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Opel CEO talks new EV, will likely be fresh face for Chevy, too

The rumored demise of the Opel Ampera has been confirmed, but there's good news, too. Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann has been busy Tweeting information about the brand's next plug-in vehicle, admitting that the Ampera is on the way out but that plug-in vehicles are here to stay. His Tweets, in full, read: After the eventual run-out of the current generation Ampera, we'll introduce a successor product in the electric vehicle segment. Our next electric vehicle will be part of our massive product offensive – with 27 new vehicles in the 2014-2018 time frame. We see eMobility as important part of the mobility of tomorrow and we will continue to drive down costs & deliver affordability. As we learned earlier this week, the Ampera will not be refreshed when the current Chevy Volt is updated, most likely because of slow sales. Opel sold just 332 Amperas in the first five months of 2014. For now, General Motors is still building Amperas in Michigan for export to Europe. So, what might this new EV mean for the General Motors plug-in fleet? Official spokespeople are being quiet, but we think it's safe to say the new EV Neumann is talking about is not simply a rebadged Chevy Spark EV. This is the first official word about an entirely new EV, and we expect it will come to both the Chevrolet and Opel brands.

Junkyard Gem: 2005 Chevrolet Aveo LS Sedan

The story of Daewoo in North America took some interesting plot turns over the decades. First we had the 1988-1993 Pontiac LeMans, a rebadged Daewoo LeMans. A bit later, Daewoo began selling cars under its own nameplate here, with the Lanos, Nubira, and Leganza available for the 1999-2002 model years. Then Daewoo fled the continent and left warranty service of those cars in the hands of Manny, Moe, and Jack. With GM taking over Daewoo Motors after Daewoo's bankruptcy, we got some Daewoos with Suzuki badges here— the Verona and the Reno— while Chevrolet began selling the South Korean-built Daewoo Kalos as the Aveo for the 2004 model year. This car may not be a gem in the sense that you would want to own one, but it's a gem of automotive history and thus deserves its place in this series (especially because it's one of the rare 5-speed cars sold here). Many (maybe even most) of these cars ended up in the hands of rental-car companies and other fleet users, but we can tell from the three-pedal setup that this car went to a non-fleet buyer. We've had a couple of these cars compete in the 24 Hours of Lemons, where I work as a dignified and respected race official, and they've been amazingly quick on a road course in the hands of good drivers. Power came from this 103-horsepower Opel-designed four displacing 1.6 liters. The Nubira and Lanos got versions of this engine on these shores, too. The LS was the top trim level for the Aveo in 2004, so this car got air conditioning and a halfway decent audio system (by 2004 standards). The seat fabric is industrial-grade stuff, which would have held up well under the steady drip and/or torrents of bodily fluids coating the interiors of rental cars. The 2004 Aveo LS started at $12,045, which comes to about $16,675 in 2020 dollars, so it was a lot of commuter-appliance for the price. The following generation of this car became the Chevrolet Sonic, beginning with the 2012 model year. You can still buy a new Sonic, and the inflation-adjusted price is nearly identical to that of the original AveoÂ… though you might want to move fast if you really want one, because Daewoo stopped selling the Kalos in South Korea not long ago. If you want the rarest member of the Aveo family available in North America, find yourself a hen's-teeth Pontiac G3, the short-lived Pontiac-badged version. Speaking of the G3, here's the way it broke the hearts of gas pumps around the world.

Who sold the most heavy-duty pickups in 2012? PickupTrucks.com investigates

Domestic manufacturers enjoyed a good year for heavy-duty pickup sales in 2012. PickupTrucks.com has taken a close look at exactly how those sales broke down between each manufacturer and between three-quarter and one-ton pickups. Ford sold some 67,786 F-250 Super Duty models last year with the Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD falling just behind at 56,359 units. The Ram 2500 HD came in third at 41,918, while the GMC Sierra 2500 HD earned itself fourth place with 27,616 deliveries. While Ford held onto the top spot in the one-ton market, Ram easily nailed down second place by selling more 3500 HD models last year than General Motors sold Silverado 3500 HD and Sierra 3500 HD trucks combined.
So, did GM manage to sell more trucks than Ford with its two brands? Very nearly. Ford sold a total of 119,338 heavy-duty pickups to GM's 111,555. Ram, meanwhile, moved a distant 77,583. But perhaps more interesting is the diesel take rate in this segment. PickupTrucks.com says 80 percent of all domestic one-ton trucks roll from the dealer lot with a turbo-diesel under the hood. Head over to the site for a closer look at the breakdown.