Cars.com's Mike Hanley takes a look at the 2009 Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid. It competes with the Toyota Camry Hybrid and Ford Fusion Hybrid.
Transcript
(upbeat rock music) <v Announcer>Cars.com auto review. Hi, I'm Mike Haley with cars.com. Chevrolet's Malibu family sedan is a capable mid-sized car. And it's also offered as a hybrid, which is the model you see here.
So what sets this hybrid apart from the regular Malibu and what kind of fuel savings do you get for the extra costs? Let's go take a look. The Malibu hybrid retains the overall look of its gas only sibling, which I think is a pretty stylish midsize sedan, but it does have some exterior differences like badges on the front fenders. And also there's one on the trunk lid. There's also stickers on the front and rear windows so that when people see this driving this car, they know you're driving a hybrid. One of the changes the Malibu hybrid gets for 2009 are these new wheels and tires. These are 17 inch aluminum rims, and they're fitted with low rolling resistance tires and they help to increase the sedan's fuel economy for 2009 to 26 miles per gallon in the city and 34 on the highway. Now that's up two miles per gallon in both the city and highway figures. The Malibu hybrid uses the GM hybrid system, which features an electric motor generator and a nickel metal hydride battery pack. That's paired with a 2.4 liter four cylinder engine in a four speed automatic transmission. Now it's not as technologically advanced as the systems in the Camry hybrid or Ford Fusion hybrid, and that it can't move the car on electric power alone, though, the engine will come to a stop when you come to a stop, but as soon as you take your foot off the brake, pedal it springs back to life. And that's part of the reason why it doesn't get exceptional city fuel economy. Like those other hybrids do. The Malibu's cabin offers quite a bit of pizazz for a family sedan. You can see it has this interesting scallop dashboard design, which is something you don't see and mid-sized cars every day. There are a couple of cues that set the hybrid apart from the regular Malibu on the inside. The first one is this hybrid specific mode for the air conditioning system. It's this button here you can press to choose it. And it basically has a reduced power mode for the air conditioning system. And it helps keep the engine off longer. The Malibu hybrid gets a unique instrument panel that features a couple of changes. There's an auto stop section on the tachometer now to show when the car is running, but the engine is off. There's also a charge assist gauge for the hybrid system in a new eco indicator that shows when the car is achieving better than its fuel academy estimates. Mid-sized sedans, even hybrid ones, have to be able to handle passenger hauling duty in the Malibu hybrid passes the test. The backseat doesn't feel quite as large as the Camry hybrids, but it's still acceptably big and leg room is enhanced thanks to these cutouts in the backs of the front seats, which helps give your legs a little more room. The regular Malibu's trunk measures, 15.1 cubic feet, in the hybrids is a little smaller because of the hybrid battery pack located in the forward part of the trunk. The car still has a 60, 40 split folding backseat though. The space between the cabin and the trunk that's exposed when you fold the back seats is a little smaller because the battery pack, but at least Chevrolet retains this feature as Ford, deletes it in the Fusion hybrid. The Ford Fusion hybrid costs about 33% more than a base Fusion, but gets about 44% better fuel economy. The Malibu hybrid by comparison costs about 11% more, but gets about 16% better in terms of gas mileage. So with the Malibu hybrid, it's price premium is minimal, but so far it's mileage gains. <v Announcer>For more car related news, go to cars.com or our blog kicking tires.net.
