Saturn Hybrid Car

Saturn Vehicles

Source hybridcar.com

The Saturn Vue small SUV was supposed to come in three different shades of green: mild hybrid, full hybrid, and plug-in hybrid (as shown here).

When General Motors introduced its first hybrids, the company applied the advanced fuel-saving technology to the Saturn brand. The first models introduced as “Green Line” vehicles were unconvincing mild hybrids, but a future version of the Saturn Vue small sport utility was scheduled to use full “two-mode” hybrid technology—followed by a plug-in hybrid version.

That would have made the Saturn Vue the only vehicle on the market with three different flavors of hybrid—a truly innovative and forward-thinking approach to hybrid technology. Unfortunately, the entire Saturn brand—hybrid and conventional—is apparently falling victim to GM’s financial woes.

GM Plug-in Crossover SUV

The plug-in hybrid Vue was originally planned for 2010, but now all bets are off. The plug-in Vue was going to utilize a modified version of GM's two-mode hybrid system, plug-in technology, and an advanced lithium ion battery pack. The system was being engineered to achieve significant increases in fuel economy, as much as twice that of any current conventional hybrid vehicle.
The advantages of a plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle over a non-plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle are its extended electric-only propulsion, additional battery capacity, and its ability to be recharged from an external electrical outlet, meaning common household current. The Saturn Vue Line plug-in hybrid was expected to offer electric-only propulsion for more than 10 miles. To propel the vehicle at higher speeds, electric-only mode would switch to either a combination of engine and electric power together, or engine power by itself. GM’s two-mode hybrid system will be modified for use with plug-in technology. The system maintains two separate driving modes—one for city, the other for highway.

Saturn Vue Green Line Two-Mode

Compact and midsize vehicles seem to be the sweet spot for US hybrid sales.
So we’ve eagerly waited for the arrival of the Saturn Vue Two-Mode Hybrid, the full hybrid version of Saturn’s Vue compact sport-utility. General Motors will not produce a 2009 version of the Saturn Vue Two-Mode, which was scheduled for release in late 2008. We had to check the badges to make sure these Vues were in fact Two-Modes, rather than the mild-hybrid version now known just as the Vue Hybrid (nee Vue Green Line).

·         The Hybrid Vue for V6 Buyers

The Vue Two-Mode Hybrid will be sold alongside the mild-hybrid version, but the two serve very different niches. This big V6 is mated to the Two-Mode Hybrid system jointly developed by GM, Chrysler, Daimler, and BMW. (By comparison, the slower, less expensive four-cylinder Vue Hybrid returns 25 city/32 highway.)

The standard two-wheel-drive Vue V6 is already heavy at 3,870 pounds; the Two-Mode package adds another 250 pounds on top of that. (The Vue Two-Mode isn’t offered with all-wheel-drive, unlike the Highlander Hybrid.) The Vue Two-Mode rides lower than its non-hybrid brethren, for better aerodynamics, which also helps that planted-on-the-road feeling. Perhaps it’s the compact hybrid crossover for buyers who don’t want to be seen in a hybrid?

The Vue Two-Mode will arrive at Saturn dealerships in January and February 2009.

·         The Latest Two-Mode Hybrid

The basic Two-Mode technology in this latest Vue hybrid is the same one used in the full-size Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid (see our drive report) and GMC Yukon Hybrid, and Cadillac Escalade Hybrid full-size SUVs, and it will also appear next spring in the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid and GMC Sierra Hybrid full-size pickup trucks. Chrysler now offers it in the Dodge Durango Hybrid and Chrysler Aspen Hybrid full-size SUVs, and it will soon launch in the BMW X6 Hybrid and a future Mercedes-Benz ML450 Hybrid SUV as well.

The cells inside it are made by Cobasys, which was recently in the news for a recall of its smaller packs fitted to the mild-hybrid versions of the Saturn Aura, Saturn Vue, and Chevrolet Malibu. Next up in the growing lineup of hybrid Saturn Vue models will be the Vue Two-Mode Plug-In Hybrid, which will run up to 10 miles on electricity alone, using a larger battery pack that can be charged up from the power grid. That vehicle is expected to launch late in 2010, at roughly the same time as GM’s much-touted Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle.

Saturn Vue Hybrid

The mild-hybrid Saturn Vue Green Line is G.M.’s first gas-electric vehicle, unless you count the company’s ultramild-hybrid pickup trucks.

For comparison’s sake, a conventional gas-only Vue with 4-cylinder engine, front drive and automatic transmission is rated 22 in town, 27 on the highway.

Instead of a discrete electric motor that can drive the wheels just like a gasoline engine, the Green Line uses a belt alternator-starter; it shuts the engine off when the car comes to a complete stop, eliminating gas consumption at idle. The Green Line’s 36-volt battery and motor-generator smartly wake up the engine as soon as the driver’s foot comes off the brake pedal.

That feat—the thing that, in the view of many people, makes a hybrid a hybrid—belongs for the moment only to full hybrid systems from Toyota and Ford. The typical hybrid driver needs real-time information to wring the most miles from the fuel, but Saturn provides only silly green lights and a little dial and pointer. There is also the Green Line’s overall feel of righteous deprivation. While the Green Line is rather Spartan, the Red Line, a higher-performance Vue, has a distinctive front end, sport suspension, 18-inch alloy wheels, leather seats and much more. The Vue Green Line proves that G.M. is capable of improving the fuel efficiency of many of its vehicles at a modest cost.

Saturn Aura Green Line

Matt DeLorenzo of Road and Track said, “The Saturn Aura is a breakthrough car for General Motors. As the Aura Green Line made the rounds to the auto reviewers, the story changed. Why did the Aura Green Line get accused of being cheap? Because affordablity (a.k.a. cheapness) was General Motors's goal in producing Saturn hybrids. This technology, commonly called “stop-start“ is a no-frills system for improving fuel economy by about 10 percent.

While Saturn manages to keep the additional cost of the Green Line version within a couple of thousand bucks of the conventional four-cylinder Aura (especially when considering the hybrid tax credit), its real competition is not the standard Aura—but the Toyota Prius and Civic Hybrid. Unfortunately, the bare-bones entry-level versions of those cars are about the same price as the Aura Green Line. And those vehicles beat the Aura Green Line's fuel efficiency ratings by 13 mpg and 16 mpg respectively. The Aura Green Line is hard to distinguish from the conventional Aura.

·

Source : Hybridcar.com, Saturn.com, Hybridca-r.com

Read Other article ; Hyundai Car, Nissan Car, Audi Cars, Used Van, Vehicle Accessories