2014 Chevrolet Malibu 1ls on 2040-cars

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Should Chevrolet continue the SS for another generation?

It is no shocker to say that Chevy kinda messed up with the SS. Now before everyone gets their facts and figures out, lets be real. The SS probably shouldn't have happened in the first place. Chevy hardly promoted the car when it released. It quietly came to our shores (the SS is really a Holden VF Commodore). It was the same with the Pontiac G8 before GM axed the brand. With the G8 however, it got more attention due to the heavy marketing Pontiac did with the car despite the low sales numbers. The SS fills the void of a performance sedan for Chevrolet mainly because there isn't a Impala SS sedan anymore. The SS also shares the same platform with the Chevrolet Caprice PPV, a fleet vehicle only available for your local police station since again the Impala doesn't fill that void any longer. But should the SS continue on in a future life? My answer: No! It was great for Chevy to do this little experiment, and I am sure they learned a lot from releasing the SS and the Caprice as well. But why not take the essence of both of those vehicles and combine them into a new next generation Impala. The Impala SS can return once again in a proper way, and a PPV version of the Impala can go into production. Kinda like what Ford and Dodge did with their performance and police versions of the Taurus and Charger. There really isn't a need to have 2 extra models in the line up when the Impala can fill all 3 voids. With the Holden VF Commodore going out of production in 2017, the Chevrolet SS may not be around much longer. There are rumors that the Commodore will live on in a new global vehicle, so if that is true it could mean the end of the RWD V8 sedans from Australia. But Chevrolet could continue the formula of the SS in the Impala, and it may turn out to be very successful for them. Image Credit: Chevrolet Chevrolet open road

Would you pay $17 a month to give your older Ford connectivity?

When it was first introduced in 2007, there was nothing like the original Ford Sync system, since it allowed car owners to connect and use a portable device better than anything that came before it. And because it was a brought-in/tethered and software-based system, Sync leveraged a device's connectivity and was easily updated. It took competitors awhile to catch up: Toyota Entune wasn't available until 2011, and Chevy MyLink didn't roll out until 2012. But now Ford is the one playing catchup since it stuck with the brought-in strategy while most other automakers were quicker to add connectivity via an embedded cellular modem. Ford initially installed 2G/3G modems in its small fleet of electric and plug-in electric vehicles starting in 2012 so that owners could keep tabs on charging. Embedded connectivity came to Lincoln in 2014, and Ford began adding onboard 4G LTE via Sync Connect to select cars starting with the Escape in 2015. To get more cars connected more quickly, last week the automaker rolled out its FordPass SmartLink solution that plugs into the OBD port of 2010 to 2017 model year vehicles. This lets owners retroactively get onboard Wi-Fi, set up a "geo-fence" to keep tabs on a car's location, receive vehicle health reports and allows remote engine starting and door locking/unlocking using a smartphone app, among other features. But to connect older Ford vehicles will cost owners $16.99 a month for two years, not including installation. Ford throws in 1 GB of data or a 30-day trial, whichever comes first, after which owners have to add the vehicle to their Verizon shared data plan, which supplies connectivity for SmartLink, or establish a new account. (Disclosure: Autoblog is owned by Verizon.) By comparison, GM's 4G LTE data plans start at $10 a month for 200 MB and goes up to $30 for 3 GB, and owners can also add a car to an AT&T shared-data plan. But OnStar doesn't have a separate monthly subscription for the embedded modem or an installation charge, and standard features via the RemoteLink Mobile App are free for the first five years of ownership. FCA's Uconnect Access service also uses an embedded modem to provide similar telematics features for $20 per month following a free one-year trial, while a la carte in-car Wi-Fi is offered for $10 per day, $20 per week or $35 per month.

Motor Trend wheels the 2015 Corvette Z06

The new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 is capable of some absolutely wild metrics. Want proof? Carlos Lago from Motor Trend is here to break it all down. 60 miles per hour? 3.2 seconds. 60 to 0? 91 feet. Lateral acceleration? A staggering 1.16g, a figure that is the highest MT has ever recorded for a vehicle that isn't a race car. It's an utterly astonishing piece of work, this Z06, and just when you think it can't possibly get any more impressive, Randy Pobst hustles an auto-equipped Z06 around Road Atlanta in just 1:30. Aside from the eight-speed auto, Pobst's Z06 had the most aggressive aerodynamic package, the so-called Stage III. Take a look at the 650-horsepower Z06 in Motor Trend's latest video.