After a number of spy shots, Chevrolet has released official photographs the upcoming 2010 Cruze . Though the Cruze will be released at the Paris Motor Show, apparently Chevy is trying to drum up some early excitement. The Cruze, which will replace the compact Cobalt, is expected to be sold world-wide. Obviously, by looking at the car you can tell Chevrolet is targeting this car directly at the current generation Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla. In my humble opinion, it’s pretty shameful. The current generation Cobalt is a great looking car. It’s sporty and a bit of a throwback to the Ford Probe, which many people followed religiously. The new car looks slightly wider and probably has more interior room than the Cobalt. However, with a line-up as deep as GMs, I could see both cars being sold and let’s drop some SUV or superfluous GM truck in lieu of multiple small cars. See below for more pictures and the official release from GM.

From GM:

PRESS RELEASE

All-New Chevrolet Cruze Features Dramatic Design

Detroit - The first photographs of Chevrolet’s all-new Cruze sedan - making its world premiere at the Paris Motor Show in October - reveal a dynamic four-door coupe that proves exciting design and value are not mutually exclusive.

On sale beginning in Europe from March next year, Cruze features a dramatic re-interpretation of the traditional sedan featuring Chevrolet’s new global design language that is becoming a signature on all new products carrying the gold bowtie.

Cruze’s arching roof-line, extending from the steeply raked windshield to its sloping rear pillars and short rear deck, brings coupe-like proportions to a compact sedan.

Wider and longer than most of its competitors, Cruze has a purposeful stance with its wheels located at the outer edges of the tautly drawn bodywork. Noticeably tight body panel fits and a restrained use of exterior trim add to a high quality, ‘hewn from solid’ appearance.

Cruze’s dramatic profile is matched by bold front styling, with large headlamp housings that wrap around the front corners and sweep up, arrow-like, into the fenders and sculpted hood. Other distinct design themes include a concave shoulder line, the two-tier grille and a “wheels-out/body-in” stance. Inside, Cruze features a ‘twin cockpit’ design motif, first introduced in the iconic Corvette sports car.

“Our goal in designing Cruze was to be bold, not evolutionary,” says chief designer Taewan Kim. “We wanted to take a big step forward, making a strong design statement for Chevrolet products around the world.”

Visitors to the Paris show will see how Chevrolet’s progressive design is also reflected in the quality of Cruze’s interior. The use of grained surfaces, soft-touch materials and low gloss trim panels ensures a quality ambience that echoes the clean, harmonious design of the exterior.

At launch in Europe, Cruze will be available with 16-valve, 1.6-liter (112 hp/82 kW) and 1.8-liter (140 hp/103 kW) gasoline engines featuring variable valve timing (VVT) on both inlet and exhaust sides, giving more power as well as better fuel economy and lower emissions. A new 2.0-liter turbo diesel, developing 150 hp/ 110 kW and 320 Nm of torque adds power with even greater frugality. Five-speed manual gearboxes and an all-new automatic transmission, Chevrolet’s first six-speed application in the compact segment, complete the powertrain menu.

With sales in Europe up by 23 percent for the first six months of 2008, Chevrolet is GM Europe’s fastest-growing mainstream brand. The arrival of Cruze spearheads an exciting new product roll-out program that is expected to propel the brand to even greater success.

“We are proud that Europe is leading the introduction for this global product,” said Wayne Brannon, Executive Director, Chevrolet Europe. “Chevrolet has always stood for expressive value and Cruze delivers on that promise like never before. It further redefines Chevrolet with its design, quality, materials and great style inside and out. The fit and finish for gaps and interfaces sets a new standard for this segment in Europe and around the world.”

Cruze is the result of a development process harnessing GM’s global expertise and is the first of a new family of compact products that will deliver world class quality. It will be backed by expected highest scores in all major crash safety ratings.

The Chevrolet Cruze will be available in Europe from March 2009, followed by other global markets with regional-specific engine choices.

For some time in the US, cars that can’t achieve a certain level of have what’s called a gas guzzler tax. It’s a somewhat reasonable tax if you want people to think green. However, a small tax is a small price to pay when you’re dropping $100,000+ for a brand new Mercedes-Benz CL63 or a $250,000 Ferrari <insert fast car here>. For those countries who have yet to mobilize via cars like the USA (China for example), the government is able to impose slightly more draconian taxes without backlash from the general population. Though I can’t say I agree with the government dictating what people’s behavior should be, it’s a more than effective method to take the “green” road. Here’s an example of some of the “tax reform” levels Chinese car buyers will see:

Engines smaller or equal to 1.0l - 1%

Engines over 1.0l but less than 2.0l - 5%

Engines over 2.2l but less than 3.0l - 9%

Engines over 3.0l but less than 4.0l - 25%

Engines over 4.0l - 40% 

While I applaud the Chinese for good intentions, you know what they say about good intentions. What about cars like the Chevy Corvette that gets mileage as good as any V6 sedan out there? What about engines that are turbo or supercharged? There is no final formula for the perfect way to tax cars. So, B+ for creative thinking and “good intentions”. F for execution. I just hope that American creativity and entrepreneurial spirt will yield a more reasonable solution to incentivizing small, efficient cars.

Source: China Car Times

Maybe Toyota needs to be including some more Apple Bottom Jeans and boots with fur, because right now their sales are feeling the Pain. Toyota Motor Corporation announced operating results for the first quarter ended June 30, 2008 and it’s not good. Net revenues for Toyota’s first quarter totaled 6.22 trillion yen, a decrease of 4.7 percent compared to the same period last year. The really bad number has to do with operating income, which has decreased 38.9 percent to 412.5 billion yen. This translates into a  net income decreased by 28.1 percent. The long and short of things is that Toyota now knows how The Big Three feel, all the time. What’s really something is that despite Toyota’s perceived dominance in the small to medium sized, super reliable, fuel efficient car segment, they still have a lot of other cars they make which aren’t selling.

Source: Toyota

51-year-old Andrea Pininfarina died in Thursday morning in the northern city of Turin in a motorbike accident. Since 2001 Andea was the CEO of the coach-builder Pininfarina. The firm founded by Pininfarina’s grandfather is famous for designing cars for many automakers including Ferrari, Maserati, Cadillac, Alfa Romeo, Volvo and Lancia.  In 1981 he graduated from Polytechnic of Turin as amechanical engineer and subsequently went to work in the United States after graduation. After a short stint working for Freuehauf, Andea went to work at the family business, his first assignment being the project manager for the design of the Cadillac Allante. Pininfarina is know as the chief design firm for many cars such as the Volvo C70, Maserati Quattroporte, Ferrari P4/5 and the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Rondine coupe, to name just a few of their cars. Andea will be missed, as his firm has made some of the most beautiful cars ever built. Let us hope the next generation of Pininfarina coach-builders will do Andea, and his grand-father, proud.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Today Nissan unveiled more plans to release more all-electric and hybrid electric vehicles using lithium-ion batteries. As stated in their press release:

TOKYO (August 6, 2008) - Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. today unveiled all-electric and original hybrid electric prototype vehicles, both powered by advanced lithium-ion batteries. Under the NISSAN GT 2012 business plan, the company has committed to zero-emission vehicle leadership, and has announced plans to introduce an all-electric vehicle in 2010 and mass market globally in 2012.

The part I really like is this nifty little Honda Element knock-off:

Maybe the black and white scheme does it for me or it’s goofy dimensions. No matter, in the past it’s seemed that Nissan has greatly lagged behind their competitors Toyota and Honda in the hybrid vehicle market. Perhaps waiting and slowly working on getting a second generation hybrid out is a super smart move. The technology is more robust, there’s less warranty issues in Nissan has always tried to brand itself a little higher with better performing vehicles. Let’s hope they’ll start to move their fleet into a much cooler and more widespread segment of the market with their hybrid and electric cars.

Source: Nissan

In the BMW community there are many well known cars around the country. One in particular is Jon Sibal. Jon’s a graphic designer and his BMW shows it. His custom renderings have not only changed the face of his 3-series, but that of many other cars, including various cars that often show up at SEMA. However, this year, there’s going to be one car in particular that uses his designs, yet he had no part in. Here’s the picture:

The new Hyundai Coupe, with help from racing drive of D1 drifting fame, have put together a “racing concept” car to get people excited about the new coupe. In the process of doing so, they may have stolen a rendering by Jon that was done for a Lexus LF-A front bumper. As you can see by the picture below, the designs are from the hood-line down are an exact copy. Doing a quick copy-paste and resize in Photoshop only makes the case for Hyundai worse. I only hope that whoever did this design for Hyundai realizes you can’t go around taking other people’s designs off the internet.

Source: JonSibal.com

It’s amazing that the same company that could bring us something so awe-inspiring as this (thanks to Jon Sibal of BMW fame for this picture):


…can also bring us this:

With a spectacularly 80s soundtrack, this Mercedes video is how they rally the troops over in Germany. Combine slick black suits and sexy Mercedes cars and trucks and you’ve got yourself a winner. I was half expecting David Hasselhoff (”The Hoff”) to show up. Thumbs-up Mercedes! You beat them all!

Source: YouTube

With the dollar’s current weakness against the Euro, Pound and other foreign currency, many European automakers have decided that the US is too big of a market to give up due to poor currency exchange rates. So, why not reverse the problem and start building cars stateside for super cheap and sell them in Europe where the currency is as strong as ever. Audi, VW and a few other brands have decided to open production facilities here in the US to offset the current currency disparity. Where this will leave them in a few years when the Dollar recovers is anyone’s guess, but with a greater value to the US Dollar, this will lead people to buy more cars and in turn, the car makers will export less cars to Europe and just sell them in the USA to prevent what’s happening now when cars are built in Europe and sold in the states.

Source: AutoBlog

With the future of the Hummer brand uncertain, the much anticipated Hummer HX is now teetering between seeing production and not. Being a Jeep man myself, this is actually one vehicle I would like to see created to compete with the new Jeeps. I love the HX as is… (well, maybe some cup holders and hybrid like features would be good), and I love the small details and nice touches that have been put into the concept - but will GM or cheap with the production model? I guess only time will tell… but this is one vehicle I’m actually looking forward to owning.

At the British Motor Show across the pond in London where gas is about $10 a gallon, The Lightning just unveiled their new electric sports car which uses the new lithium-titanate battery technology. Why is this important? Well the battery can be charged in minutes unlike Tesla’s production Roadster which takes a couple of hours to charge.

“Tesla have done a good job getting to production - the Roadster is an impressive car,” said Chris Dell, MD of the Lightning Car Co. “Why’s the Lightning better? Because we’ve got fast-charge technology. It’s future-proofed.”

At £120,000 or $239,400, the price is a bit steep for the early adapters. However, competition is what I love to see and hopefully more and more shops will spring up with better technology to out-do each other. Who knows, it may even wake the big three into doing better than the absolute minimum at some point.