The Great Big Green Car
It’s official, the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid has been named 2008 "Green Car of the Year" by Green Car Journal‘s team of judges (including several respected environmentalists, among them Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, Christopher Flavin of Worldwatch Institute, Jonathan Lash of World Resources Institute and Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society). The award was made public November 15 at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
Green Car Journal Editor and Publisher Ron Cogan hailed the choice as a "milestone," because although SUVs are usually thought of as bad for the environment, the dual-mode hybrid system in the Tahoe "changes this dynamic with a fuel-efficiency improvement of up to 30 percent compared to similar vehicles equipped with a standard V-8." Even so, the hybrid Tahoe 21 mpg city/22 mpg highway is bettered by many non-hybrid choices.
Other nominees included the Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid, Mazda Tribute Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid and the Saturn Aura Hybrid. Not all commentators were impressed by the awards. Eileen Gunn of TheStreet.com, in a column entitled "Green Awards? Color Me Unimpressed," described the award criteria as "awfully squishy, and the judges were even softer in applying them. Most troubling about this wishy-washy award is the prospect of auto makers using it to make their company overall, and certain cars in particular, seem more environmentally beneficial than they really are. It provides a chance to blur the line between recognizing imperfect but valuable innovation and more corporate green-washing
None of these other cars appear to be breaking any new technological ground or raising the bar for hybrid performance."
Source: Green Car Journal