Automobile Blog

GM’S new 2-mode hybrid

Now GM has entered into the green car market. The engineering advancements that GM was showing off in the Yukon hybrid GM brought to Manhattan on a recent morning were impressive in their own right more on that later. Likewise, the scope of GM’s vision to roll out the new system into new models left me more convinced of the company’s commitment to a technology it was dismissive of a few years back.

Indeed, GM has been talking about this new so-called “2-mode hybrid” for years. Whether GM could scale it up into full production was a big question, though. The proof sat parked in the guise of an aerodynamically sculpted SUV (that sounds like an oxymoron, I know, but is true) parked outside a restaurant in New York’s art gallery district.

Full hybrids have to date been almost synonymous with Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive (HSD) system, which, in addition to being the technology behind all Toyota and Lexus hybrids, is licensed by Nissan for its Altima Hybrid and is used in a modified version by Ford in the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner hybrids. This hybrid monopoly is about to change, however, as GM readies its 2-Mode hybrid system for introduction later this year in the Yukon Hybrid and Tahoe Hybrid SUVs. Like HSD, GM’s 2-Mode system enables cars to run just on electricity, just on gasoline, or a mixture of the two.

The system makes use of a two electrically controlled variable transmission (ECVT) modes, which change based on the car’s speed and engine demand. The result, according to GM, is a 40 percent improvement in city fuel economy over the gasoline-only Yukon, and a 25 percent improvement in overall gas mileage.

Hybrid is supposed to improve your city mileage by 40%. If you know the Tahoe, you know how big that thing is. It is a just a bit hypocrite to add electric engines to the existing V8 engine. On the other hand, it is better than nothing is – American moms just love their SUVs. Chevrolet’s two-mode hybrid system developed by BMW adds 400 pounds that the GM engineers had to lose again somewhere else in the Tahoe. The used aluminium on the rear lift-gate, hood and bumper for instance.

GM has several leading battery technology developers and manufacturers onboard in its effort to build an affordable, long-range rechargeable battery for the car, critics have pointed out that the price point could be a challenge given the technology needed to go into it.

GM hasn’t released numbers in any detail yet, but the company claims the new hybrids are 40 percent more fuel-efficient in city driving alone, and 25 percent more fuel-efficient overall than their non hybrid counterparts. The big discrepancy between city and overall performance is due, in part, to the fact that the car relies more heavily on electric power at slower speeds, and because city driving requires more braking, which charges the battery more often.