trucks

The NY Times reported last weekend on a dozen autos you might not expect to get such great gas mileage. Among their picks was a Corvette, which I can tell you first-hand gets better gas mileage than you’d expect, at 26 mpg on the highway — if you drive it reasonably and responsibly. But who does that in a Corvette?

Here’s the Times’s list with combined miles per gallon, but you’ll want to read the whole list on the newspaper’s Web site. Reporter Lawrence Ulrich includes everything from tiny econoboxes to full-size SUVs and pickups. He purposefully left out the obvious, like the Prius and Honda Civic, to focus on overlooked models in broad categories.

• Toyota Camry Hybrid, 34 mpg
• Volkswagen Jetta TDI, 33 mpg
• Mini Cooper, 29 mpg
• Nissan Versa, 27 mpg
• Honda Accord coupe, 24 mpg
• Toyota RAV-4, 24 mpg
• Mazda 5, 23 mpg
• BMW 328i, 22 mpg
• Toyota Tacoma, 21 mpg
• Chevy Corvette, 19 mpg
• Ford Flex, 19 mpg
• Mercedes-Benz GL320 Bluetec, 19 mpg

The Cobalt XFE has done so well for GM in these days of expensive gas and carbon-consciousness that it’s expanding the fuel-efficient XFE measures to the much larger Silverado, Tahoe, Sierra, and Yukon this fall.

The XFE models get 5% better mileage on the highway and 7% better in the city, which in trucks and SUVs as big as these is still a pretty small difference. All four models will get 15 city, 21 highway, as opposed to the vanilla varieties, which get 14 city, 20 highway. Huzzah!

The difference the XFE tweaks make is more noticeable in a small car like the Cobalt, where the company first used them. The regular-issue 2008 Cobalt with an automatic transmission gets 22 mpg city and 31 mpg highway; the 2008 FXE trimmed Cobalt gets 25 in the city and 36 on the highway.

The XFE designation means the vehicles were lightly redesigned with more fuel-efficient engines and better aerodynamics. The four new trucks all have:

• 5.3L Flex-Fuel engine
• Aluminum cylinder block and heads to reduce mass
• Lowered suspension to improve aerodynamics
• Aluminum wheels and spare to reduce mass
• Low rolling resistance tires with higher tire pressure

After a disastrous second quarter, Ford announced that they’re going to build fewer trucks and SUVs and import six small cars that the company’s been selling in Europe. Consumers, and the dealers who can’t move SUVs off their lots, are chomping at the bit to get these more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The Ford Focus and Fiesta sedans and hatchbacks currently on the streets of Paris and London will be available in the U.S. in 2009-2010. At the same time, three truck plants — two in the U.S. and one in Mexico — will switch over to building the small cars that are currently in such short supply. I can’t help but think that a little bit of foresight on Ford’s part could have saved them from their worst quarter ever, which just ended with a total loss of $8.7 billion.

If we’re lucky, we Americans will get the latest Fiesta, the ECOnetic, which debuted in London July 22. It gets the best fuel economy in the company at 3.7 l/100 km, which on this side of the pond is an amazing 63.5 mpg. It also has the lowest CO2 output in its class, at 98g/km, yet it still has a top speed of 110 mph.