#ChevroletEquinox

The workforce at General Motors’ Canadian sport-utility plant are threatening to strike unless a new labor deal is reached by Sunday night. Traditionally union deals close at the last minute but GM is cutting it exceptionally close this weekend.

Between now and 10:59 p.m. ET, the automaker needs to pen an agreement with Unifor Local 88, which represents about 2,450 employees at GM’s CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario. The union has already conducted a final meeting for Sunday on how to direct union members on picketing strategies or how to apply for strike pay and benefits. Unifor also updated its website on Saturday to indicate a “fair and responsible agreement” did “not appear reachable” by Sunday’s deadline.

Crossovers.

New crossovers.

New crossovers in the biggest crossover segments.

General Motors reported a 7-percent year-over-year U.S. sales improvement in August 2017 — in stark contrast to GM’s declines in four preceding months — as the U.S. auto industry reported its eighth consecutive sales decline.

Don’t thank GM’s cars, sales of which tumbled by more than a tenth. Pickup-truck sales edged up only slightly, rising less than 3 percent compared with August 2016. But crossovers — especially newly launched crossovers, especially newly launched crossovers in America’s largest utility vehicle segments — produced massive U.S. sales improvements for GM in August 2017.

How massive? Apart from the Chevrolet Equinox, Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Terrain, and GMC Acadia, General Motors’ U.S. sales were down 2 percent last month.

Unifor Local 88 just loaded its strike gun. Workers at General Motors’ Ingersoll, Ontario, assembly plant voted on Sunday to enact a strike if no labor agreement can be reached by next month. The union, which represents the CAMI factory employees, said 99.8 percent of workers at the plant voted for the strike authorization.

Negotiations started in July as GM announced it would lay off about 400 Ingersoll-based workers — resulting from the automaker’s previous decision to shift production of the GMC Terrain to Mexico. Unifor estimates roughly 200 workers took early retirement packages earlier this year.

About 2,450 hourly workers will be employed at the plant following the layoffs, as well as about 300 salaried workers. Now, the strike vote threatens the sole remaining model produced in Ingersoll — a strategically important one for GM.

A limited lineup for the diesel-powered 2018 Chevrolet Equinox has resulted in official pricing that ranges from a low of $31,435 (including delivery) for the Equinox LT to a high of $35,680 for an Equinox Premier AWD Diesel with no options.

Maxed out, according to CarsDirect, the Equinox Diesel becomes a $40,195 compact Chevrolet crossover once the Sun/Sound/Navigation and Confidence/Convenience packages are added to the Premier AWD.

But how much extra does the diesel-powered Equinox actually cost?

That’s more difficult to determine.

General Motors’ diesel-powered 2018 Chevrolet Equinox arrives at dealers later this summer, but despite the third-generation Equinox’s anticipated popularity, diesel Equinoxes will remain rare.

According to Automobile, the overwhelming majority of Equinox buyers will not stray from the standard 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder. With three-quarters of Equinox customers expected to stick with the 1.5T and 20 percent optioning up to the 252-horsepower 2.0T, GM clearly expects few buyers to line up for the diesel.

So why does GM bother? Two reasons. First, “ We believe that there are customers who would be interested in a diesel variant,” Chevrolet spokesperson Michelle Malcho told TTAC this morning.

Second, 5 percent of Equinox volume — not F-Pace or X5 or Range Rover, but 5 percent of Equinox volume — is quite a bit.

In June 2017, General Motors reported 29,182 U.S. sales of its Chevrolet Equinox, the company’s most popular non-truck model in America.

A 49-percent year-over-year improvement made June the best month for the Equinox since May 2015.

Combined with sharp declines from Chevrolet’s three mainline sedans, it also made the Equinox more popular in June than the Chevrolet Cruze, Malibu, and Impala combined.

As if we needed more evidence that Americans want crossovers, not cars.

After a long eight-year run for the second-generation Chevrolet Equinox, General Motors finally dropped the third-generation 2018 Chevrolet Equinox in September 2016. The 2018 Chevrolet Equinox might not be your cup of tea — I like the look, and the diesel option — but we learned late last month that it could have been downright awful.

How bad was it? It looked too bulky, too odd, too underwhelming, according to focus groups. The Equinox’s chief engineer, Mark Cieslak, said, “What we have on paper we felt was not going to win.”

So GM went back to the drawing board.

But seriously, how bad was it? We want to know, as does Autoweek, which tweeted last Saturday, “We really want to see what the abandoned version looked like.”

GM’s executive vice president for global product development, the Twitter-affable Mark Reuss, responded just 10 minutes later. And, uh, my guess is they really don’t want us to see the first third-gen Equinox.

To say the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox is an important model for General Motors is to downplay the importance of the crucial compact crossover segment. Lighter, trimmer and more fuel efficient than before, the new right-sized Equinox erases many of the drawbacks of its long-in-the-tooth predecessor.

However, if “Old GM” was still in existence (and some would argue it still is), the 2018 model would have arrived on dealer lots with a built-in drawback approved by Detroit bigwigs. By that, we mean design. According to the vehicle’s chief engineer, the third-generation model’s initial design sent focus groups scurrying up a tree.

Most readers are aware of my unbridled enthusiasm for base model cars. Sure, there are a few luxury models that spring to mind where it’s imperative buyers select the top trim, lest they run the risk of an arch nemesis pulling alongside them in an Escalade Platinum when they are piloting a lowly Escalade Luxury.

Thing is, it behooves the frugal customer to pay attention before they sign the note on a set of base wheels. For years, commercials told us “ America Runs on Dunkin” when we all know that America Runs on Monthly Payments. Most shoppers have a monthly or biweekly figure in mind and, examined through that lens, base cars aren’t always the best deal.

Volkswagen’s emissions scandal may have killed that company’s diesel presence in North America, but it didn’t kill demand for diesel engines in general — especially ones that don’t pollute like Chernobyl and end up in the trash heap.

At least, that’s General Motors’ take on it. The automaker hopes to fill the void created by VW’s oil-burning absence and, in doing so, score some points with the EPA. With diesel engines now available in five vehicles you won’t see on a worksite (and five more that you would), GM has high hopes it can erase memories of its 1980s diesel woes.

Chevrolet has lifted the curtain on its next-generation Equinox, revealing a host of technological and styling updates for a long-running model that had grown long in the tooth.

The changes coming for the 2018 model year put the Equinox as a proper compact SUV, as the slimmed-down model sheds significant weight and adopts a trio of turbocharged four-cylinders. Going out on a limb in the red-hot market segment, Chevrolet plans to offer a diesel.

There might be some light at the end of the assembly line for Oshawa — but it will come with a price.

According to the Windsor Star, the plant’s Consolidated Line, which produces the Chevrolet Equinox in an overflow capacity using bodies shuttled from CAMI, won’t get another stay of execution and will certainly close in 2017.

However, a General Motors Canada executive familiar with the negotiations says that closing the Flex Line is not a “foregone conclusion.”

Old car? Can’t get a driving job? Not a problem.

If you’re looking to drive for the ride-sharing service Lyft in Chicago, General Motors wants to get you into a new Chevrolet Equinox.

Under its Express Drive program, Lyft drivers whose own cars don’t meet the company’s standards can finance an Equinox at a declining rate — starting at a maximum of $99/week — with insurance and maintenance included.

Nine years ago, General Motors began selling two different vehicles off its full-size Lambda platform, the GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook.

Remember the Outlook? Of course you don’t.

By 2007, GM was also selling the Buick Enclave. By the end of 2008, GM added the Chevrolet Traverse.

Now it’s late 2015. GM is still selling the first generation of their Lambda platform crossovers. A lot of them.

GM also continues to sell the six-year-old versions of their Theta platform crossovers, as well. A lot of them. More than they’ve ever sold before.

As General Motors prepares to carve out space in between their best-selling utility vehicle, the Equinox, and their large three-row crossover, the Traverse, Ford reports significant improvement with the launch of their second-generation tweener crossover.

U.S. sales of the Ford Edge jumped 44 percent to 40,083 units in the second-quarter of 2015. The May 2015 total of 14,399 units was the best May ever for the Edge, which slots in between the Escape, one of America’s best-selling utility vehicles, and rubs up alongside the longer, three-row Explorer.