Chevrolet News

  • Owl makes a new home in Chervolet Volt Battery Case

    General Motors has been keen to point out that its 2011 Chevrolet Volt is a truly environmentally responsible and highly recyclable vehicle. As it turns out even we didn’t quite understand Chevrolet when it told us that most of its plug-in hybrid could be recycled at the end of a car’s life. We assumed the plastics, metals and even delicate battery components would be broken down into constituent parts and sent for remanufacture. Turns out we were wrong. You see, used Chevrolet Volt battery cases can become the latest bijou homes: for ducks and owls. As part of an outreach and...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt drive test, March 2011
    Leave Your 2011 Chevy Volt On Overnight? Not Much Bad Happens

    You don't start the engine in a 2011 Chevrolet Volt. Instead, you "power up" the car by pressing a button with the universal computer power symbol on it. Once the Volt has gone through its bootup routine, complete with tones and chimes, the button glows blue and you're ready to roll on electric...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, New York City, March 2011
    VIDEO: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, Our Real-World Gas Mileage

    Gas mileage is on absolutely everyone's mind these days. Strife in oil-producing nations, and the associated rising gasoline prices, have already led to a surge of interest in any vehicle's MPG ratings. Now production in Japan (source of most of the world's hybrids) is shut down, at least...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, New York City, March 2011
    VIDEO: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, Two-Minute Drive Review

    The EPA rates the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco at 28 mpg city, 42 mpg highway, when it's fitted with the six-speed manual transmission. But can the Cruze Eco really reach beyond that magic 40-mpg number, which is highway mileage only? VIDEO: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, Our Real-World Gas Mileage On our...

  • Lotus Safe & Sound noisemaker
    Has U.N. Doomed Quiet Electric Cars to a Life of Noise Making?

    Should electric cars make noise? It’s one of the most contentious arguments in the electric vehicle world today, with passionate cases made on both sides for and against warning systems designed to announce the presence of a plug-in car to pedestrians. But early reports coming out of a recent...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt drive test, March 2011
    2011 Chevrolet Volt Drive Review: Five Things We Don't Like

    Some things about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt we liked, and there were a few that puzzled us. But GM's innovative range-extended electric car also has its share of annoyances. We found several features irritating, or (to be more diplomatic) perhaps not-quite-entirely-thought-through yet. That's...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt drive test, March 2011

    The 2011 Chevrolet Volt is a remarkable achievement for General Motors, but it does have a few features and behaviors that make us scratch our heads. After living with the car for five days and more than 700 miles, here are five questions we'd love to get answers to. (GM PR: You know where we live ... drop a line.) (1) Why isn't the charging cord in a spring-loaded self-retracting housing? The 120-Volt charging cord stores neatly in a compartment under the Volt's load space floor. But using it is a mess: The caddy is just large enough to be cumbersome, and the standardized plug mechanism that...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt drive test, March 2011
    2011 Chevrolet Volt Drive Review: Five Things We Like

    We're going to have a lot of 2011 Chevrolet Volt coverage this week, as we round up our impressions on the five days and hundreds of miles we've racked up on GM's first extended-range electric vehicle. We'll do a full drive report later on, but first, a few quick hits about the things we like in...

  • 2012 Chevrolet Captiva Sport
    Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Saturn Vue Returns As Chevy Captiva

    The shuttered Saturn brand is quickly fading from memory, but now GM plans to bring back one former Saturn model to live on in a new incarnation. But even if you're a Saturn fan, you won't be able to buy one--unless you're a business. Vue redux The compact crossover that sold for only two years as...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt outside Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant
    Chevy Volt Production May Rise; It's Not As Simple As You Think

    It all started when General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said the company wanted to "double" production of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, its range-extended electric car. Various media outlets reported the news with varying degrees of accuracy. So far, GM has not officially said it will make more Volts...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco, New York City, March 2011
    2011 Chevy Cruze Eco Gas Mileage: We Get 34 MPG--Which Is Fine

    With political uncertainty in oil-producing states, and the rising gas prices that brings, you can expect to see a lot more headlines saying "40 MPG!" We just did a quick overnight road test of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco with the six-speed manual transmission, which the EPA rates at 28 mpg city and...

  • Moduléo adaptable electric car, 2011 Geneva Motor Show
    Silly Little Electric Cars Doing Damage To The Industry?

    Tucked away in a little corner just off Hall 6 at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, something weird and frightening lurked. Hiding behind the shiny stands of Kia and Smart and sitting in what looked like a poorly-carpeted entrance foyer, a collection of electric motoring misfits vied for the attention of...

  • Opel Ampera

    Chevrolet's Volt has only been on sale for a short while but sales are respectable and Chevrolet have pulled out all the stops to build a quality product and bridge the technology gap between the vehicles that everyone is used to and the new generation of electric cars. In Europe, General Motors' brand Opel is planning to do essentially the same thing with essentially the same vehicle, and Chevrolet will be selling the Volt alongside it. The 2012 Opel Ampera is a Volt by any other name, but don't be fooled into thinking the two cars are identical. AllCarsElectric was able to compare the...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    Consumer Reports Pans 2011 Chevy Volt, But Misses the Point

    If Consumer Reports didn't exist, someone would have to invent it. It may be the most trusted brand in evaluating cars, and it offered reliability ratings well before J.D. Power became a household name. A bad rating can send auto execs crawling to its doors to learn what they need to change to get...

  • Toyota iQ EV prototype
    Toyota to Launch Home Electric Car Charger, Jumping into a Crowded Market

    Toyota, maker of the hybrid Prius and the upcoming plug-in version of the Prius, will launch its own home electric car charger, jumping into what is shaping up to be a crowded market. Major companies and startups alike have surged into the electric car charging segment. GE launched the WattStation...

  • The Plug-In Prius
    Google’s Investment in Transphorm Could be Good News for Electric Cars

    Google said today it had invested in a startup called Transphorm, whose power-conversion efficiency technology could some day help create more efficient electric cars. The company’s technology can reduce by up to 90 percent the power lost when one form of energy is converted to the other...

  • 2012 Ford Focus ST
    7 Small Cars Make List Of 25 Cars Worth Waiting For

    Recently, my April 2011 print edition of Car and Driver came in the mail and the cover article peaked my interest. Who wouldn’t want to know what the “25 Cars Worth Waiting For” are, especially given the new technology being incorporated into cars? It feels like it is just a...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    Video Break: 2011 Chevrolet Volt Attracts More Than Just Young Buyers

    General Motors is quite proud of their 2011 Chevrolet Volt and they have a perfect right to be. The Volt is changing the way consumers view electric vehicles and it helping to change the adoption rate even if the Volt isn’t quite completely powered by electricity. A case in point is a recent...

  • Chevrolet Cruze Hatchback

    Chevrolet has been making inroads at repairing their small car reputation since the poor safety records (especially side impact) of the Cavalier and the lack luster performance and style of the Cobalt. Yes, the Cruze has been quite the improvement over past small Chevrolet cars, so much so that it has prompted the company to run ads that depict the Cruze hunting the Civic. Then at the Paris auto show last fall we saw the introduction of a Cruze five-door concept--which looked just to polish the brand, not to go into production. Until the 2011 Geneva Motor Show. The new five-door is slated to...

  • What Makes the 2011 Chevrolet Volt a Better Electric Vehicle? (video screen capture)
    2011 Chevrolet Volt: Long-Term Tests Show Winter Capabilities

    If you haven’t been following it, Motor Trend has a 2011 Chevrolet Volt in their fleet for long term testing. These long-term tests tend to reveal what the real day-to-day experience with a vehicle can be. It doesn’t mean that it is the ideal or even the exact experience every consumer...

  • Alison Brie with 2011 Chevy Volt at Global Green Pre-Oscar Party, Feb 2011
    2011 Chevrolet Volt Takes Center Stage at Global Green USA Pre-Oscar® Party

    Last Thursday, found celebrities, environmental activists and the 2011 Chevrolet Volt at the 8th Annual Global Green USA Pre-Oscar Party. The Volt has been named North American Car of the Year and Green Car Journal’s Green Car of the Year, so it seems fitting that it would take center stage...

  • James Cameron, Suzy Amis with 2011 Chevy Volt at Global Green Pre-Oscar Party, Feb 2011
    Could Chevy Volt Plug-In Displace Prius Hybrid On Red Carpets?

    It all started with Leonardo DiCaprio, who showed up at the foot of the red carpet in his very own Toyota Prius. Within a couple of years, alighting from a Prius hybrid--or any other hybrid, including the hulking Cadillac Escalade Hybrid luxury full-size sport-utility vehicle--was de rigeur for any...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Cruze (Courtesy: GM)
    Chevrolet Cruze to Bring Back Small Car Diesel Power In 2013

    Diesel’s have had a bad reputation in America, something we actually mentioned during our “Super Bowl Ad Watch” earlier this month. If you didn’t catch it, the subject came up when BMW advertised their 3-Series diesel with an ad depicting older diesels spewing tons of black...

  • Chevrolet Cruze 2.0 VCDi turbodiesel (Europe)
    2013 Chevrolet Cruze To Offer 2.0-Liter Clean-Diesel Option

    Last fall, GM executive Tom Stephens said the company would offer a passenger car with a clean-diesel engine in the U.S. market, its first since 1985. Now we know what that vehicle will be: a model of the 2013 Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan. Workers at the Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant where the...

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