Is There a Hybrid Motorhome in Your Future? Fleetwood Thinks So.

If it’s December, then you can be sure that the RV manufacturers are ready for Santa Claus. They’re rolling out their new stuff at the Louisville RV show, hoping to show Santa–the consumer–that they’ve been real nice, and that buyers should bring them giant stockings full of cash.

After the huge and ugly fuel price mess from earlier this year, it’s a no-brainer that RV manufacturers are taking fuel efficiency to mind in their new releases. But Fleetwood must be leading the class with what will either prove to be the most innovative–or the most wishful–thinking of all. When the news release is first read, the mouth naturally falls open: A new line of “spacious” motorhomes. What’s spacious? A 42 footer with full wall slide. A 43 footer with full wall slide and a bath and a half. The list goes on. If fuel prices skyrocket again, who needs a behemoth parked in their back yard?

But then they put the icing on their Louisville cake. “Also making its debut in Louisville is the Fleetwood Hybrid, Fleetwood’s first-ever hybrid motor home, which features hybrid electric power train technology from Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation. Fleetwood Hybrid increases fuel economy up to 42% and can be re-fueled at any diesel fuel station.”

Forty-two percent increased fuel economy? If only those guys from Detroit begging Congress for a bailout could do so well.

And then there’s the footnote at the bottom of the press release: “Increased fuel economy is an estimate based on results from unofficial road tests comparing a standard gasoline engine with automatic transmission to a hybrid diesel engine. Actual fuel economy will vary due to travel speed and road conditions.” Is the trick in the testing? A quick review of hybrid technology may spell it out.

A hybrid vehicle tries to meld “the best of both worlds,” standard combustion engine technology, with an electric motor. Basically there are two power trains built into the same rig. Electric vehicles are really great when it comes to starting out from a dead stop and accelerating–but they lose out on the long, smooth haul. They can “recoup” losses by charging up their batteries when braking. Gasoline (or in the case of Fleetwood’s hybrid motorhome , diesel) engines are oh so much better for long hauls (like freeways) and for the tough grind of grade climbing. Put these two power trains together and good things can happen.

The respected magazine, Consumer Reports notes that hybrid vehicles which have larger engines like the “Toyota Highlander Hybrid and Lexus RX400h, for example, get 24 and 23 mpg, respectively. Not stellar, but about 25 percent better than their gas siblings.” Presumably, if you’ll be pushing around a Freightliner chassis which Fleetwood is using for its hybrid platform, you’ll still need a fairly substantial internal combustion engine. So the claim of a 42% increase in fuel economy to this camp sounds a bit “too good to be true.”

And maybe it is.

As Fleetwood puts it, ‘results are from unofficial road tests,’ and according to spokeswoman Heather Everett this is how it happened: Put your motorhome through largely stop-and-go equivalent road tests, and keep it away from the freeway as much as possible. When Fleetwood ran their new hybrid’s road tests, 80% of the driving was done to mimic “city driving” with only 20% as a freeway equivalent. In the real world of RVing, most of us do our best to stay out of city driving situations. It’ll be interesting to find out just how the figures stack up when the first flush-walleted RVers start turning in their fuel economy figures.

If you’re still with us this far, look to see a new 36′ coach with the hybrid technology. Compared to an equivalent front-end diesel, you’ll spend an additional $40 to $45 thousand to get this fuel saving rig. Rollout will obviously be sometime down the road.

Meantime, if you really want a hybrid in your life, consider getting a Toyota Prius as a toad car. It may not fit in your stocking, but for many, it really has proven itself to be nice.

Photo courtesy King County (Washington) Metro Department of Transportation