Car blogs

The fact that General Motors still makes vehicles sometimes gets lost amid all the news and speculation about the fate of GM as an ongoing business.


But it does make cars and trucks and one of the newest is the 2009 Chevrolet Silverado dual-mode hybrid pickup, which Edmunds.com Engineering Editor Jason Kavanagh recently drove and reports on today in a First Drive review  for Inside Line.


We recommend you jump over and give his piece a read, but the short version is that Jason liked it, found that it is a good, full-service pickup with plenty of towing and hauling capacity, great acceleration, good road manners and 20-mpg fuel economy.


The downside is the roughly $4,000 hybrid premium, which would take more than a decade to earn back with fuel savings at today's $2.05 a gallon (national average) gas prices.


The pay-back period, of course, would get shorter as gas prices rise, which we expect will happen.  


Besides the economics, there's also the environmental benefit -- harder to measure but worth considering. Driven 15,000 miles a year, the non-hybrid 5.3-liter Silverado annually would burn almost 190 gallons of gasoline more than the hybrid, and would produce about 1.5 tons more CO2.


And that's worth considering when making a choice.

Tags: Chevrolet, General Motors, Hybrid, 2010 Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid, Fuel Economy

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2009 Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid Gives Pickup Shoppers a Greener Choice was originally published by Green Car Advisor. Read the full story by clicking here.