A bit of an odd dichotomy lives within me. On the one hand, I am a proud New Yorker that through much empirical evidence has come to realize New York City is the Greatest City In The World. On the other hand, I am a huge country music fan. Not you’re run of the mill belt out the words to Friends In Low Places after many drinks country music fan. No, I actually paid money to see Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett as well as Toby Keith in concert – all religious experiences I put right up there with climbing Mount Fuji or jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

However, being a New Yorker longer than I have been a country music fan I was not always out and proud. Every once in a while I would sneak in a Randy Travis song in between my classical and punk stages. But then an odd thing happened. I moved overseas and for some reason being away from my beloved city I was able to come out of my country closet and embrace the high art that is Willie Nelson and his compatriots. Upon return to my great city, I felt kind of like the outlaw New Yorker running in Central Park to songs about broken hearts and pick up trucks. Knowing the runner next to me was probably listening to latest American Idol schlock, songs like The Fightin’ Side of Me propelled me to run faster!

After all, instead of domestic violence, multiple babies with different mothers and 24 inch wheels only in a country music song will you hear talk of old fashioned romance, a guys wife and a nice dependable used car.

It is with this understanding after the long struggle of the city and country that lived within me that I approached the idea of a Hybrid pick up truck. At its most basic level, the pick up truck is designed to haul crap by day and get you and your best girl to the ho-down at night without fuss. They have been the best selling vehicles in these parts for the simple fact that they are relatively cheap and do exactly what they advertise to do. Yes, there have been advances over time that would make a Maybach blush but the basic formula is the same. Body on frame. Add V8 and voila . . . Cowboy Cadillac.

Like any normal pick up truck, the GMC Sierra 1500 2 Mode Hybrid – a full name only a city slicker up there in Detroit would come up with – starts out with basics. The GMC Sierra 1500 hauls stuff very well by day and can get you to a Trace Adkins concert by night. It builds on the basics of a pick up truck in above average build quality, thoughtful touches like an armrest that you can store a laptop in, lined wheel wells, and door handles big enough for a guy wearing work gloves. In a way, it has gone Hollywood on us.



On the city streets of Los Angeles, I felt like I climbed Macho Mountain when I got behind the wheel of the Sierra. You sit even higher than most soccer moms in small SUVs and the official car of the now retro ‘Obama08’ sticker, Toyota’s Prius. There is even a 6.0 liter V8 under the hood that motivates the very large truck as if it were a dog on the hunt. I will say the sensation of the engine shutting down at lights and the electric motor moving this kind of vehicle made if feel, well, like a very large golf cart. Now where I digress from my country music leanings and go back to my city slicker ways is in a parking lot. I simply don’t know how people west of Newark Airport and East of LAX maneuver these things in the parking lots of the Cracker Barrel or the Winn-Dixie.

Then we get to the 2 Mode Hybrid part of the equation. I simply don’t get it in this application. An electric motor and a V8 in a pick up truck? Isn’t that like having both the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood over to Grandma’s house? I see the concept, increased fuel economy in a large vehicle. And for that matter, it works as advertised. In a week’s worth of driving the Sierra with country music a blarin’, I came close to GM’s promise of 21 city/22 highway with a real world 19. That is a solid 10-15% better than a gasoline only Sierra 1500 with a smaller V8. Like a Prius, this Cowboy Cadillac has two ways to geek out with MPG and economy ratings as you drive. The best one is the instant MPG digital readout just below the speedometer that did frequently belt out 21 MPG as I was rolling down traffic clogged Santa Monica Boulevard. I couldn’t help but think that like me, the odd dichotomy that exists in this truck is one that sounds like it makes no sense but in the real world it does do something positive.

Then as many girlfriends have questioned, are your priorities in order? In this case, how much does that extra MPG really cost the guy who wants to haul lumber from Home Depot or a Jet Ski on the weekends? As best as I could figure it, anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000!

Here’s my logic. The GMC Sierra only comes as a Crew Cab (four door for you people on coasts). So right there that gets you out of the most basic of the GMC 1500 pickups – figure around a $29,000 MSRP for a basic crew cab. Then when you consider the hybrid model only comes in two, more well kitted out trim levels, then you would have to compare it to the better equipped SLE at US$31,000.

Then like any other hybrid you have to ask yourself how many miles are you going to drive a year to make up for that difference? After some quick work with my abacus and some crayons, I was able to work out that you would have to be driving somewhere north of 35,000 miles a year to make up the lower of the two cost differentials of $8,000.00 in somewhere less than 4 years. At that, you would have to base your calculations on gas between $3.00 and $4.00 a gallon. That is a lot of ifs and a very long time for what Wall Street folk call ROI.

The real kicker is that GMC has itself brought out a competitor to the Sierra 1500 2 Mode Hybrid. The GMC Sierra 1500 XFE. My guess is they brought in some Nashville song writers because this one is easy to figure out – Xtra Fuel Economy. Instead of the promised 21 MPG, GM is saying you and your trusty old dog can do 17 MPG in city. How? A combination of a smaller 5.3 V8 that does the dandy little trick of shutting off half the cylinders when you are not under load – think highways – and a six speed transmission. Simple enough – more gears mean the engine doesn’t have to work as hard. Oddly enough, the fancy Hybrid only has 4 forward gears. Here’s a shot in the dark but my guess is that is the case because the transmission housing shares the rent with the electric assist motor in the Hybrid model. Furthermore, the XFE does this for a bargain basement – when compared to the Hybrid - $33,000 MSRP. Enough money left over to take your best girl to Dollywood.

While we are talking penalties and costs, there are others. In the world of pick up trucks, towing capacity is king. Of which, the hybrid is not. When compared to a gasoline only 6.0 V8 GMC Sierra, you lose over 3000 lbs of towing capacity. Let’s just say this would not be the truck to help your neighbor move the double wide.

The other penalty is the same one that applies to all hybrids – even ones that look like a hybrid. The batteries. In this case they take up what was a nifty storage space below the rear seats. You are carrying around half a ton of lithium that had to be mined in one place, refined on another continent, packaged on yet another and of course installed back here in the Lone Star State. Not exactly the picture of a small global footprint. When I bring this up to my Prius loving, country music hating neighbors I usually get met with a look of ‘don’t bother me with the facts my mind is already made up.’

So while all the goodness of the highly capable and great pick up truck that is the GMC Sierra 1500 is still there, I just don’t understand the odd dichotomy that is the 2 Mode Hybrid version. It does what it promises to do so you can’t say it does not deliver. I just can’t figure out who would buy it and make the math work, let alone the usual environmental conundrum that all hybrids present.

To that, I would propose to GM that they take some of the features of both the XFE and the 2 Mode Hybrid and combine them – kind of like Nelly and Tim McGraw did in music. Start with the same basic great crew cab pick up truck with the trick cylinder deactivation feature and six speed transmission. Then add in the engine shut off at lights and when sitting idle. Maybe even throw in the standard tonneau cover to reduce drag as with the one that was standard on my test truck.. I am certain that with some work the MPG could get closer to 20 and the cost would leave some money left over for the myriad of foods available on a stick at many a state fair.