Archive for Chevrolet

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Official photos of the Chevrolet Volt have been revealed but somehow the team behind it have gone all narcissistic with the product photography, at least for these initial set of images that have found its way onto the internet.

The production version of the Chevrolet Volt looks like a more futuristic and aerodynamic version of the Chevrolet Cruze and although you can see many design cues carried over from the Chevrolet Volt Concept, the final version looks curiously more like a muscular buffed up version of the Kia Forte.

The Volt reverses the whole concept of a hybrid car that we know today where an electric motor assists an internal combustion engine when needed. Certain hybrids also have an electric-only mode but what is common is there are times where the internal combustion engine also drives the wheels.

Things work differently in the Volt – the car is driven by the electric motor, which draws its power from batteries. The internal combustion engine (a 1.4 liter normally aspirated inline-4 gasoline engine) is only used to generate electricity to recharge the batteries when needed. The battery is also charged via methods like brake energy regeneration as well as plug-in charging.

This is the fuel efficient car that is supposed to save General Motors from a deep, deep sea of red in the near future. Will it? Look at more photos after the jump.

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General Motors have released an initial batch of 3 photos of the new Chevrolet Cruze, which show the new 4-door car from different exterior angles. Interestingly, GM calls the Chevrolet Cruze a “4-door coupe”. In reality the Cruze is a 4-door C-segment sedan that will be introduced in global markets with Europe being the first region to receive it from March 2009 onwards. It should replace the Optra in some if not all markets.

It will be available with 3 engines – a 112hp 1.6 liter unit, a 140hp 1.8 liter unit with variable valve timing on both the intake and exhaust, and a 2.0 liter turbodiesel putting out 150 horses and 320Nm of torque. A 1.4 turbo will come later. Chevrolet will equip the car with a 6-speed automatic transmission, a first for Chevrolet in the compact segment and more gears than what most car manufacturers put in their non-luxury C-segment cars (most have 4-speed, Honda has 5, and VW uses 6-speeders).

No photos of the interior have been revealed yet except for a tiny little bit you can see in one of the photos, but there have been spyshots of what is supposed to be a Cruze’s interior. GM says the Cruze will feature a “twin cockpit” design which is also available in the Corvette.

Look after the jump for two more photos.

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Various officials from within the government have been calling for Proton to continue looking for a foreign partner. The national automaker previously had failed talks with PSA Peugeot Citroen, Volkswagen and General Motors.

The Volkswagen deal would probably have gone through if it were not for Khazanah Nasional pulling out of the talks at the last minute, saying it had to give Proton more time to turn around before any equity/partnership deal could be cemented to ensure a fair deal for Proton.

Bernama reports today that General Motors’ Southeast Asian operations president Steve Carlisle (photo on the left) is willing to restart negotiations with Proton Holdings Berhad on taking up a stake in the company.

This comes just after GM announced it will invest US$445 million in Thailand to build a diesel engine plant next to its existing assembly facility. The new diesel plant will supply inline-4 diesel engines for GM’s trucks in Thailand and global markets.

When contacted, Proton Holdings informed Bernama that it had not been approached by General Motors for any negotiations. Proton also said that since any possible partnership would most likely involve talks of a share transfer, any interest from GM should be directed to its majority shareholder Khazanah Nasional instead.

So there we have it ladies and gentlemen. GM says Proton can come talk anytime, Proton says GM can come talk to Khazanah anytime. Who will make the first move? If talks do restart and a partnership involving stakeholding happens, GM may designate Thailand its truck production center and Malaysia its passenger car output center for cars like the upcoming Chevrolet Cruze.

The spyshot above showing a dashboard with a Daewoo logo on the steering wheel has been widely accepted as being snapped from a Chevrolet Cruze. The upcoming C-segment sedan will replace the Cobalt and the Optra and will eventually find its way into our market replacing the Optra Magnum as GM has designated it a World Car.

The Malaysian (or rather ASEAN) will most likely lose some of the nifty stuff like the large LCD screen and perhaps have the center dash area simplified with manual air conditioning knobs and losing alot of other buttons in the process, but I think on the overall it’s quite good looking and reminds me alot of a Honda.

Look after the jump for two artist impressions from this month’s Autocar India based on the image of the Chevrolet Cruze exposed in GM’s presentation.

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We’ve ogled at the Camaro concept in the form of Bumble Bee in the Transformers movie but now it’s time to look at the final production version and ogle at production photos of the exterior, interior as well as the technical specifications! The new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro built on GM’s new global rear wheel drive platform was revealed today and sales of the three variants (LS, LT and SS) will begin in 2009.

The new Chevrolet Camaro LS and LT are offered with a 3.6 liter direct injection V6 engine that features variable valve timing. Power is rated at 300 horsepower at 6,400rpm, and torque is an impressive 370Nm at 5,200rpm – a torque to displacement ratio of more than 100Nm per liter. This engine is available with either a 6-speed manual or a Hydra-Matic 6L50 6-speed automatic transmission. This engine is redlined at 7,000rpm.

The more powerful Chevrolet Camaro SS is V8-powered, but the manual and automatic models receive different engines. The manual model gets the Chevrolet LS3 6.2 liter V8 producing 422 horsepower at 5,000rpm and 553Nm of torque at 4,500rpm. This is paired with a 6-speed TR6060 manual transmission. The automatic model uses the L99 engine, which is based on the LS3. The L99 6.2 liter V8 produces 400 horsepower at 5,000rpm and 535Nm of torque at 4,500rpm.

A key difference between the L99 and the LS3 engine is the Active Fuel Management feature which is essentially a cylinder deactivation system which can shut off one bank of the V8, allowing it to run on four-cylinder mode during light engine load. The L99 also has a lower redline at 6,000rpm compared to the LS3’s 6,600rpm redline.

Unlike that other modern interpretation of a classic car which features a live axle at the rear, the new Chevrolet Camaro features a fully independent suspension on both front and rear. This one one American muscle car that will actually go well around the corner. It recently clocked 8:22 on the Nurburgring, beating the likes of the E46 BMW M3 and the Porsche Cayman S which clocked 8:22 and 8:25 respectively. The LS and LT models get the FE2 sport suspension while the SS model is equipped with the FE3 performance suspension which also lowers the car’s ride height. All models feature disc brakes all-round, but unlike the LS and LT which use single piston calipers the SS model uses 4-pot Brembo calipers on all four discs.

The interior features a center-console gauge cluster that pays homage to the optional gauge cluster on the 1969 Camaro. It displays oil temperature, oil pressure, battery condition and transmission fluid temperature using LED backlighting.

Continue reading for a high-resolution photo gallery of the new Camaro.

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The world got a preview of the upcoming Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan during GM’s press conference earlier this week as both front and rear three quarter views of the new Cruze done up in a flashy red paint were flashed on the presentation screen.

The new Chevrolet Cruze is a C-segment sedan and it will be a world car, replacing both current C-segment cars that are in GM’s line-up – the low-cost “emerging market” Daewoo-based Chevrolet Optra and the more expensively-built Chevrolet Cobalt for the American market. This means we can expect this to eventually replace the Optra Magnum facelift that was unveiled here earlier this year.

GM will fit a series of turbocharged 1.4 liter engines into the Cobalt, which GM says will allow it to hit a fuel economy target of 45mpg, or 5.2 liters per 100km, which truth be told is rather ambitious, small engine or not. The 1.4 liter Ecotec turbo will come in various stages of tune from 120 PS (equivalent to a 1.6 liter normally aspirated engine) to 150 PS (equivalent to a 2.0 liter normally aspirated engine), with plenty of torque.

This is for fans of cockpit recordings from the race track. General Motors recently announced that the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 had completed a Nurburgring run in 7 minutes and 26.4 seconds. The standard ZR1 was driven by development engineer Jim Mero, and he said it was likely that the ZR1 could have completed the lap in an even faster time if there was less headwind going against the car during the straights.

The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 (codename Blue Devil) is powered by the new supercharged Chevrolet LS9 engine (based on the LS3 block), producing 638 horsepower at 6,500rpm and 819Nm of torque at 3,800rpm, with a 7100rpm redline. Its Eaton TVS R2300 roots supercharger is intercooled and boosts at 10.5 psi or 0.7 bar. 0 to 100km/h acceleration time takes 3.4 seconds.

View the video after the jump.

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General Motors announced today that the Chevrolet Cobalt (shown above) will be replaced by a new Chevrolet compact sedan called the Chevrolet Cruze. The name Cruze has actually been used before. The original Chevrolet Cruze was a badge engineered Suzuki Ignis compact SUV.

The new compact sedan will be based on GM’s Delta II platform and will be available with a range of small economical engines that include the turbocharged 1.4 liter Ecotec engine announced in January this year. The 1.4 liter motor is expected to produce between 120hp to 140hp, equivalent to normally aspirated engine of between 1.6 to 2.0 liters in displacement. Estimated body length is between 4,500 to 4,600mm long, about the size of the Chevrolet Optra sedan.

The new 2011 Chevrolet Cruze will go into production in mid-2010, but GM spokeswoman Nancy Libby indicated the production version will be displayed at the 2008 Paris Motor Show in October this year.

The new Chevrolet Camaro might come with the option for a 2.0 liter turbocharged inline-4 engine if fuel prices continue to skyrocket the way they are now, according to General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz.

This engine will be the GM Family II LNF engine, found in the Pontiac Solstice GXP. The 2.0 liter engine produces 260 horsepower and 353Nm of torque thanks to a twin scroll turbocharger, 9.2:1 compression, variable valve timing on both intake and exhaust, and gasoline direct injection.

The Camaro Concept featured a 400 horsepower LS2 V8 engine. The original plans for the production version included a V6 and a V8 engine, both normally aspirated. The V8 will feature a cylinder cut-off system which shuts off one cylinder bank during cruising to get better fuel economy.

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General Motors is planning a new series of small turbocharged Ecotec engines, similiar to Volkswagen’s TSI and Fiat’s T-JET series. First in the line up will be a 1.4 liter turbocharged gasoline engine. This engine could be tuned to produce power outputs ranging from equivalent to a normally aspirated 1.6 or even up to a normally aspirated 2.0 liter unit, just like Volkswagen has its 1.4 liter TSI in three stages of tune with two different types of forced induction systems. The 1.4 liter turbocharged GM engine is currently destined for American small cars, but it could slowly find its way into the engine bays of GM’s other cars too, like the Chevrolet Aveo and the Chevrolet Optra sold in Malaysia.

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