Test Drive: 2007 Saturn Vue Green Line

Ottawa, Ontario - Different cars are interesting or exciting for different reasons. Some accelerate like they've been rear-ended by a freight train; others handle like they ride on that train's rails. A luxury car might pique the senses for offering the ultimate in comfort, while a full-size pickup might be so powerful it feels like it could pull your house right off its foundation.

Hybrids, on the other hand, tend to excite either the cheapskate side of one's personality or the environmentalist within. Here, excitement is derived from the satisfaction of knowing you're not entirely dependent on fossil fuels, something you can usually keep track of with an elaborate fuel consumption display.

I'll admit that I get a kick out of that sort of thing. I could care less about what other people think of what I'm driving: I like the fact that hybrid cars tell you what they're up to as you're driving them.

So in that regard, Saturn's Vue Green Line is a simpler approach to the gas/electric vehicle. There's no nifty animated display to show whether electricity is being routed to or from the battery or even what the current rate of fuel consumption is. Interior cues to the Green Line's hybrid-ness are limited to a charge/assist gauge in place of an engine temperature display, a little green "eco" light that turns on, according to the Green Line's manual, when the drivetrain is operating at or close to peak efficiency; and an engine auto-stop indicator built into the tachometer to let the driver know when the engine has shut down while the car is stopped. (Read Jim Kerr's Auto Tech column on the Vue Green Line for details on how its BAS gas/electric powertrain works.)

Apparently however, peak efficiency here means fuel consumption of almost 12 L/100 km over a week of driving around town. That's really close to the Natural Resources Canada city rating for a V6-powered, front-wheel drive Vue, and nowhere near the 8.8 L/100 km that this hybrid powertrain supposedly can deliver in the city cycle. As with any winter test drive, though, it bears mentioning that temperatures rarely got above minus 10 Celsius here in Ottawa during my week in this car, with night-time lows regularly getting into the 20-below range. Those cold temps meant that the engine would rarely go into auto-stop mode at red lights (where the engine shuts down automatically), unless I'd been puttering around town for two or three hours.

Granted, 12 L/100 km is better than our long-term SUVs had been returning in the same weather; the V6-powered Hyundai Santa Fe I'd been driving in similar weather was using closer to 17 L/100 km in the city.

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