1998 Chevy S-10 Blazer 4 Door on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Cadillac XT4 crossover to be built in Kansas City

Cadillac's upcoming XT4, a crossover we've previously known as the XT3 in a long series of spy shots of heavily camouflaged mules, will be built at General Motors' assembly plant in Kansas City on the same platform as the Chevrolet Malibu, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the plan. That will give Cadillac another entry in the red-hot luxury crossover segment and, GM hopes, help to reverse a sales slump in the U.S. It'll also breath life into the Kansas City plant that makes the slow-selling Malibu, where GM cut a third shift last year, by sharing the assembly line between the crossover and sedan and defraying costs for each vehicle. The XT4 was known most recently as the XT3, with styling cues based on the Escala concept sedan from 2016. It's slightly smaller than the XT5, Cadillac's top-selling vehicle, and will also augment the full-size Escalade in Cadillac's stable of SUVs when it makes its expected debut later this year. Cadillac last week reported its second-highest-ever sales mark with 356,467 vehicles, an increase of 15.5 percent over 2016. But that mark papers over an 8 percent sales decline in the U.S. to 156,440 vehicles. The luxury brand is on a hot streak in China, where sales jumped 50.8 percent last year to 175,489 units.Related Video: Image Credit: Brian Williams Plants/Manufacturing Cadillac Chevrolet GM Crossover sales cadillac xt5 cadillac xt4 cadillac xt3

Opel CEO talks new EV, will likely be fresh face for Chevy, too

The rumored demise of the Opel Ampera has been confirmed, but there's good news, too. Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann has been busy Tweeting information about the brand's next plug-in vehicle, admitting that the Ampera is on the way out but that plug-in vehicles are here to stay. His Tweets, in full, read: After the eventual run-out of the current generation Ampera, we'll introduce a successor product in the electric vehicle segment. Our next electric vehicle will be part of our massive product offensive – with 27 new vehicles in the 2014-2018 time frame. We see eMobility as important part of the mobility of tomorrow and we will continue to drive down costs & deliver affordability. As we learned earlier this week, the Ampera will not be refreshed when the current Chevy Volt is updated, most likely because of slow sales. Opel sold just 332 Amperas in the first five months of 2014. For now, General Motors is still building Amperas in Michigan for export to Europe. So, what might this new EV mean for the General Motors plug-in fleet? Official spokespeople are being quiet, but we think it's safe to say the new EV Neumann is talking about is not simply a rebadged Chevy Spark EV. This is the first official word about an entirely new EV, and we expect it will come to both the Chevrolet and Opel brands.

2020 Chevy Tahoe High Country spied along with next-gen Escalade

Have no fear, the big grilles are here. Or, at least we think they're coming. One of our spy shooters caught the next-gen Chevrolet Tahoe and Cadillac Escalade out testing with more of their fronts ends exposed than before. Starting with the Tahoe, we can see what amounts to a blinding amount of chrome under the wrappings. We're guessing this would be a new Tahoe High Country trim level, mirroring the range-topping trim level currently offered on the Silverado and Traverse. The Tahoe's current range topper is the Premier. Although the rather ornate details in the grille are not found on the current High Country trims, they also seem like something that would be available on the priciest Tahoe available. The same could be said of the LED lighting details visible under the camo as the Silverado High Country, shown below, does indeed have unique LED elements. The next-generation Cadillac Escalade only shows up in two of the photos. As we can't see shiny chrome reflecting through the camo, we're guessing the Escalade will adopt a blacked out grille similar those found on the XT6 and other Cadillacs. We can also see horizontal lighting elements similar to those on other recent Cadillacs. As this is an Escalade, however, we'd imagine everything will be supersized. GM will be ushering these trucks out soon, with the independent rear suspension being the big story. Besides the improved ride and handling, it should result in substantially improved cargo space and third-row legroom. Doing so would at least close the gap with the biggest Lincoln and Ford SUVs.