Hybrid Escalade: So Crazy It Just Might Work

The segment is shrinking, falling to about 85,000 sales this year from the 150,000 vehicles sold in 2007. "But it's still viable," Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell said. "It's still a market."

With 60,000 Escalade sales last year, Cadillac was the undisputed leader of the luxury SUV market. But even with its new Platinum and hybrid models, Cadillac will be lucky to sell 40,000 this year, GM officials conceded.

But 40,000 is still good business. And to make sure that the Escalade will do at least that well, GM is touting the new gas-electric hybrid model, which gets 50 percent better fuel economy in the city compared with previous Escalades. That works out to 20 mpg in the city for a vehicle that weighs 5,665 pounds and carries eight people, which are pretty good numbers in truck circles.

"We want to still be number one, even if it's in a smaller segment," Caldwell said. "We think the hybrid will help. There is a status symbol to hybrid . . . and this one gets better fuel economy than any SUV in its class," he said.

GM hopes to sell 8,000 to 12,000 big hybrid SUVs, including Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon models, annually. But the "hybrid" tag comes with a hefty price premium -- $5,000 to $8,000 more, depending on the model. Will hard-core SUV buyers go for that?

Maybe they will.

Nothing surprises me anymore. I mean, I never thought that I'd be happy -- genuinely ecstatic-- to find a gasoline station in the United States that charged a few pennies less than $4 a gallon for fuel.