Improved Cadillac ELR Could Bow At LA Auto Show

Even though the Cadillac ELR has only been on the market for less than a year, Edmunds reports that a revised version of the luxury plug-in could debut at November’s LA Auto Show. What can GM do to make its Tesla competitor more…competitive?

There’s a long list of common complaints from reviewers have not been kind to the Cadillac ELR. The most common criticism centers on the $76,000 starting price, but reviewers have also taken issue with the 2+2 seating arrangement, big and heavy doors, and so-so performance. The 4,070-lb curb weight doesn’t help the “sporty” plug-in coupe feel all that sporty, while the 207 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque from the electric motor has been mostly described as adequate, but hardly thrilling. It’s not all bad though; most people agree the ELR is a handsome car inside and out, and it’s HiPer suspension system delivers incredible ride comfort, Also, as Cadillac’s first plug-in car ever, it at least shows that GM’s heart is in the right place.

The automaker isn’t saying anything beyond “engineering enhancements” will be applied to the 2016 Cadillac ELR (there will be no 2015 model), so what can the General do to increase the appeal of the ELR? One thing that has helped sales rise and inventory fall have been incentives totalling $20,000 or more. Everybody knows the ELR is based on the $35,000 Chevy Volt, and the ELR just isn’t worth the $41,000 price premium GM tacked on.

As far as actual mechanical changes go, there are one of two things GM can do with relative ease that would make the ELR stand out; increase the performance of both the motor and the battery. An ELR with a 50-mile electric range would represent about a 40% increase in range over the Volt, and would allow drivers to make about 90% of their daily driving trips without ever tapping into the gas tank.

A more powerful electric motor could also breathe some life into the tremendously heavy coupe; consider that the Tesla Model S only weighs (at its heaviest) about 500 pounds more, but offers twice as much horsepower (up to 416 ponies). This allows the Tesla to keep pace with the BMW i8 hybrid supercar, both of which sprint from 0 to 60 MPH in about 4 seconds. Meanwhile the ELR has the same acceleration as the more-pedestrian BMW i3, an EV that also benefits from rear-wheel drive compared the the ELR’s front-drive setup.

More power and more electric driving range are the two things I hope the 2016 Cadillac ELR brings to the table. Besides a lower price, what else could GM do to make the ELR a better car?

GM Exec: “Better In Every Way” 2nd Gen Chevrolet Volt “Media Encounters” Coming Soon – Video

 Last month GM teased us with a photo of the upcoming 2nd generation of Chevrolet Volt - a car that won’t be fully revealed until the 2015 Detroit Auto Show NAIAS.  However, a few new details on the road to that reveal came recently from Larry Nitz, who is GM’s Powertrain Executive Director, as well as “electrification” boss.

Larry Nitz Talks All Thing Chevy Volt In Recent Interview

More specifically, Mr. Nitz says that GM won’t be running fully darkon information pertaining to the next gen Volt in the short term, but that there “will be some specific media encounters along the way between now and January.”

Past these future-teasers, GM’s Powertrain exec says the Volt will be “better in everyway”, but qualifies that statement by also saying that pertains just to the “meaningful things that we think the customers really like”. 

Mr. Nitz prefaces this bold statement by highlighting things like range, performance and efficiency, but also notes later that charging times aren’t really a concern.

Reading the tea leaves presented to us, we take this to mean significantly more AER, but no fast charging on Volt 2.0.

Checkout the full Autoline After Hours interview with Mr. Nitz (from 15:15 for Volt-related topics), as it is interesting to get a first person account of the project from a GM exec directly…something of a rarity this past 2-3 years.

In case you don’t feel like sifting through the whole video, InsideEVs tipster Eric H provides a nice bullet-list of the tidbits to be had:

More 2nd Gen Volt Teasing Coming Soon

• Today’s volt is GM’s highest customer satisfaction vehicle.
• GM has collected anonymous data on about 2/3 of all volts or about 50,000 units.
• About 65% of overall driving is electric.
• About 82% of energy during commuting is from the electric plug.
• 81% of all trips have no engine start at all.  Some other plugins: only 10% of trips did not have an engine start
• The promises made are the promised that will be delivered to customers regarding Volt 2.0.  What people want will be delivered and we’ll hit it out of the park and sell in the numbers we want to sell.
• 60% of volt customers only charge on 110v rather than 240v.
• 50% of all volts are at home at any one particular time.
• 8 hour charge is perfectly acceptable for a majority of customers.
• Regarding customer education, we are going to do more to help the customer understand the proposition of the volt.  If someone can drive the volt for a couple weeks then they get it.
• There is a customer who drove 10,000 miles and only used 33 gallons of gasoline.
• “Volts plug in on average 10 times per week, not 7.  That surprised us.  We figured a once a day charge but customers charge more”

Chevrolet Volt Crosses 2,500 Sales In US For First Time This Year

Will The Knowledge That The “Next Gen” Chevy Volt IS Coming Next Summer Hurt Sales Today?

2nd Gen Cruze (sister car to the Volt) Launched This Month In China

Heading in August, the Chevrolet Volt had managed to best the prior month’s sales for each month so far.

And this month was no exception, except that GM did it in style by passing the 2,500 unit mark for the first time in 2014

For August Chevy sold 2,511 Volts, good for a 24% improvement over July when GM sold 2,020 Volts.

Excluding Nissan LEAF sales, the 2,511 figure is the 2nd best monthly sales result for any plug-in vehicle sold in America (6th best overall).

Unfortunately the year-over-year numbers continued to fall, as thebuzzsaw that was August of 2013 – when GM set the all-time US record for most plug-ins moved in a month with 3,351 Volts sold easily outpaced 2014′s number by 25%.

Overall 13,146 Volts have been sold in the US thus far, which is down by 12.3% on the 14,994 sold at the same point last year.

On the production/inventory side of things – while we thought that we might see a bit of a sell down of inventory during August, the opposite happened with close to 10,000 Volts being available for sale on deal lots; about 40% of which are new 2015s.

GM Launched An Aggressive Incentive Campaign In August To Move Excess 2014 Inventory

Also during August, General Motors promised to show the next generation of Chevrolet Volt at the Detroit Auto Show (NAIAS) in January, while teasing a picture of the rear hatch of the car.

Before then however, InsideEVs has learned there will be a least two more company “events” toying with our emotions and teasing the future Volt further.

On the ‘premium’ extended range side of things, the Cadillac ELR also set a new personal best with 196 notches during the month.  On the small EV side of things, we just spoke to a GM exec and 80 Spark EVs were sold in August as well…which doesn’t seem all that great, but we have to note that these were ALL retail sales this month, and in that regard, it was pretty decent.

High fives all around for GM this month.

Chevy Volt Fleet Owners Getting Awful MPG

The Chevy Volt is as much of an electric car as you want to be, and some Volt enthusiasts have gone more than 2,300 miles on a single gallon of gasoline. Yet a new report suggests that some other Chevy Volts, most notably those owned by private and/or public vehicle fleets, aren’t doing much electric driving.

Green Car Reports recently followed up on a report by InsideEVs to see why a big batch of high-mileage Chevy Volts had such low average MPG numbers. The problem it seems is that fleet managers aren’t incentivizing efficient driving, and until they do, we can only expect more of the same.

Many fleets operate by paying drivers on a per-mile basis. People who drive a lot for a living are then compensated on cumulative gasoline costs…but they aren’t recouped for the much-lower costs incurred by plugging into an outlet or charging station. The result is that many fleets of Chevy Volts are coming in with an average of between 34 and 39 MPG, whereas many non-fleet owners regular achieve over 450 miles to a gallon of gas, as long as they recharge regularly. The savings add up too; to charge a Chevy Volt costs about $1.50 in electricity, and it nominally covers the cost of a gallon of gasoline, which depending on where you live is between $3.00 and $4.00 a gallon.

How can we change this? That’s a sticky question, as people still need to feel fairly compensated for the costs of driving. One suggestion would be to offer a substantial “savings bonus” to whomever used the least amount of fuel in a given time period. The bonus would have to be large enough to incentivize people to go a little bit out of their way to find EV charging stations or other places to plug in, but the cost savings to the parent company could be huge. It’s just a matter of incentivizing employees to do the right thing.

Source: Gas 2.

Hybrid Sales War: Ford Fusion Outsells Chevy Volt in June

The battle for plug-in hybrid supremacy has been heating up month after month, but June saw – for the first time – the Ford Fusion Energi PHEV take the sales crown from the Toyota Prius/Chevy Volt powerhouses. It was a surprise, for sure – but, the more I looked at it, the less surprising that seemed.

Consider that Ford’s Fusion is not only a good-looking hybrid, but a good-looking car, rife with styling influences from Jaguar and Aston Martin (both former Ford properties). Add to that the fact that Ford’s Fusion is a larger, roomier hybrid than Chevy’s Volt – and that it’s about the same price! – and maybe you, too, can start to see what people see in the thing.

One more Fusion bonus: it doesn’t shout “Hybrid!”

As far as the numbers go, the Ford Fusion chalked up 1,939 deliveries and beat out the consistent-selling “competition” at GM, which sold just 1,777 Chevy Volts – despite drastic discounts at dealers in key markets like California and Florida.

So, does this mean that Ford’s hybrid star is on the rise, or is this just a result of Chevy Volt and Toyota hybrid shoppers holding out until the all-new 2016 Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius models arrive? Let us know what you think in the comments, below.

Source: Green Car Reports.

Cadillac Has A Lot To Learn From Tesla

In a recent interview with AdAge, Cadillac CMO Uwe Eillinghaus remains unapologetic regarding the controversial “Poolside” commercial starring the Cadillac ELR. And while he’s also an admitted proponent of vehicle electrification it’ll take a lot more than than a tarted-up Chevy Volt and a controversial commercial for Cadillac to compete with Tesla.

On Tesla, Ellinghaus said;

“Tesla teaches us a message: If you offer cars with an electric drive-train that have superb driving characteristics and a beautiful [interior], they find customers. What doesn’t work is to position a car for people who are tree-huggers and green-wash an entire brand.”

Gee, you mean all it takes to find customers is to build a great car? YOU DON’T SAY!

While I don’t necessarily disagree with Ellinghaus’s sentiment, though he seems to be missing a major point. The Tesla Model S appeals to both treehuggers and luxury car buyers, which is what has made it such a huge success. The polarizing “Poolside” commercial did the ELR no favors with the green crowd, espousing the virtues of hard workwhile deriding Europeans for taking a month off from work each year. As though spending quality time with your family is somehow wrong.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk is ready to offer free Supercharging stations powered by the sun to Tesla customers. That’s value and environmentalism, a one-two punch that has put Tesla on top in very short order. Tesla didn’t “greenwash” its entire brand, and neither is BMW by offering the i3 and i8 electric vehicles. Offering one hybrid does not a green brand make.

With less than 300 Cadillac ELRs sold through the end of May, Tesla has little to worry about from Uwe and the Cadillac brand, at least for now. While some ELR owners seem happy with their Chevy Volt-based hybrids, many dealerships are having to offer huge discounts to move the ELR off of lots. The ELR will not compete with the Tesla Model S in its current form.

The next-generation ELR, however, could prove to be a viable Tesla competitor if rumors of more range and more room are true. But this brings me to my next point; Cadillac is a brand obsessed with copying the success of other brands, and not just Tesla.

The Cadillac ATS was built to compete directly with the BMW 3-Series, even going so far as to do much of its testing on Germany’s Nurburgring. The Cadillac ELR was priced to compete with the Tesla Model S, even though it’s in no way a comparable car. How about an idea that is unique Cadillac, instead of a poorly-conceived (though well-executed) copy?

If Ellinghaus wants to embrace conservatism and relentless work ethic, then by all means that’s what Cadillac should do. But if they want to go after the Tesla crowd, they’ll need to temper their rhetoric with some good old fashioned tree-hugging. The reason the Tesla Model S is so appealing is that it’s a great car that also happens to be green, and Tesla anchors the Model S on both fronts. The Cadillac ELR is an OK car with green credentials that are never even mentioned. The only thing the two have in common is a price point, and nearly every publication agrees that the ELR is overpriced by tens of thousands of dollars.

I do think Cadillac can build a Tesla Model S competitor, but it will have to be a purpose-built electric or hybrid car, and not a thrice-worked-over Chevy Cruze.

Source: Cadillac/GM

Cadillac Dealers Advertise $19,500 Off ELR’s MSRP

The “newness” of the Chevy Volt seems to have worn off, and though sales have been steady, the Nissan Leaf has been surpassing it for the past few months. The $76,000 Cadillac ELR is doing even worse, which is leading some dealers to offer huge incentives to move stock…not a great sign for Chevy’s plug-in ambitions.

We found two examples, both over at the GM-Volt.com boards, that seem to indicate increasing incentives on both the Volt and the ELR. These aren’t in out-there, dyed-in-the-red states either. Rydell Chevrolet in Northridge, California, is offering up to $6,000 off all in-stock Chevy Volts, which probably includes a mix of 2013 and 2014 models. That includes a $1,000 GM rebate, $500 “Chevy Conquest Private Offer”, and $4,500 from Rydell itself. Factor in the $7,500 tax credit, and you’ve got a whopping $13,500 off of the $34,185 MSRP, , bringing the Volt’s price down to just $20,695. Oh, and California also kicks in another $5,000, meaning you can get a Volt for just $15,695 … which is less than I paid for my Chevy Sonic.

Meanwhile Tropical Cadillac of Bradenton, Florida, reportedly sent out this email;

We just got $12,000 off incentives on the purchase of a new Cadillac ELR. Plus you get a $7500 tax credit! If you have not seen or driven this amazing vehicle, you need to come in and test drive one. This is the New electric vehicle from Cadillac, and it not only will save you a bundle at the gas pump, but it looks and drives amazing, Stop in today for a test drive.

$12,000 cash on the hood, plus another $7,500 from the Feds (in the form of rebates) means $19,500 off the ridiculous $76,000 asking price, which brings it down to a much more manageable $56,500. That’s like, exactly where the Cadillac ELR should have been priced to begin with. Not sure if it was greed or just misreading the market, but these incentives may indicate trouble brewing for GM’s pair of plug-in hybrids.

Source: Gas 2.

Just How Far Can A Chevrolet Volt Go On Electricity? How About 81.8 Miles

So how far can a Chevy Volt go one one charge? I plan to find out. Equipment used: one 2012 Chevy Volt with 52,000 EV miles and a whole lot of spare time!

FedEx Field Was The Perfect Base OF Operations

Let’s discuss what one charge means. There are three ways to charge a Chevy Volt: plugging in via J1772 connector, using Mountain Mode, or reclaiming electricity via regenerative braking.

I’ve seen ranges as high as 141 miles using regenerative braking through large elevation changes. Theoretically, hundreds of miles can be achieved on one charge via regenerative braking. I will be usingnone of these methods to charge the battery after my initial charge.

To achieve a very long range, one must almost never stop, in essence a test track should be used, or a road as much like a test track as possible. I do not have a test track to use, so I had to locate a public road very much like a test track. A long country road would work, but last time I checked no such road exists near metro Washington DC.

The best choice in my case would be a large traffic circle. In addition, there needs to be nearby access to a level 2 charger. I succeeded in finding the perfect location, FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins. Surrounding FedEx Field is a giant traffic circle, and right next to the road are 12 free solar powered level 2 chargers compliments of NRG eVgo.

The key factors affecting range are speed (lower the better), ambient temperature, tire PSI, driving style, elevation change, and climate control. I will be driving around 20 MPH. Optimal temperature for efficiency is around the mid 80′s Fahrenheit, which is warm, but not hot enough to engage thermal management of the battery. I will be using no climate control, of course. Recommended tire pressure by GM is 38 PSI. Really too low, many owners go with 42-45 PSI. A few hyper milers (me included) go with 50 PSI. For this test, I went way beyond that and set my tires to 60 PSI. Do not try this at home! Another factor in my favor is that my tires are pretty worn as they have 52,000 miles on them. Newer tires with more tread create more friction with the road, reducing EV range and MPG.

Getting Underway!

I picked Memorial Day for my run. It was a nice warm day, upper 80s Fahrenheit and I could spare a good chunk of my day for this “exercise”. Early afternoon I set out for FedEx Field. I used around 60% of battery to get to FedEx Field from Northern Virginia. About 2 1/4 hours later I had a full charge. However, I waited. I let the battery rest for 30 minutes, then turned on the Volt while it was still plugged in. This allows the Volt to charge an additional buffer. I will not go into details here, subject for another article. About 10 minutes later, the battery was charged to the maximum allowed. This raised the actual state of charge from 87% to 89%. The Volt only allows 65% of the battery to be used, this trick bought me another 2%.

A key metric for measuring efficiency of how one drives is miles per kWh. My 2012 Volt has an EPA rated range of 35 miles on 10.0 kWh, or 3.5 miles / kWh. Really efficient driving is 5 miles / kWh. This drive will go way beyond that.

At 6:25pm I started my run. I turned off my daytime running lights and made sure Bluetooth was off on my phone. I did not want any precious electrons wasted on a Bluetooth connection. I had both front windows cracked about 1.5 inches due to the heat. There are a few small little hills on the ring road around FedEx Field. When going down these hills, I use neutral to coast as much as possible. My speed varied from 19 MPH up to as high as 25 MPH. Average speed for the entire run was 23 MPH. I really could not go slower since it was an active road. By the time I finished and my range had dropped to 0 miles, I had driven 81.8 miles using 9.8 kWh for a measurement of 8.35 miles / kWh.

81.8 Miles On Electricity!

Here is a table with my progress:

Long Distance Chevy Volt On Electricity Progress Chart

The drive required a lot of concentration keeping the speed at the perfect spot and continually shifting from drive to neutral back to drive. It’s amazing how quickly the time actually passed. I did have to stop once. I managed to catch the interest of a police officer who wanted to know what I was doing. I explained I was testing the electrical range on my Volt and he let me on my way, or on my circle!

Unfortunately, I should have started a little earlier. I had to turn on my lights dropping my efficiency from 8.5 kWh. A 2014 Volt with around 11.0 kWh available has a decent chance of getting to 90 EV miles on one charge. Anyone with a 2014 Volt want to try???

Cadillac dealers get $5,000 incentive for ELR test drives

The 530 Cadillac dealers - out of 940 total dealers - that signed on to sell the brand's ELR for $75,000 or lease it for $699 per month have managed to move 247 of them in the last five months. That's a little less than two cars for each dealer more than two dealers for each car if you need help with the math. With inventories of the luxury plug-in hybrid building up - Automotive News reports a 725-day supply - General Motors has created the Demonstrator Allowance Program to billow the sails on that slow moving ship, giving dealers $5,000 to promote ELR test drives.

A dealer with one ELR in its test fleet that racks up 750 test driven miles between May 1 and June 2 earns the fifty Benjamins, a dealer with two ELRs in the test fleet will get one hundred Benjamins. That will be added to summer incentives for dealers that pay $2,000 for units sold in July and $1,000 for units sold in August, while on the customer side, Cadillac has put "customer discount certificates" worth $3,000 on the hood for buyers and lessees.

Cadillac suggests this is about raising awareness of the ELR, but the question is how much dealers will be able to do for a car that observers - and buyers, apparently - still consider highly overpriced.

News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.

Texas To Offer $2,500 Tax Credit For Alt-Fuel Vehicles

Though Texas may not be a fan of Tesla’s direct sales model, the Lone Star state is ready to offer alternative-fuel vehicle buyers some extra cash. As soon as next week, buyers of CNG, propane, plug-in hybrid, and electric vehicles will be eligible for a $2,500 state tax credit. Combined with the $7,500 Federal tax credit, this could chop $10,000 off the cost of a new alt-fuel vehicle.

The credit only applies to vehicles with a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) of 9,600 pounds or less, which is generous enough to apply to many commercial vehicles like the VIA X-Trux. The only other eligibility factor is that EVs must have a battery size of at least 4 kWh, a low barrier of entry that applies to pretty much every hybrid or EV out there, including the Chevy Volt. I wonder if this isn’t also an olive branch to Tesla Motors in a bid to bring the Tesla Gigafactory to Texas.

Actually, scratch that; the tax credit doesn’t apply to Tesla vehicles as they’re “illegal” to sell in Texas, requiring customers to jump though numerous hoops to get their EVs.

Alas, this tax credit is also limited-time offer, expiring in next August and with just enough funding to pay for 2,000 CNG/LPG and 2,000 electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles. With 26 million people calling Texas home and more than 1.275 million new car sales in 2012 alone, this tax credit isn’t likely to make it to next year. It’s an interesting dichotomy going on in Texas, a state where green energy is big business, but dug-in interests seem are doing what they can to halt the march of progress.

If you’re a resident of Texas in the market for a cleaner car, you might want to get a jump on this offer while you can.

Source:  Charged

Will GM Offer A Five-Seat Hybrid Or Volt To Target Prius V, Ford C-Max?

With the anticipated launch of the revised 2016 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car now less than a year away, expectations are that it will be a compact hatchback similar to the current model.

Whether it has four or five seats remains up in the air, though the addition of a fifth seat would clearly bring more buyers than the current, somewhat snug four-seat model.

2014 Chevrolet Volt

The challenge in adding a fifth position lies in the Volt's current T-shaped battery pack, which fits inside a wide tunnel between the left and right sets of seats.

If the new 2016 Volt only has four seats, it would be at a capacity disadvantage against the Toyota Prius V, the Ford C-Max Hybrid and Energi models, and other high-mileage family five-seaters.

Forgotten concept

But there's a different alternative too: What if GM were to offer a second Volt model in a taller package that could seat five by putting the rear seat on top of the battery pack?

Such a vehicle was shown in China, as the Chevrolet Volt MPV5 Concept, back in 2010--and then it vanished from the auto-show circuit and hasn't been seen again.

That concept seated five and offered 30 cubic feet of cargo volume in a package larger than the existing Volt. While its 108.6-inch wheelbase was only 0.6 inches longer, the MPV5 Concept was 7 inches longer, almost 3 inches wider, and a full 7 inches taller than the five-door Volt now on sale.

2011 Chevrolet Volt MPV5 concept, Unveiled at 2010 Beijing Motor Show

That there may be more than one Volt is also supported by a Reuters article from two weeks ago.

That piece, however, suggested that the second model might be a less-expensive, lower-range Volt.

Significant spy shots?

Still, spy shots on Autoblog last July indicate that GM may well be developing a five-seat compact "tall hatchback" to compete with the Prius wagon and C-Max--but it may not use the Voltec powertrain. Instead, it could be a more conventional hybrid that doesn't plug in.

Those shots showed a development mule, using the company's existing Chevrolet Orlando compact tall people mover, testing a powertrain that included a high-voltage battery pack.

The test car doesn't, however, appear to have a charging port.

And using a smaller hybrid battery pack would eliminate the challenges of packaging a Volt-capacity battery while maintaining adequate cargo volume--an issue for which the Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid has been slammed.

Built on Cruze underpinnings, the Orlando is sold in Canada and on other continents--but it was never brought to the U.S.

2011 Chevrolet Orlando

More compact models to come

GM's mass-market brand is developing multiple vehicles on an updated platform that was introduced at last week's BeijingAuto Show, in the form of an all-new Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan.

That car will arrive in the U.S. as a 2016 model, but its underpinnings will undoubtedly spawn several other vehicles--including the next generation of Orlando.

Compact tall hatchbacks like the Chevy Orlando and Ford C-Max are a very popular global segment, even if their U.S. sales aren't particularly stellar at the moment.

The puzzlement lies in a basic technology question: What hybrid system would GM use?

Full hybrid--from where?

To get truly notable gas-mileage ratings--40 mpg or more combined--it would have to be a full hybrid, not the company's eAssist mild hybrid.

And GM appears to have given up on downsizing its large, sophisticated, and brutally expensive Two-Mode Hybrid system designed for full-size SUVs and pickup trucks.

So is the company developing an all-new hybrid system, using elements of the Voltec powertrain and a smaller battery pack that doesn't plug in?

Given that it has a technology partnership with Honda on hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles--which contains language saying it could be extended to other technologies--might it be using Honda's new two-motor hybrid system, as seen in the 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid?

General Motors, predictably, declined to comment on any of the speculation.

Source: Green Car Reports

2015 Chevy Trax Brings Wagon-y Shape to Small Car Lineup

The small, SUV-like Trax is already a huge hit in more than 60 global markets- and GM has made the smart decision to bring its 2015 Chevy Trax to the US to take on the flood of new cute-utes from Honda, Kia, Fiat, Jeep, and damned near everyone else, too.

The sub-compact SUV/CUV market is hot, Hot, HOT right now, is what I’m saying, and bringing the Trax to the US now is probably a good move for GM, despite the fact that the mechanically similar Buick Encore is doing well. That’s because Chevy’s brand image is stronger, probably, with young buyers- and Chevy’s dealer network is stronger, without a doubt, than Buick’s. That should give the 2015 Chevy Trax a sales advantage over the bite-size Buick, but so too will a lower price, more “youthful, motorcycle-inspired” interior and instrument cluster, and clever folding seats that can fold super-flat from front to back. Like, way front …

… front passenger seat front, which is a neat trick that I’ve only seen in Hondas and Volvos, until now. Maybe more cars can do this- but they don’t play it up?

In any event, the 2015 Chevy Trax should sell for something like its $18,000 Canadian price tag once it makes its way to the US. The 1.4 liter engine- the same as the one found in the Chevy Sonic turbo and previously-mentioned Buick Encore- is standard in the Trax, and gives back nearly 140 HP. That should be more than enough for some spirited performance to go along with the 26/34 (expected) EPA fuel economy ratings.

We’ve reached out to GM to ask about the availability of a 2015 Chevy Trax tester, and we’ll give you all the driving impressions and random infotainment complaints we can muster as soon as we get one. Until then, here’s some more pictures of Chevy’s newest small SUV thing. Enjoy!

Source | Photos: Chevrolet.