Motormouth: Jay Leno
We want it both big and green
Jay Leno
The basic difference between England and America is size. For instance, in England your ?jumbo king super-large? beverage is our small. So there?s nothing funnier to me than when English people come to America and we say: ?Would you like something to drink??
And they say: ?Yes.? ?Would you like a large?? we say. ?Yes . . . I?m quite thirsty,? they say, and they get a 44oz tub that they could bathe in!
It?s the same thing with our automobiles. Big with you is tiny for us.
I hear I got a bit of stick on Top Gear last Sunday for voting the Chevy Tahoe as green car of the year over here. So let me explain.
Most environmentalists in the States ? the ones that really push it ? live in Vermont, keep their house at 52F, have 40-watt light bulbs and watch TV for 20 minutes a night because that?s all the energy in their solar-powered generator.
Most Americans don?t want to live like that. Most Americans want to continue to live the way they always lived and if possible do it more economically.
The Chevy Tahoe and its brother or sister, the Suburban, are two of the biggest-selling vehicles in America and the fact that suddenly there?s a petrol-electric hybrid version available seems a step in the right direction.
Since all the hybrid vehicles came out, there?s been a tremendous upsurge in the price of used Tahoes because a lot of Americans like to pull boats as well as haul their own big posteriors around and they need large vehicles to do it.
The fear has been that these vehicles might go away as we?re forced into some little sun-powered econo-box, but this big Tahoe Hybrid shows that?s not necessarily going to be the case.
I think the Tahoe Hybrid won because, look, if you?re gonna drive a Chevy Suburban/Tahoe you?re probably getting about 12mpg. But here?s a hybrid version and you?ll get 22-23mpg. It?s not going to be up there in the 40-50mpg range like a Toyota Prius or some of those other cars but that?s not what it?s intended to do.
I don?t think the Tahoe Hybrid is necessarily a milestone. It?s a stopgap. What I think is a milestone is that GM has got a terrific concept in its car called the Volt that can go almost 600 miles on a very small amount of fuel. It is primarily an electric ? it?s a plug-in ? and you can use it if you commute 40-50 miles a day.
You can actually use it for weeks without putting any petrol in it, unless you were going to perhaps take a big trip or something.
I think all hybrids are stopgap measures because manufacturers are forced to make two power trains and they?re expensive and nobody discusses the energy involved in making some of these hybrids with the batteries and the power trains and all that sort of stuff. So I think the hybrids are brilliant and really interesting but I believe that ultimately in a few years you will see concepts like the Volt. Plug-ins will be the new way to go.
Just in case you?re starting to think I have given up on the internal combustion engine, I have not. In the future I believe what will happen is that we will all drive some sort of green vehicle and then on the weekends our classic or sports cars will become the equivalent of a quad bike or jet ski ? a vehicle that you use for a bit of recreation but not every day on the highway.
