So, plenty of time has passed since General Motors first made the announcement that its Chevy Volt extended-range electric vehicle would score 230 miles per gallon on the yet-to-be-completed EPA testing procedure for such vehicles. Still, plenty of questions remain, such as How many miles per gallon with the Volt achieve after it has traveled the 40 or so miles necessary to deplete its battery pack?
Well, we still don't have an exact answer, which is partly due to the fact that GM hasn't yet finished developing the vehicle's complex software systems. In an interview with Fox Car Report Live, vehicle line directory Tony Posawatz sheds some light on the topic, saying that the Volt's sustained mileage will be "better than any conventional car, and we're trying to figure out how close, or if it will actually be better than any hybrids."
To put that figure into perspective, we'd imagine that means the Volt would fall somewhere between the 32 mpg rating of the Toyota Yaris and the 50 mpg rating of the Toyota Prius when running under charge-sustaining mode with an otherwise depleted battery pack. Whatever the case, don't expect this hot-button topic to go away any time soon.
Some loyalties run deep in Detroit, take Chevrolet's relationship with its advertising agency. Campbell-Ewald has been urging people to buy bowties since 1922, when a single magazine ad contained more words than a BMW press release. Chevrolet's account is huge, and the automaker is not looking to make a clean break from its long-time agency, the layer-cake of ongoing efforts is far too tall for that. What's most likely to happen is that Chevrolet will accept outside pitches from hungry, creative operations.
The acceptance of outside solicitation will help keep C-E on its toes, as well. Names of well known agencies have been tossed about as supplemental providers, but with so many other auto brands reviewing their contracts with their respective agencies, including Cadillac, some of the best companies might have a problem pitching yet another player at this point. Since these tertiary players aren't expected to take on full agency roles, it bodes well for small shops worldwide. Time to head to your basement and get storyboarding; it could be you doing the next viral campaign for the Malibu. Just don't create fake stalkers or anything.
Take a close look at the Chevy Volt in the photo above. We've seen it a number of times already but we've never said anything about the color. While it's predominantly silver, it does have a green (or more specifically emerald) tint in it. According to General Motors spokesman David Darovitz, this will be one of the launch colors for the Volt and, in fact, will be exclusive to the company's extended-range electric vehicles. Anyone who has ever bought paint, sorted through a box of Crayolas or ordered a car knows that every hue, no matter how subtle, needs a unique name. This Volt color is no different.
GM wants to include Volt fans in the naming process and is running a contest on www.chevroletvoltage.com starting today. Between now and November 4, people can submit their color name suggestions on the site. GM will sort through submissions and pick out three finalists. Between Nov. 16 and Dec. 1 you can then vote for your choice among the finalists. The three finalists will be flown to LA where the winner will be announced on the eve of the LA Auto Show press days. That person will be among the first people in the world outside of GM who actually gets to drive (not just ride along) one of the pre-production Volts.
Oh my. A stock 2010 Chevy Camaro SS produces 426 horsepower from its 6.2-liter LS3 V8. A Corvette Z06 turns out 505 hp from its 7.0-liter LS7. The Blue Devil, aka Corvette ZR1, is the most powerful car ever produced by General Motors and churns out a ridiculous 638 hp from its supercharged 6.2-liter LS9 guts. Impressive, but what if you were to strap a supercharger onto the bigger displacement LS7 from the Z06? Why, you'd get more power than you do from the LS9, that's for sure.
Obviously, that's exactly what Lingenfelter has done with its new Camaro. Co-engineered with suspension experts Hotchkis, the 2010 Lingenfelter Camaro features a 750-hp supercharged 427 cubic inch (though really 428) V8. No official word on torque, but let's just assume bat guano levels of twist. For one thing, this Camaro motor is a bit more than simply a blower bolted to a big block. For one thing it has forged JE pistons. For another it has titanium intake valves and Iconel exhaust valves – we don't even know what Iconel is! Oh wait, thanks to the magic of the internet we learn that Iconel is an "austenitic nickel-chromium-based superalloy" that is "oxidation and corrosion resistant materials well suited for service in extreme environments." What on earth is austenitic?
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SEMA, Chevy, eBay and Hurst have teemed up to auction off a Hurst-tuned Camaro with the proceeds going to the SEMA Memorial Scholarship Fund, "a program that fosters industry leadership by supporting the education of students pursuing careers in the automotive aftermarket."
Win the auction and in addition to an all-expense-paid trip to this November's SEMA show in Las Vegas, you'll be rolling in a thoroughly-modified 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, kitted out in red and silver graphics, 20-inch polished wheels, an Eibach suspension and a host of other mods. Make the jump to get the details,.and if you want to help a poor, struggling, underprivileged automotive engineer out, here's the link to the eBay auction. Opening bid is $10,000 -- happy bidding.
Yesterday, we had an opportunity to chat with Chevrolet Volt chief engineer Andrew Farah as he rode through the hills of West Virginia during a development drive. On Tuesday, a fleet of eight pre-production (a.k.a. IVER) Volts set out from the company's Milford Proving Ground in Michigan on three day, 1,200 mile jaunt through Ohio, Pennsylvannia, Maryland, West Virginia and back. This event is known in General Motors' engineering process as a "65-Percent Drive" and as it implies it's one of a series of milestones on the road to production.
The 65% roughly corresponds to the minimum level of completeness of development of all the hardware, and more specifically, the software. At this point, many of the systems are in fact approaching 90-100% complete. Over the next several months, 70, 80, 90 and 100 percent drives will follow on the way to production launch a year from now.
In the wake of Toyota's huge floor mat recall, theorists have come up with several survival strategies designed to overcome a throttle that's stuck wide-open. Putting some of these theories to the test – and debunking several myths in the process – is the team over at Consumer Reports.
With a large test track and a fleet of vehicles at their disposal, the magazine's engineers initially focused on the "just step hard on the brakes" method of bringing the car to a halt. Interestingly enough, CR tested a Mercedes-Benz E350 and a Volkswagen Jetta Wagon – both fitted with drive-by-wire "smart throttles" that are designed to ignore conflicting inputs (throttle and brake at the same time). CR reports that these cars simply shut down to idle and came safety to a stop. The story was a bit different with a Toyota Venza and Chevrolet HHR, however. When the brakes on those vehicles were firmly applied at 20 mph, their transmissions downshifted to fight the deceleration. The vehicles were both eventually brought to a stop after the first test. However, when the test was repeated at 60 mph on brakes that had been cooled since the earlier run, both vehicles quickly suffered fade from their overheated brakes and were unable to come to a complete stop.
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![Donna Mae Mims, first female SCCA winner and Cannonball Run vet, dead at 82 [w/VIDEO]](http://www.niot.net/blog-images/donna-mae-mims-first-female-scca-winner-and-cannonball-run-vet.jpg)
The automotive world lost its iconic "Pink Lady" on October 6 as Donna Mae Mims died of complications from a stroke at the age of 82. To car enthusiasts of a certain age, Mims was best known for her early racing career and for her penchant for pink helmets, pink jumpsuits, and pink cars usually emblazoned with the phrase "Think Pink." That predilection earned her the nickname, "Pink Lady" from her admirers.
After buying a Fuelie Corvette with her husband in the late Fifties, Mims got the racing bug. She had been a secretary at Yenko Chevrolet, the legendary Pennsylvania dealer that churned out specially souped-up super Chevies back in the Sixties and Seventies, and along with a few coworkers she decided to go racing. She also moved into the Yenko sports car division to help develop their cars.
It wasn't long before she racked up her first win driving her Corvette in B Production at the Cumberland Nationals in 1960. By 1963, she was driving a pink 1959 Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite that had incidentally once been owned by Polio vaccine developer, Dr. Jonas Salk. That car carried her to the championship in 1963, the first national championship recorded by the SCCA for a female driver. Besides the championship-winning Bugeye Sprite, Mims at one time or another also owned a pink Corvette, Corvair, Triumph TR3 and an MGB.
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It's fitting that General Motors has a vehicle named after an astronomical phenomenon that marks the seasons. The first Equinox came from the "old" GM during the autumn of its long slide. Since then, the General has emerged from a government-funded chrysalis, and the Equinox has followed suit with a redesign. Hopefully, the freshening signifies a springtime in GM's fortunes; a future desperately in need of a green infusion of the cash variety. Its products need to not only compete – but exceed – what's available from the competition. That figures to be a tall order, because the opposition is in rare form.
Just across town, Ford isn't sitting around – the Escape gets tweaks and updates seemingly every year. The Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 also crowd the top of the family CUV class, with the Mazda CX-7 and Hyundai Santa Fe playing supporting roles. Into this company of A-students wades the Equinox, fresh from reform school. Have the model's rough edges and troublesome behavior been smoothed out enough by remedial study?
General Motors announced today that it will spend $230 million on four facilities in the Flint, Michigan area that will support the production of the new Chevy Cruze compact and the Volt extended-range EV. The biggest chunk of the money ($202 million) is being spent on the Flint South Engine plant. The line that currently builds the inline five- and six-cylinder engines used in the Chevrolet Colorado and Hummer H3 is being revamped. That line will now build the 1.4-liter Family 0 engines that will be used in the Cruze and Volt. Originally, GM had planned to construct a new factory adjacent to Flint South, but that plan was canceled last fall as the financial crisis hit the already embattled automaker.
The Flint Metal Center a few miles away is getting updates that will allow it to stamp the sheet steel body panels for the Volt. The other two facilities are designing and building the stamping dies and welding robots that will be used to produce the panels and put them together at the Detroit-Hamtramck (Volt) and Lordstown,Ohio (Cruze) factories.
