Apparently, some communists freedom haters blue-state-residents people partial to Ford trucks are pissing and moaning over a pretty tame Chevrolet Truck spot that aired during the Super Bowl. I thought it was a dumb ad by GM, both in terms of content and because nothing can ever top the “Like A Rock” ads that aired during TNN’s Saturday Morning Powerblock Television lineup of Car and Driver TV and the other shows about decimating wild turkeys with shotguns.
GM noted that Fox has issues with the Volt. They give Eric Bolling a Chevy Volt for a week. And this is what GM receives in return. Ingrates.
Bob Lutz took Fox News and other media outlets to task in his latest blog for Forbes, titled “Chevy Volt and the Wrong-Headed Right”, with Lutz taking shots at Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.
An Egyptian sheikh has declared Chevrolet products “haram” (or forbidden, in Arabic) but the culprit this time isn’t the “Zionists”. It’s Christians.
When Jack Baruth wrote a post about Chevy Sonics being recalled for missing brake pads, some readers thought that TTAC might be cherry picking the recall reports, perhaps because of some institutional prejudices around here. Jack pointed out that recalls are a fairly frequent thing whereas cars shipped without functioning brakes are hopefully a much rarer, and thus newsworthy occurrence. In another newsworthy event, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called on NHTSA, the federal agency that handles things like car and truck recalls, to explain its actions in regard to how it investigated and reported the events surrounding the reported fire in a Chevy Volt that NHTSA had crash tested and flipped over.
Starting in March, the Chevrolet Volt will be eligible to use the HOV lane on California highways. The catch? You have to buy a new Volt to use the carpool lane.
The Chevrolet Cruze hatchback that’s sold in virtually every market except the United States still won’t be coming to America – but we may have the chance to get a Cruze wagon, if Automotive News has their story straight.
A Chevrolet Volt owner in Ottawa, Ontario has been blocked by his condominium board from charging his Chevrolet Volt – even though he has offered to reimburse the board for the $1 (approximately) in electricity it takes to charge the Volt at local rates.
NHTSA has closed their investigation into the Chevrolet Volt’s fire risk, stating that the agency “does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles.”
I always encourage my young and old colleagues to research TTAC the ancient way: By phone, not by email or Twitter. (Not to mention the common research method invented by Messrs. Cut & Paste.) You find the oddest things when calling around.
Today, while researching the alleged Volkswagen v.v. GM catfight, a source at GM handed me this cute little table of bestselling Chevrolets around the world. (Read More…)
Last month, while I was judging at the Arse Freeze-a-Palooza 24 Hours of LeMons, a team with a Billy Carter-themed Ford Fairmont Futura handed me something I’ve been trying to find for years: a gen-yoo-wine Malaise Era 1:25 scale Revell model kit of Billy Carter‘s customized Chevy Stepside. I am so happy! (Read More…)
The Toyota Prius V didn’t hit dealerships until the final week of October, but it still managed to beat the Chevrolet Volt’s entire sales total. According to Bloomberg, Toyota moved 8,399 Prius V models in 10 weeks. The Volt sold 7,671 examples in 2011. Volt production has yet to re-start since it went idle in December, and we can only assume that Toyota is cranking out the Prius V as fast as they can.
Last time on Generation Why, we discussed Chevrolet’s youth-oriented concepts, and how the big problem related to marketing to young people was their poor economic prospects. But what about those that can afford a car? Are “connectivity features” like Toyota’s Entune, really the way forward? What about the good old-fashioned notion of just building a car that people will want?
Let’s face it; we Americans have rarely created a small car worth considering, we have also rarely built a small car in our own backyard. Case in point: the former Chevy Aveo. While I wouldn’t say the Aveo was abjectly horrible, there was nothing to excite a shopper and it wasn’t cheap enough to compensate. While the Aveo was born out of old-GM’s need to buy every ailing car company around the world (in this case Daewoo), it’s replacement, the new Chevy Sonic, is the only subcompact car currently sold in the United States that’s actually assembled here as well. The platform used by the Sonic is far better traveled than most Americans. GM’s “Gamma II” architecture was designed by GM Korea with considerable input from Opel (as the Opel Corsa will share the platform soon) and re-skinned by Chevrolet. To make the Sonic LTZ Turbo from this multi-national compact car, Chevy dropped a 1.4L turbocharged engine and six-speed manual tranny under the hood. Unlike the Hertz-ready Sonic hatchback Michael Karesh has last year, the Sonic LTZ Turbo is the top-of-the-line Sonic attempting to please those who want a hair more shove and, paradoxically, better fuel economy. Sound like a good start? Let’s see if GM got it right this time.
Obama! Socialism! Taxes! Jesus! Faith! Guns! Now that you’re paying attention, it’s time for our regularly scheduled programming. A Detroit News article claims that NHTSA is denying any interference on the part of the White House with respect to the Chevrolet Volt fires that resulted from government crash test procedures.
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