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GM says EVs are the future — but trucks are going to take it there

In the PowerPoint deck for the General Motors Capital Markets Day presentation, one of the more disturbing things comes early on, during GM President Mark Reuss' initial remarks, in an area where he is discussing the company's overall strength in trucks. The point being made is that GM has a truck for all and sundry. And there it is, a phrase on a slide that should send chills up the spines of those who still pine for the old Bob Seger "Like a Rock" Silverado ads: "Little bit country. Little bit rock 'n' roll." That's right. Donny and Marie. Somehow the Denis Leary snark in the F-150 ads is all the more appealing. The Capital Markets Day presentation was chock full of observations about electrification and automation (Reuss and CEO Mary Barra both noted that the corporation's vision is one of "Zero Crashes. Zero Emissions. Zero Congestion." Dan Ammann talked about the progress being made at Cruise Automation; Reuss rolled out the plan for an array of electrified vehicles, with a luxury EV and a compact SUV being the "Centroid Entries" for the modular bases of many others). But it is worth noting that there is no getting away from the power of pickups in the U.S. market, as that was the central topic in Chief Financial Officer Dhivya Suryadevara's comments, with "Truck Franchise" being flanked by "Key Financial Priorities" and "Financial Outlook." Clearly, to gloss the old phrase, the truck segment is where the money is. Suryadevra enumerated how the truck segment is significantly different than other types of light vehicles. Among her points: GM, Ford and FCA have more than 90% of market share. The truck parc has been growing and aging over the past 10 years. Customers are fiercely loyal to the segment—as in 70% of truck buyers are truck buyers. A good number of the vehicles are for commercial use (40 percent). Trucks are "less prone to. . .mobility disruption." Trucks offer high margins. Translaton: The segment is one that they're solidly positioned in. There are lots of old trucks on the road that will need to be replaced by new ones. Perhaps buyers may switch from a Sierra to a Canyon, but it will be a truck. If your livelihood depends on that type of vehicle, even if gas prices go up or the economy begins to go south, you're going to stick with it. Most of the country isn't San Francisco, so trucks will continue to be essential. And, well, they're profitable in the extreme.

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

Hotter Cadillac CT5-V prototype spotted with a manual transmission

Fans of the old Cadillac CTS-V (and high-performance sedans in general) may have something to be excited about. A series of interior photos leaked Tuesday reveal that prototypes of the forthcoming higher-output variant of the CT5-V Sedan have been equipped with a manual gearbox. Exclusive: Photos show the wilder Cadillac CT5-V will have a manual transmissionhttps://t.co/Ta8hZ804eg — The Drive (@thedrive) March 10, 2020 Photos obtained by our friends at The Drive show a partially camouflaged CT5-V prototype with a full interior and what appears to be a manual gear selector. While the shifter and its boot are partially obscured by a plastic covering, it's obvious that the knob is not the same one paired with Cadillac's automatic gearboxes, such as the one featured in our expertly augmented photo above.  This is not the first time the potential for a stick-shift option in the new, higher-end "V" cars has been floated. Rumors suggesting that the as-yet-unnamed higher-output CT4-V and CT5-V models might be so-equipped (at least optionally) circulated late in 2019. This, in addition to significantly higher power outputs and revised suspensions will set them apart dramatically from the base CT4-V and CT5-V, which are intended to compete with the likes of the Audi "S" line of vehicles.  CT4-V spied View 40 Photos GM has been quite cagey when it comes to details about these new models. We know they'll follow in the footsteps of previous-generation "V" cars, which were aimed squarely at Europe's powerhouse sport sedans. The hotter CT5 variant is expected to employ the automaker's 6.2-liter supercharged V8, which made 640 horsepower in the now-dead CTS-V.  We reached out to Cadillac for comment and were told by a spokesperson, "The ultra-performance variants of our Cadillac CT5-V and CT4-Vs are still under development.  We will have more details to share in the next few weeks and the CT5-V and CT4-V ultra-performance versions will debut later this year. Until then, I can only confirm that these cars will build on V-SeriesÂ’ respected legacy." Hopefully, GM won't make us wait too much longer for official details of these new high-performance models, including what we should expect in terms of powertrain availability and launch timing. Stay tuned. Related Video: