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I found a news release in my in-box last week about hybrid cars. I was about to delete it (I’m not looking to buy a car), when it occurred to me to wonder — what’s going on these days with hybrid work vehicles? So I did a little nosing around. Here’s some of what I found.

Your prime candidate in the category of hybrid pickup trucks seems to be the Chevy Silverado 1500. The hybrid power train is pretty ingenious: the truck has an 8-cylinder V8 engine, but under light loads it only uses 4 of the 8 cylinders. The transmission case holds GM’s recently developed “two-mode” hybrid power train, which incorporates two electric motor/generator modules along with four fixed-ratio planetary gears. A sophisticated computer control system continually monitors and adjusts this complicated set of power options, and can choose all-electric operation (for example, when starting up from a stop sign), four-cylinder combustion, eight-cylinder combustion, or combustion power with electric boosting. The electric power comes from nickel-metal-hydride batteries under the back seat; the batteries get recharged by regenerative braking, and sometimes by the motors in the transmission case switching to generator mode.

For a more complete description of how the hybrid system works, check this about.com description(“What is a Two-Mode Hybrid?” by Christine and Scott Gable).

How’s it do? Officially, you get 21 mpg in the city and 22 on the highway. That’s a far cry from a Toyota Prius’ 51 mpg, but then again you can’t tow 6,500 pounds with a Prius. The city mileage from the Silverado is better than a Ford Ranger, which is a much lighter-duty truck. On the other hand, the Ranger will give you 27 mpg on the highway — so if you’re making a choice between a hybrid Silverado and a smaller truck, you really need to think about what you’re trying to haul and whether you make long trips. On the other hand, if you put the Silverado up against a comparable-size non-hybrid pickup, you’re comparing the Silverado’s 21 mpg to a truck that may get just 12 or 13 mpg in the city. If you have to do a lot of short trips around town in your rig, the Silverado could be pretty attractive.

Now, I haven’t driven one or owned one. But for your information, here are a few quick links. About.com’s Dale Wickell has test-driven the Silverado and the similar GMC Sierra hybrid, and has this report (“First Drive: 2009 GMC Sierra Hybrid and Chevy Silverado Hybrid Trucks,” by Dale Wickell). The website hybridcars.com has another overview and road test report. And you can look at the official government stats on the Silverado here. For comparison purposes, look at the Ford Ranger’s government page. And, you may want to take a look at this comparison chart from greenercars.org, the people that first got me thinking about this.

The Silverado and Sierra look a good bit better than the next truck on the greenercars list, the Nissan Frontier — and the Frontier only has six cylinders displacing four liters, as against the Silverado’s six-liter eight-cylinder power plant.

Down the Road
So that’s last year’s model. But what’s the future hold? Well, Chrysler has plans to introduce a hybrid Dodge Ram in 2010. Bear in mind, however, that a Chrylser these days is a Fiat (sort of). No telling how that is going to play out. GM, on the other hand, for whatever it’s worth, is now 60% owned by the U.S. Treasury. And according to press reports, GM plans to invest a billion dollars in redesigns of its pickup trucks (a decision our government guys say is not their business, and they don’t want to comment, thank you very much). MSN Money reprints the Wall Street Journal report on that news (“GM bets on trucks for its future,”by Sharon Terlep). It’s probably safe to assume that some of GM’s upcoming truck models will include the hybrid option that is working well in the Sierra and Silverado — and also, that GM itself may not go broke again until our government does (that makes me feel much safer).

What about Ford — the only U.S. automaker not to go bankrupt in the last two years? Well, they don’t seem to be talking about hybridizing the F-150 (although others are working on that, according to anautoblog.com report on a plug-in hybrid prototype modification of the good old Ford).

But Ford did get top honors at this year’s Detroit Auto Show for a work truck — only it wasn’t a pickup truck. It was the “Transit Connect,” a boxy, odd-looking step van that sort of resembles the Dodge Sprinter. The TC is not a hybrid, either. What makes it so great? Well, according to this USA Today blog, Ford CEO Alan Mulally says that the Transit Connect is a “chick magnet.” And he’s a married man for lo these forty years.

I don’t know. Guys like you and me probably don’t need that kind of help. –Ted Cushman

This article originally appeared on Remodeling Magazine Online.

Standard commercial vehicles often are too heavy duty for small business owners, including contractors, and SUVs, minivans, and cars don’t provide the same convenience and durability as vans and trucks. Ford thinks it has the answer to this problem: the Transit Connect light-duty commercial van.

The van, which has been available in Europe since the early 2000s and will hit the U.S. market this summer, not only stores materials, products, and tools more efficiently and loads more easily than consumer vehicles, it also is more compact than a standard commercial van, which makes it easier to maneuver on tight city streets as well as more fuel efficient, Ford claims. 

Building Products editor Jean Dimeo and I headed over to a press event in Alexandria, Va., yesterday to check it out.  While we enjoyed getting to tinker with the in-dash computer and being able to drive the vehicle around town, what we really liked was getting to talk to a contractor about his feelings on the van.

While Ron Caffi, president of Caffi Construction, doesn’t own a Transit Connect, Ford approached him to review the vehicle’s materials.

He said the van’s GPS system could save time, as well as make it easier for his workers to navigate unfamiliar territory.

The vehicle also is easier to drive in the city than his heavy-duty vans, Caffi said, and the fleet management system would allow him to send the closest worker to unexpected jobs.

However, Caffi remarked that the van is too small to handle the heavy equipment needed for some major construction jobs. But, he said he envisions it for residential service work, general contracting, finish carpentry, and painting projects.

To read more about Transit Connect, see the full version of the article here. –Victoria Markovitz

The van's door design makes it easier to load materials, Ford says.