1965 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Here are your 2016 North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year finalists [w/polls]

The 2016 Detroit Auto Show will kick off with the announcement of the annual North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year awards, and the three finalists in each category have just been revealed. Following this announcement, the jury – which includes Autoblog editor-in-chief Mike Austin – will re-evaluate each candidate before casting a final vote for the winner. This year's finalists are: Car of the Year Chevrolet Malibu Honda Civic Mazda MX-5 Miata Truck/Utility of the Year Honda Pilot Nissan Titan XD Volvo XC90 The 23rd annual awards will be announced on the morning of Monday, January 11. For now, we want to know where you stand. Let us know which vehicles you think should win, by voting in the polls below. Chevrolet Honda Mazda Nissan Volvo north american car of the year NACTOY

Nissan Leaf sales double Chevy Volt to close out winning 2014

To close out the year, sales of the two most-popular plug-in vehicles in the US kept going in the direction that they had been all year. The Chevy Volt dropped and the Nissan Leaf had another record month. Sound familiar? The Volt sold 1,490 units in December, a year-to-year drop of 37.7 percent. For all of 2014, Volt sales were down 18.6 percent to just 18,805 (from 23,094 in 2013). On the Nissan side of the ledger, the Leaf sold 3,102 units, up 22.7 percent from the 2,529 sold in December 2013. For the year, Nissan sold 30,200 Leafs, up 33.6 percent from the 22,610 sold in 2013. A few other things to note: For every month in 2014, the Leaf sold more than it did for the same month in 2013. For the Volt, this was only true for three months (April, May and July). Funnily enough, the Volt sold exactly 1,478 units in both March 2013 and 2014. The Volt's 2014 total was lower than both 2013 and 2012, while the Leaf had its best year ever. There were three months in 2014 when people bought at least twice as many Leafs than bought a Volt (September, November, December). The Leaf outsold the Volt every month in 2014. The closest gap was 215 units, in February. The biggest was 1,612, in December. As you've most likely seen, GM is still busy teasing the new Volt, which will make its official debut at the Detroit Auto Show next week. We'll have a more in-depth green car sales post up soon. <iframe embedded="true" "="" scrolling="no" src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oIuH75vaSHaaplD4x6gLsYjSsiN4oGmez1T63eaYdhY/pubhtml?widget=true&headers=false" height="430"> Nissan celebrates 30,000 leaf sales in 2014, best year ever for sales of any plug-in vehicle NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Jan. 5, 2015) – Nissan, the world leader in electric vehicle sales, shattered yet another sales record with 30,200 LEAF vehicles sold in 2014, which is the first time any plug-in has sold more than 30,000 units in a single year. "Now in its fifth model year, Nissan LEAF is more popular than ever and continues to bring new buyers to Nissan," said Brendan Jones, director, Nissan Electric Vehicle Sales and Infrastructure. "From the beginning our vision was to bring electric vehicles to the mass market in a practical and fun-to-drive package, which is what makes Nissan LEAF the best-selling electric car in the world." Last month, Nissan sold 3,102 all-electric LEAFs, up 22.7 percent from the prior year and a December record.

Leaked GM document shows GMC Sierra I6 diesel is more powerful than F-150's

GM told us earlier this year that the 2019 GMC Sierra would be getting a 3.0-liter I6 diesel option, but it never mentioned power or fuel economy figures. Hold the phone though, because a leaked GM Canada document just showed up online that lists out the details we've been waiting for. Originally published by TFL Truck, the 3.0-liter oil-burner supposedly makes 282 horsepower and 450 pound-feet of torque. For those who are counting, that's more than the Ford F-150's 250 horsepower and 440 pound-feet from its 3.0-liter diesel. It soundly bests the 240 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque from Ram's 3.0-liter diesel as well. Fuel economy is another story, though. The promotional material states that it will get 28 mpg on the highway, which is 2 mpg short of the F-150's 30 mpg — mind you, it's only capable of that magical 30 mpg figure in rear-wheel drive form. There's another caveat here, too; these are numbers for Canada, so they're not exactly finalized EPA figures. However, we wouldn't expect drastic differences between the two when the American numbers come out. The leaked documents also state the diesel Sierra will be capable of towing 7,800 pounds. That number seems remarkably low when compared to the F-150, which can tow up to 11,400 pounds with its diesel. Extra power and torque would have us assume that GM could get even better numbers than Ford, so we're going to hold our final judgment for official word. A 10-speed automatic will do the shifting on the diesel, just like on the 6.2-liter V8. Since the Chevy Silverado is also expected to get this engine, we can assume the figures would be almost, if not identical, to those we see here. We recently drove the 2019 Sierra and Silverado without the diesel engines, so go check those reviews out if you'd like to know more of our thoughts on the redesigned GM trucks. Related video: