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Chevrolet ReviewsChevrolet was co-founded by a race car driver by the name of Louis Chevrolet and founder of General Motors, William C. Durant. Chevrolet was a successful and widely influential brand to the point where one out of every cars sold in the United States in 1963 was a Chevrolet - a market share which is unheard of in today's marketplace. |
When I was a wee lad, a four-cylinder full-size pickup was an unheard of idea. Truck buyers looked askance at any gas engine that wasn’t a V8. That’s obviously changed in recent years.
While I’ve already had a crack at the redesigned Silverado in Wyoming earlier this year, that drive focused on the V8s. So Chevy brought media to suburban Phoenix for a go-round in the four-banger, with the Chevrolet Colorado Bison also on hand to test (more on that next month when the embargo lifts).
There are those vehicles that are truly great. You love to look at them, to drive them (or dream of so doing), to buy them.
Then there are the worst. The stinkers. The overpriced, the ugly, the awful-to-drive, the cars and trucks that just don’t make sense.
General Motors’ vice president of global strategy, Mike Abelson, recently confessed to the Detroit Free Press that the automaker has spoken with “air taxi” companies about using the carmaker’s autonomous and electric vehicle technology to produce flying cars.
“There will be some sort of air transport that will get integrated with this AV/EV technology,” Abelson said during Financial Times’ Future of the Car Summit in Detroit.
Not being ones for the fantastical, we were immediately dismissive of any air taxi service occurring any time soon. However, the real takeaway from the interview wasn’t that GM wanted to build flying cars — it was that the brand doesn’t seem to have much faith in widespread EV adoption. From the sound of things, General Motors thinks flying cars have more market potential than an electric pickup truck. Read More >
Chevy isn’t just bringing back retro nameplates here in its home market. Sure, the Blazer is set to appear in this country next year, while the Malibu and Impala have been back for ages.
Over in China, GM is dusting off two more nameplates – the CarryAll for a crossover and Monza for a sedan. Why should you care? Because the CarryAll bears styling very much like the Blazer, portending a shift in design language for future bowtie crossover machines in this country.
The votes are in, and out of the 20 nominees for best vehicle, here are the winners.
It was a difficult campaign full of mudslinging, negative ads, and scandal – oh wait, that’s that other election campaign that ended earlier this month. Sorry, my bad.
If you’re a GM owner in one of three American cities, you’re already able to put your vehicle on the short-term rental market. Now, imagine if you could do the same for your lawnmower. And that kid of yours hardly ever uses his skateboard anymore. What about those rollerblades you picked up in 1992 but mothballed due to the stigma? Everything’s a possibility in this age of micro-mobility and peer-to-peer sharing.
General Motors’ Maven mobility arm, which started off renting company-owned vehicles to cash-strapped taxi haters before launching a pilot with privately-owned cars and trucks, now has its eye on your yard care appliances — and who knows what else. Read More >
As we told you earlier, midsize pickups are enjoying a healthy upswing in sales this year — a trend that’s sure to continue in 2019 after the release of the Ford Ranger. It’s generally agreed that this segment is not an afterthought, and might be something worth investing in for automakers lacking a less-than-big truck model. Ram’s got one on the way, too.
For General Motors, which enjoys major segment share via its Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, the sky seems to be the limit for its midsize clan, and that goes for price, too. With the Colorado ZR2 Bison, the automaker has a truck that more than doubles its entry price. Read More >
When Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, infamously tweeted her country’s congratulations to Syria’s despotic leadership for its commitment to fighting climate change (a tweet reviewed and approved by 31 civil servants), it became clear that, for some, the environment ranks higher than anything else.
In the military world, it’s true that armies and their suppliers are often not nearly as concerned about the environment as their country’s leaders, but green vehicles are making tentative baby steps into this arena. At GM Defense LLC, zero-emission vehicles are a top field of focus, but the lakes and the frogs and the trees aren’t exactly top of mind. Rather, there’s practical military attributes to be found in green vehicles, and that’s why there’s a second zero-emission Chevrolet concept rolling out of the automaker’s defense arm. Read More >
Back in August 2016, General Motors recalled 367,808 Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain crossovers for potentially faulty windshield wipers. At the time, certain 2013 models were identified as having linkages that could rust and separate, leaving drivers with a fistful of nothing when they hit the wiper stalk.
Like all good things – poutine, back bacon, and Donald Sutherland – attention towards the issue originated in Canada. Apparently, an employee reported the problem in December 2015 and, after recalling these crossovers in the Great White North, GM did the same for some American units, as well.
Now, the U.S. gubmint is investigating the possibility that GM didn’t recall enough Equinox and Terrains for this particular issue. At stake? Over 1.7 million units spanning seven model years.
Last month, General Motors released EPA-estimated fuel economy figures for one of the new, turbocharged 2.7-liter inline-four’s applications: the two-wheel drive version of the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups.
Despite boasting 310 horsepower and 348 lb-ft of torque, the engine’s combined estimated fuel economy of 21 miles per gallon left many wanting more. Now that we have EPA figures for the rest of the line, it’s no surprise to see that figure serve as an MPG high water mark. Read More >
Not to be outdone by Ford Motor Company’s Bay Area bikeshare program, General Motors has unveiled two new, two-wheeled vehicles that are sure to get any Camaro ZL1 owner’s pulse racing. We’ve poked fun at the Blue Oval’s non-car efforts of late, but entering the pedal-powered field is serious stuff for companies — stagnating new vehicles sales calls for a myriad of alternative revenue solutions. Just wait till Fiat Chrysler launches a RAMbike.
At least with GM’s latest mobility effort, a motor comes attached. What isn’t attached, however, is a brand name. GM needs help with that. Read More >
When Chevrolet rolled into last month’s SEMA show with a vivid, one-off Camaro SS show car, our attention was drawn to its new “concept” face. It seemed like the bowtie brand had read Matthew Guy’s mind, swathing the grille’s horizontal crossbar in body color and moving the Chevy emblem to its rightful, slimming place between the headlamps. Before this change, the refreshed-for-2019 SS looked a little homely next to its Camaro 1LE and RS brethren.
Who knows, we thought, maybe it’s not too late to fix a mistake. Our hopes remained guarded, however. Then came Chevy’s eCOPO Camaro electric dragster concept, also premiering at SEMA, which appeared with the same facial quirk. Now, we have the brand’s new NASCAR offering and, lo and behold, the front end is, again, just as we’d like it. Read More >
General Motors won’t move ahead with a planned expansion of its Warren, Michigan design center, nor will its Pontiac propulsion center get the makeover GM once favored. While a shiny new parking garage became a reality before CEO Mary Barra’s aggressive cost-cutting program could kibosh it, the automaker’s planned workforce reduction might render many of those parking spaces redundant. Read More >
Production of crew cab and double cab variants of GM’s full-size 2019 pickups is already underway, but the automaker won’t fully turn off the taps on the older-generation models until after the middle of next year.
GM provided a run-down of its pickup production plans Wednesday, assuring those who aren’t fans of the new Silverado’s styling that there’ll be a toned-down alternative available for some time. Read More >
Wednesday morning, General Motors announced third-quarter 2018 earnings “reflecting profitability in all core operating segments.” Operating profits were at $2.5 billion, with North American profit margins hovering around 10.2 percent thanks to healthy truck sales. All in all, things were looking pretty good.
Then GM announced a plan to extend buyouts to salaried employees in the region with 12 or more years experience in order to cut costs. Roughly 18,000 salaried employees are said to be eligible for voluntary severance packages. The reason? General Motors says it wants to do this while the company is still healthy, which sounds like a pretty strong hint that bad times are ahead. Read More >
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