow vehicle for their boats, trailers and campers. Adapting some form of technology to them to help them get better economy is a no brainer.
Eric,
I don’t think most reasonable folks mind trucks for those purposes. It is the moronic people who drive them solo without using them as tow decives but daily drivers b/c they are big and cool to them. Those are the people I can’t help but wonder what they’re thinking driving around town, to the gym, alone, in an suv meant for hauling stuff.
I love my Dodge 2500 5.9L 2500 CTD. Gets over 2 mpg better than my gas truck when it’s hauling (20k+ miles a year).
I’d much rather have a diesel car than a hybrid. Wish more companies would make them.
“It is the moronic people who drive them solo without using them as tow decives but daily drivers b/c they are big and cool to them.”
So Tim…. how exactly are we supposed to know who the ‘morons’ are and who the ok people are? We can’t expect that people who buy ‘big’ ‘cool’ SUV’s to haul or tow stuff to have that stuff with them at all time, right? How are we then supposed to know who to heap all of our self-righteous scorn on? I guess the safest thing to do is ASSume anyone driving down the road without a horse trailer attached is a moron and snear smuggly….. right?
Let me be the first to wish you well at Thunderhill. Good luck to you and your crew.May the force be with you.
For towing you won’t beat the Cummins on a long haul with any SUV. True on most diesel trucks.
As for daily drivers in trucks, hey check the mileage on almost all medium sized SUVs and you will find them the same as a pickup truck or worse. Find a new target dude.
Tree huggers need to check the text books.
I’ll venture a guess of about 17. Good luck with round two!
So, let me get this straight…
You could have your hybrid 4 wheel drive vehicle with an inordinately complex hybrid drivetrain with a battery system that will cost god knows how much in the future to replace, a 5400 lbs. towing capacity during which said towing activity it will primarily use its’ motors so there are no emission advantages, all for a cost of (GULP!) $87,000.
Or…you could buy a very nice 3 year old Dodge Ram 2500 Mega Cab 4 x 4 diesel with a leather interior, DVD entertainment system, a drivetrain that regularly goes 500K miles, gets the same mileage (or with an inexpensive tuning box installed…better), can run on biodiesel or renewable diesel for even lower emissions wihile towing than the Escalade (which will mostly run on its’ gasoline motor), and will tow 16000 lbs…for $50,000 less. With said $50,000 you could buy a Prius (or Jetta TDi) for short trips around town if you wanted to be green, AND you’d still have $25K in the bank.
Hmmmm.
Okay, so I looked at the Platinum edition. The Regular pedestrian low brow 4 x 4 edition starts at a meager $74,000 after their $3000 rebate. My bad.
I recently visited with an old friend of my father’s that specializes in restoring and competing Ford Model A’s.
As we were walking around his garages he said to me, “You probably noticed I’m a Ford guy. If it’s not a Ford I’m not interested.”
When we walked into his last garage I spotted the pick-up he uses to transport his trailer queens. It was a Dodge 3500 with the Cummins. I said “What the hell is that thing doing in here.?”
He just shrugged and said, “Well…., I guess there’s an exception to every rule.”