Hasta La Gadget!

The 2009 Cadillac Escalade Hybrid proves that a nearly three-ton SUV can manage 20 mpg. On a thousand-mile, mostly highway trip, that’s exactly what I got, and it’s also what GM claims (actually 20 city, 21 highway, 20 overall on regular fuel). SUVs of the 1990s were lucky to reach the mid-teens. A little bit of the credit on my trek goes to the two-mode hybrid drivetrain and a lot to the V8 engine that backs off to four cylinders when not accelerating or hill-climbing. (The hybrid benefit accrues mostly in stop-and-go city driving.) The navigation system worked well, as did Bluetooth, and OnStar’s Destination Download was great when you were under way (important since GM locks out manual destination entry): Press the OnStar button, tell the operator where you want to go, and the route is automatically downloaded.