#Chevrolet

While diesel may be deader than disco in the passenger car segment, it is rolling plenty of coal in the half-ton pickup truck class. Once the domain of heavy duty rigs, oil burners are now snaking their way under the hoods of consumer-grade trucks.

We’ve known for a spell the output of Ford’s half-ton PowerStroke, as we have with Ram’s on-again-off-again EcoDiesel. Now we learn GM’s rating and, compared to that pair of competitor mills, it can brag about being best in class.

That didn’t take long, did it? In a Friday morning announcement, General Motors said it plans to bring a second electric product to the Orion Assembly plant in suburban Detroit, home to the Chevrolet Bolt.

Forget Buick and Cadillac, too. This Bolt-based product is destined to carry the bowtie badge.

Once upon a time in the early 2000s, a special convergence of factors created three very special cars. The most important element in the cars’ creation was the motoring public’s desire for things that appeared “retro” in the early part of the millennium. This retro desire occurred around the same time as some meetings in Michigan, where executives at the Big Three surely conducted consumer clinics with retired old men.

Remember, you can only burn one of these.

Today is the last day of Chevrolet Cruze production in America. Much to the chagrin of hard-working Lordstown Assembly employees and one Associate Editor, a compact Chevy sedan will no longer roll off production lines in Ohio. The Cruze continues to be built south of the border for other markets.

We’re sending it off the only way we know how. It’s time to pour one out for the last-ever base model Cruze.

It’s easy for a car to disappoint — it’s seen all the time in the reviews featured on these pages. A squeaky seat here, loose trim there, or a ride quality as smooth as falling down a flight of stairs.

But what about those times when the opposite happens?

Today’s Rare Ride is a very limited production coupe from Brazil that appears to be very derivative in its styling. But what if that’s not the case at all?

Hardly a month goes by without a manufacturer expressing an interest in making an all-electric truck for the masses. Indie manufacturers like Bollinger and Rivian have lit a fire under the traditional automakers playing in this segment, with Ford confirming last week that it is planning an EV F-150.

Perhaps predictably, General Motors quickly jumped on the bandwagon after the Blue Oval news, with top brass uttering phrases about electrification as it relates to their line of pickup trucks.

Today’s truck shoppers shouldn’t put aside their purchase plans, though; it seems The General won’t be acting on these ideas anytime soon.

In a rare victory for television, General Motors was forced to pull one of its obnoxious “Real People” ads earlier this week after Ford, Toyota, and Honda cried foul over its claims. If you missed our earlier coverage, the gist was that GM stated Chevrolet was the more dependable brand by surprising rival owners — who were definitely not paid actors — with totally reliable data…

One of the biggest problems with the spot was that the reliability-related praise heaped on Chevrolet’s vehicles was, in many cases, supported by data obtained from previous-generation vehicles. That gave the annoyed automakers solid footing to call the commercial misleading and deploy their lawyers. Earlier this month, GM’s legal team was sent a letter demanding the company stop making the reliability claims in its television campaign and was given until January 14th to respond to the demands.

General Motors ultimately responded by saying the ad had already stopped airing nationally and that it would be removed from local markets in the coming weeks. It noted that it stood by the claims. Then, earlier today, it also removed the commercial from the internet.

The Buy/Drive/Burn series tackled big SUVs in the past, but those were of a distinctly luxurious flavor, costing over $85,000. Today we take a look at three other SUVs, but this time they’re closer to the $50,000 price point. All are from standard, non-luxury brands, have V8 engines, and boast body-on-frame construction. Let’s sort them out.

You hear it time and time again on the internet. “There are no bad cars today.” It’s proclaimed by those who lived through the Malaise Era and have personally experienced the build quality and reliability of an new Renault Le Car or Chevy Monza. And while things are most definitely better than they were, nothing’s perfect. Bring out your critical fingertips.

With full-sized pickups replacing luxury vehicles for many Americans, fancy crew or double cab trucks have become so popular, General Motors didn’t even bother introducing a standard cab variant of the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado at launch. Hopefully, you weren’t one of the poor schmucks who ended up being laughed out of their local Chevy dealership over the holidays while on a noble quest to bring home a new, reasonably priced pickup from the current model year.

Assuming you weren’t, or were and didn’t purchase from a rival manufacturer, we bring good tidings. Standard cab Silverados should start appearing on dealer lots relatively soon.

Good news for would-be Volt owners? Not really. Chevrolet’s soon-to-be-discontinued plug-in hybrid won’t live long enough to suffer the indignity of a halved federal EV tax credit. It’s dead in March, though remaining examples of the car everyone should want will no doubt linger on lots through the spring.

On Wednesday, General Motors announced, as expected, that it became the second automaker to pass the federal government’s 200,000-vehicle threshold, kicking off a three-month countdown to a chopped incentive.

Today’s Rare Ride has brown paint, a tweedy tan interior, and super rad 1980s Italian design. Think you can control your Impulses?

Okay, no more puns.

Last Wednesday, our Question of the Day asked which automaker you wished well in 2019. Today we take a different approach, and ask which automaker doesn’t need any of your positive internet thoughts and prayers.

After consuming far too much turkey over the last couple of days, your humble author is suddenly a proponent of removing a few things from one’s plate. Sure, that third hot roast turkey smothered in hot gravy sounded like a good idea while ladling it onto my plate, but proved to be a fatal error just a couple of hours later as I slipped into yet another tryptophan-induced Christmas coma.

Such is the case with the 2019 Chevy Tahoe. By selecting a certain series of options, one can spec a body-on-frame SUV that actually bears a Monroney less than its base starting price. Does this make it a super Ace of Base? Do we still have turkey in the fridge?

The answer to both of these questions is a resounding “yes” … especially for the turkey.