2011 Chevrolet Camaro Lt Convertible 2-door 3.6l on 2040-cars

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2015 Chevrolet Trax

After the obligatory product presentation for the 2015 Trax, I caught up with Steve Majoros, Chevrolet's director of marketing for crossovers and cars, and asked him to elaborate on which markets his planners believe will be the hot starters for this tiny CUV. Without much hesitation, Majoros began to click off traditional sales havens for Subaru, namely, New England and the snowy bits of the East Coast, Colorado and the Pacific Northwest. That news might not surprise you, but it did me. Perhaps it's something as basic as the Trax's tall-hatchback looks, or the emphasis Chevrolet put on the urban driving cycle during my test in San Diego. But before my chat with Majoros, I'd considered this a crossover pointed at the Millennial city mouse more than his bumpkin cousin. But a closer look had me re-examining the granola cred of Chevy's smallest crossover. Having spent my fair share of time in New England and around New Englanders, I started by mentally listing the Trax's Subaru-like traits: practicality, thrift, all-weather ability and, well, just a dash of ugliness. (I suppose a hatchback needn't always be ugly to sell in Maine, or Boulder or Portland... but a 'distinctive' face doesn't seem to hurt.) After a day of driving through sunny San Diego and its surroundings, I can say that Trax makes an interesting case for itself against the standard bearers of the L.L. Bean set, but I'm less sure of its argument for young urbanites. The Trax looks a lot like an Equinox whose suit shrunk in the wash. Chevy's has downsized its own, rather conservative crossover styling to fit the proportions of the subcompact Trax; to my eyes, it looks a lot like an Equinox whose suit shrunk in the wash. That's fine for offering a cohesive look for the Chevy family of crossovers, but it seems out of step with the rest of the segment. If the Trax's current competitive set were the cast of a high school-based TV show, the Kia Soul would play the lovable nerd, the Nissan Juke perhaps the outsider musician and the Subaru XV Crosstrek the athletic outdoorsy kid. Chevy may see the Trax as the hipster chick wearing intentionally ironic mom jeans, but to me the styling is a little too on the nose; more like an actual grownup trying to hang with the kids. These mom jeans are genuine. Per my earlier point, that quasi-conservative look may be just fast enough for staid New Englanders, but I have a hard time seeing the bluff, big-Bowtied front end playing in Bushwick or Wicker Park.

GM recalling 250,000 SUVs over door electronics

After a door-fire investigation that dates back to February, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has officially announced a recall today that affects around 250,000 General Motors SUVs for a faulty driver's door module. The recall applies to the Buick Rainier, Chevrolet Trailblazer, GMC Envoy, Isuzu Ascender and Saab 9-7X from the 2006 and 2007 model years, as well as the 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer EXT and GMC Envoy XL for vehicles sold and/or registered in the Snow Belt.
Road salt use in these midwestern and northern states can lead to corrosion of the driver's door module on these GMT360 and GMT370 vehicles, which allows water to come in contact with the circuit board. If shorted out, the vehicle's power door locks and power windows will not work, and could possibly lead to overheating and, in some circumstances, a fire. No official word on how many total vehicles caught on fire, but back in June, 28 fires had been reported to the government agency. A fix for the problem is still being worked out, but all affected vehicle owners will be notified by GM.
Scroll down for the official NHTSA statement.

nuTonomy beats Uber to market with self-driving taxi rides, and the latest Corvette ZR1spy shots | Autoblog Minute

Software developer nuTonomy beats Uber to market with self-driving taxi rides in Singapore. A 124 Coupe could soon join Fiat's roadster lineup, and we have the latest spy shots of the new Corvette ZR!. Senior Editor Greg Migliore reports on this edition of Autoblog Mintue. Senior Editor Greg Migliore reports on this edition of Autoblog Mintue. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Massachusetts based software company, nuTonomy, launched its self-driving taxi service in Singapore this week. nuTonomy specializes in developing software for self-driving cars. Testing of the companies ride-hailing smartphone app occurred in Singapore, where riders were able to book a free driverless ride. nuTonomy's robo-taxi fleet is comprised of Renault Zoes and Mitsubishi i-MiEVs. Engineers from nuTonomy were present at this public launch as a safety measure. [00:00:30] The company will now continue to collect data and conduct more testing with its self-driving cars in Singapore, Michigan and the United Kingdom. nuTonomy has plans to offer widely-available commercial service in Singapore in 2018. nuTonomy's aggressive play in Singapore has put Uber and its partner Volvo in the unlikely position of playing catch-up. Autocar reported this week that we should expect FCA to add a Coupe [00:01:00] to it's 124 roadster lineup. When? Well, seeing as the 124 Spider just recently made it US dealers we may have to wait until next year to see a hardtop Fiata. It's tough to predict what kind of performance we can expect out of a 124 Coupe but in the U.S. the Spider has 160hp using a 1.4-l turbocharged engine. So the car you see in these pictures is actually Fiat's 124 Rally car that will be used for competition. [00:01:30] Now that's not exactly how the street car will look but it gives you an idea of what a 124 with a fixed roof is gonna look like. This week we got another look at what we think is the Chevy Corvette ZR1 and its massive rear wing. Now to be clear, the images that we're seeing are actually demonstrations. The car was actually captured without the rear wing. However, our spy photographers photoshopped the wing, which we've seen before, on some of these new shots just so you could get [00:02:00] a sense of what the car looks like driving around in it's most recent state. Now we think this car will make more than 700hp, which is kind of a magic number. The Hellcats from Chrysler make 707 so certainly GM wants to beat them.