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Chevy City Express headed for dealers

With competition coming from the Ford Transit Connect, it's high time Chevrolet got in on the compact hauling action and took the fight to its cross-town rival... and it's doing so with a little help from Nissan. The Chevy City Express, a badge-engineered Nissan NV200, is now arriving at dealers, giving Bowtie fans a counter to Dearborn's compact van.
"Our existing customers will love getting behind the wheel of the City Express when it's at their Chevrolet dealership," Ed Peper, GM's vice president of fleet and commercial vehicles said in a statement. "But we're most looking forward to giving potential new customers the opportunity to experience one of many Chevrolet commercial vehicles that best fit their needs."
Prices for the 2015 City Express start at $22,950. Scroll down for the official announcement from Chevrolet.

Mixed sales results, but automaker stocks rise on need for cars in Houston

DETROIT — The Big Three Detroit automakers on Friday reported better-than-expected August sales and issued optimistic outlooks for demand as residents of the Houston area replace flood-damaged cars and trucks after Hurricane Harvey, sending their stocks higher. General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler posted mixed August U.S. sales, with GM up 7.5 percent and Ford and Fiat Chrysler down. Japanese automaker Toyota improved sales by nearly 7 percent, while Honda fell 2.4 percent. Still, analysts focused on the potential for Detroit automakers to cut inventories and stabilize used vehicle prices as residents of Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, are forced to replace tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of vehicles after the devastation from Hurricane Harvey. Mark LaNeve, Ford's U.S. sales chief, told analysts on Friday that following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 "we saw a very dramatic snapback" in demand. That said, Ford sales fell 2.1 percent in August. It sold 209,897 vehicles in the United States, compared with 214,482 a year earlier. Sales were down 1.9 percent in the Ford division and off 5.8 percent at Lincoln. Demand was down for cars, crossovers and SUVs. It was not clear how many vehicles in the Houston area will be scrapped, LaNeve said, saying he had seen estimates ranging from 200,000 to 400,000 to 1 million. Ford's Houston dealers may have lost fewer than 5,000 vehicles in inventory, he said. Ford is the No. 1 automaker in the Houston market, with 18 percent share, according to IHS Markit. The company plans to ship used vehicles to Houston dealers and has "every indication we would have to add some production" of new vehicles to meet demand, LaNeve said. Investor concerns about inventories of unsold vehicles and falling used car prices have weighed on Detroit automakers' shares most of this year. Now, automakers can anticipate a jolt of demand from a big market that is a stronghold for Detroit brand trucks and SUVs. "It's got to be a positive for the industry," LaNeve said. Investors appeared to agree. GM shares rose as much as 3.3 percent to their highest since early March. Ford increased 2.8 percent at $11.34, and Fiat Chrysler's U.S.-traded shares were up 5.2 percent $15.91, hitting their highest in more than five years. GM reported a 7.5 percent increase in U.S. auto sales in August, helped by robust sales of crossovers across its four brands.

Bug-eyed next-gen Nissan Titan spied testing

It's no secret that the fullsize pickup truck market is dominated by offerings from Detroit's Big Three automakers, the Nissan Titan and Toyota Tundra not able to outdo the Ford F-150, Ram 1500 or Chevy Silverado/GMC Sierra twins. A great deal of that has to do with the fact that, while the American trucks have all undergone evolutionary updates that include a range of body styles, fuel-efficient engines and excellent technology, the Japanese offerings are, well, really old. Toyota is offering an updated Tundra for the 2014 model year, and while we haven't driven it yet, we're already betting that it's still behind the pack in terms of competitiveness - the 2013 model placed fifth out of sixth in a recent PickupTrucks.com comparison test.
At the bottom of the pack lies the Nissan Titan, a truck that hasn't received any sort of substantial update since its introduction nearly ten years ago. But that's going to change - a new truck is slated to debut for the 2015 model year, and these spy shots of a Titan mule clearly show that things are moving forward.
While this tester relies heavily on the current truck's bodywork for testing purposes, the new Titan will have a revised design, some of which is evidenced by the bug-eyed front fascia of this mule. No, the production model isn't going to look all weird (we hope), but the higher, more outboard headlight placement suggests that the new truck will be a bit wider than the current model.