Chevrolet Trucks Blog

Preparations have been done and all is set for the launch of the Chevrolet Captiva in India come January next year. The Captiva is one of the premium sports utility vehicles of Chevrolet. It can accommodate as much as seven people with its seven-seat layout option. Completely built using the GM Daewoo Automotive Technology in Korea, one can expect that the Captiva will feature the latest technology GM has to offer. As a vehicle, the Captiva is expected to compete with the Honda CR-V, Hyundai Santa Fe as well as other similar vehicles.

When asked on about the Captiva’s launch in India, Karl Slym, the President and Managing Director of GM India, spoke of the abovementioned preparedness of the company. In his words, “The homologation requirements for the Captiva have been completed, but we are yet to finalize the price.”

One can say that the Captiva is like a modern crossover or compact SUV. It has a two-liter turbocharged diesel engine. It features common-rail injection technology and its engine is said to have the capacity to generate as much as 150 bhp. Aside from this, one can say that the Captiva is environment-friendly for it can meet the norms set by the Euro IV when it comes to exhaust emissions.

The Captiva will be launched together with the Cadillac CTS at the Auto Expo 2008 in New Delhi. Come January, India, as well as other countries will hopefully be captivated with this latest Chevy creation.

In the latest news, The National Highway Traffic Administration ordered General Motors Corp. to recall 11,974 of its Sierra and pickup trucks. This is due to the faulty crankshaft positioning sensor. The National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTA) believes that the crankshaft positioning sensor in Chevy pickup trucks can and are likely to fail. It may operate and function well from time to time but it is eventually bound to fail. Failure and even intermittent operations can lead to a poor and rough run of the Chevy truck. It may even cause the engine to stall and no one wants that to happen.

In case the sensors fail entirely, the one using the Chevy pickup truck will not be able to restart it. In the words of the NHTA, “these failures can increase the risk of a crash.” To ensure the safety of Chevy pickup truck users, Chevrolet, with the aid of its dealers will replace the faulty crankshaft positioning sensor free of charge. This will take place after the recall begins next month.

A decade ago, the automotive industry does not have hybrid on their vocabulary yet. This changed with Toyota’s introduction of the Prius. The main problem then, was that the Prius can’t take on too much load. In fact, one can barely see more than two people ride the Prius. Also, its towing capability is nowhere near those of Sport Utility Vehicles. Unfortunately, SUVs consume so much fuel. With the constant increase of fuel in the world market, auto manufacturers such as the Chevrolet have decided to come up with SUV hybrids as well. This is a concrete answer to the environmentalists who condemn SUVs for their apparent thirst for fuel. For this year, General Motors brings to us the two-mode hybrid system of the full-size Chevrolet Tahoe. With this introduction, GM has a good shot at taking the hybrid crown from Toyota.

The system was first utilized in huge diesel/electric buses, which were produced in cooperation with BMW as well as DaimlerChrysler. This hybrid version of the Tahoe is said to have improve fuel economy by 40 percent when driving in the city. According to the Mary Sipes, the vehicle line director for Full-size Truck Group, “This is a strategy we’ve had in place for quite some time. We’ve always had the means to make a one-off specialty vehicle, but we wanted a bigger footprint, something that could make a huge impact. That’s why we started with the GMT900 platform—we wanted to get big numbers on a big-volume product.”

It is normal for companies such as the Chevrolet to sponsor events. This simply goes to show that auto manufacturers also care for things other than cars. Recently, the Edinburgh Marathon has given statement announcing its new major sponsors for their event next year. Among the sponsors is Chevrolet. Last year, the company was able to be involved with a smaller scale race. This move of Chevrolet will take a step further with the company’s sponsoring of yet another event. This time around, Chevy joins a large team of sponsors. Yes, a team of sponsors to hand in hand make the event possible.

The Chevrolet will back the Hairy Haggis Team Relay. In this course, participants will be able to run a portion of the entire course and pass on the task to their teammate the task to continue the race. The course is supposed to be ideal for team building as the course entails that each team member’s performance will affect the outcome of the race. If the team members are efficient, their team will be able to finish the race early. However, if one of the members will accidentally slip or is a slow runner, this will consequently, delay the other team members from being able to continue with the rest of the course.

According to Richard Chamberlain, who is the national retail marketing manager for Chevrolet in the United Kingdom, “We are very pleased to be contributing once again to the Edinburgh Marathon after the great success of the event in 2007.” He further adds that “a number of our marketing managers were involved in the Hairy Haggis Team Relay in 2007 and wanted to give others the opportunity to have as much fun competing as they did.” As was earlier mentioned, the Hairy Haggis Team Relay is a good course to see the value of team work. The people in Chevrolet simply want to share their experience of the relay in the hopes that this will also improve on the team spirit of other groups of people.

As for Damien O’Looney, the marketing manager for the marathon, he believes that “To have Chevrolet United Kingdom increase their commitment by sponsoring the marathon and team relay shows we are continuing to grow in popularity.”

The other sponsors of the Edinburgh Marathon include the Strathmore Spring Water as well as the Real Radio. The said event will take place on May 25, 2008.

Among the General Motors vehicles, it is the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid that first featured the company’s all-new two-mode hybrid system. At the Los Angeles Auto Show, the Green Car Journal’s 2008 Green Car of the Year was awarded to none other than the Tahoe Hybrid. According to the editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal that is Ron Cogan, “This is a milestone in many respects. People don’t think “green” when SUVs are concerned, and for generally good reason since SUVs often get poor fuel economy compared to most other vehicles. Chevrolet’s Tahoe Hybrid changes this dynamic with a fuel efficiency improvement of up to 30 percent compared to similar vehicles equipped with a standard V8.”

When it comes to the EPA’s estimated fuel economy ratings for 2008, Chevrolet was able to significantly minimize the fuel consumption on city driving. They say that this is particularly helpful for most SUV owners use their vehicles for a considerable amount of time driving in the city. The Tahoe Hybrid, with its 6.0 liter two-mode engine can achieve up to 50 percent improvement when it comes to having a better fuel economy than that of the original Tahoe with its 5.3 liter V8 engine. To top it off, what shocks most of the people behind EPA is that Tahoe’s 21 mpg city fuel efficiency rating is just the same with the city EPA rating of the four-cylinder Toyota Camry sedan.

Upon receiving the award, Ed Peper, the General Manager of Chevrolet said, “We’re thrilled to receive this recognition from Green Car Journal for out Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid. We’ve felt that the Tahoe Hybrid represents the best of both worlds—the great utility you’d expect from a Tahoe with fuel economy on par with today’s mid-size cars. It’s satisfying to receive this validation from such an authority on environmentally-friendly vehicles.”

The 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid was able to get majority of the votes by a jury of high-profile industry as well as environmental leaders together with four editors of the Green Car Journal. Among those who were invited to judge the contest include Carroll Shelby, Jay Leno, Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, Christopher Flavin of the Worldwatch Institute, Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute, and Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society.

As for the last words, Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said that “GM promised they would use hybrid technology, and use it where it would make the most difference—on their biggest vehicles. They have delivered with the Chevy Tahoe…” and adds that this ends the argument that fuel efficiency and choosing a SUV are incompatible.