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How Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra will take on the Ford F-150 profit machine

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — When General Motors engineers were developing the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks, some of them joined public tours of Ford's Dearborn, Mich., factory to watch aluminum-bodied F-Series trucks go down the assembly line. The redesign of the Ford F-Series trucks, launched in 2014, set a new standard for fuel economy and lightweight vehicle construction. But armed with stopwatches and trained eyes, the GM engineers believed they saw problems. "They had a real hard time getting those doors to fit," Tim Herrick, the executive chief engineer for GM truck programs, told Reuters. His team did more intelligence gathering. They bought and tore apart Ford F-Series doors sold as repair parts. Their conclusion: GM could cut weight in its trucks for a lower cost using doors made of a combination of aluminum and high-strength steel that could be thinner than standard steel, shaving off kilograms in the process. These pounds-and-pennies decisions will have major implications in the highest-stakes game going in Detroit: dominance in the world's most profitable vehicle market, the gasoline-fueled large pickup segment. What's more, GM is banking on strong sales of overhauled 2019 Silverados and GMC Sierras to fund its push into automated and electric vehicles — a business many investors see as the auto industry's long-term future. The risks are high given the hits automakers have taken from U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies. Rising aluminum prices spurred by Trump's tariffs are driving up costs on the Ford's F-Series, while rising steel and aluminum prices likewise drag on GM results. GM also has a significant risk should the United States, Mexico and Canada fail to agree on a new NAFTA trade deal, given GM trucks built at its Silao, Mexico, factory could face a 25 percent tariff if NAFTA collapses. Major profit per truck Interviews with GM executives and a tour at its factory here in northwest Indiana provide a detailed look inside GM's plan for the most important vehicles in its global lineup. These big pickups are everything Tesla's Model 3 or Chevy's Bolt electric car is not. The mostly steel body is bolted to the truck's steel frame, rather than the one-piece body and frame electric vehicles. The majority of trucks will have a V-8 gasoline engine powering the rear wheels — like the classic GM cars of the 1950s. Some Silverados will have new four-cylinder engines, but there is no electric or hybrid offering as of now.

Fernando Alonso fails to qualify as Pagenaud takes Indy pole

Former Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso narrowly failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday as France's Simon Pagenaud took pole position for the May 26 race. Kyle Kaiser beat out Alonso for the final spot in the 33-car field when he finished third, one spot ahead of the Spaniard, in a six-car shootout that determined the Indy 500's last row. The 23-year-old Kaiser, the last driver to take the track, averaged 227.372 mph for his four laps, a mere 0.019 mph ahead of Alonso's 227.353 mph average in the McLaren-prepared Chevrolet. "We never surrendered. We kept trying," Alonso, 37, told reporters after a tough week at the famed speedway. The Spaniard crashed his Chevrolet in practice on Wednesday and missed nearly two full days of practice while a back-up car was prepared. Then he tried five times on Saturday to qualify, puncturing a tire on the first attempt. Alonso had a completely new set up for Sunday's shootout but could not get the speed he needed to qualify. "I think the car felt better today than what we had yesterday. (So I am) happy with things we tried," he told reporters before learning he had not qualified. Pagenaud had a four-lap average speed of 229.992 mph to become the first Frenchman to take the pole since Rene Thomas in 1919. "It's just amazing," Pagenaud, who last week won the IndyCar Grand Prix on the track's road course, told NBC Sports. "Obviously last week was amazing, but this is even more special." He will be joined by Ed Carpenter (229.889) and Spencer Pigot (229.826) on the front row. But the Cinderella story belonged to Kaiser, the 33rd qualifier. "I don't think I can wrap my mind around what we just did," he said after bumping Alonso from the field. "This is all the credit to the team. They've been working non-stop trying to get this car ready for us and they did everything that we needed to get into this field." (Reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh, North Carolina; Editing by Ken Ferris)Related Video: Motorsports Chevrolet McLaren Racing Vehicles F1 IndyCar

Zombie cars: 9 discontinued vehicles that aren't dead yet

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.