1965 Chevrolet C-10 Deluxe on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Volvo and GM team with Amazon for in-car deliveries

Volvo and GM are the first automakers to pair their vehicles with a new service from Amazon that lets owners have their packages delivered inside their cars, without them having to be there. The service will initially be rolled out in 37 U.S. cities at no extra charge to Amazon Prime members with a Volvo On Call or OnStar account, and it works with same-day, two-day and standard shipping. It's intended as an alternative for people who don't want to risk having their package stolen from their front porch or receive deliveries at their workplace, and both automakers say it's an example of how they're embracing innovation as a way to make their customers' lives easier. Volvo released a video (above) showing how the service works. Users download the Amazon Key App (or " Ama-zin," as the narrator pronounces it) and link their Amazon Prime account with their Volvo On Call account — or OnStar, in the case of GM-branded vehicles. Once they register their delivery location in a publicly accessible location, users can select the "In-Car" option at checkout. They get a notification when the delivery is en route and once it's completed and the car is relocked. Volvo has been offering in-car delivery in certain European countries since 2015 through its Volvo On Call platform, which enables services like the ability to send calendar-based navigation destinations directly to the vehicle, find nearby gas stations and help locate the vehicle when you forget where you parked it. Volvo says the platform is now available in roughly 50 countries and covers more than 90 percent of its global sales. The service is compatible with 2015 or newer Volvo, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC vehicles. Volvo says it's available to the majority of Volvo owners, while GM says more than 7 million vehicle owners can qualify. The service is expected to roll out to more cities later. You can check eligibility at amazon.com/keyincar. Related Video: Buick Cadillac Chevrolet GM GMC Volvo Technology Infotainment Amazon connected car volvo on call e-commerce

How easy is it to rebuild a Chevy small block V8?

Chevrolet's famous small block V8 stands as one of the workhorse engines in American auto history, with its variants going into vehicles from hot rods to pickup trucks. But do you know that you can fully disassemble and completely restore one of these mills in just under four minutes? Well, as long as there's some assistance from time-lapse photography, that is. Hagerty created this short clip showing a dirt-covered small block turning from a frog into a prince. Thankfully, the time-lapse doesn't speed the process up too much, and it's still easy to see how all of the principal parts fit together. With all sorts of sensors and software helping to drive the modern automobile, viewing the internal combustion engine in its purely mechanical form is still fascinating. Related Video:

GM's Buckle to Drive teen safety feature comes to more models for 2021

In 2014, GM announced a feature called "Belt Assurance," which would prevent a vehicle from being shifted out of park until the driver and front passenger had buckled their seatbelts. Initially launched on certain fleet vehicles in 2014, the feature rolled out as a free option on the 2015 GMC Sierra, Chevrolet Colorado, Cruze and Silverado. At the time, GM said it would push Belt Assurance to more models if customers took to it. That appears to have happened; come 2019, GM repackaged Belt Assurance as Buckle to Drive, part of the automaker's Teen Driver System that bundled tech such as geofencing and speed limit warnings to help parents keep track of their children's driving habits. In that implementation, the system only works when Teen Driver Mode is activated, locking out the shifter and muting the radio for 20 seconds or until the seatbelts are buckled, whichever comes first. The system shows a visual warning in the gauge cluster, too.  For this model year, the Teen Driver System came standard on 10 Chevy models, but Buckle to Drive was only allotted to the Colorado, Malibu and Traverse. Later this year, the 2021 Camaro will join the Chevys outfitted with the Teen Driver System and will get Buckle to Drive in addition. GM Authority reports that for the 2021 model year, Buckle to Drive will also be picked up by the Cadillac CT4 and CT5. Previously, the Cadillac ATS, CTS, Escalade and XTS came with the Teen Driver System, but three out of those four vehicles are no more, and the 2021 Escalade makes no mention of the Teen Driver System nor Buckle to Drive among its safety features. Elsewhere around the GM empire, the Buick Envision and Encore GX include the Teen Driver System, as do six GMC vehicles, but it's not clear when any will be upgraded with Buckle to Drive. The tech could help save numerous teenagers' lives. On its page of teen crash facts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention writes that roughly 300,000 teens between the ages of 16 and 19 ended up in emergency rooms to treat crash injuries in 2017. Furthermore, "only 58.8% of high school students always wore seat belts when riding as passengers," and, "Among young drivers aged 15-20 who died in car crashes in 2017, almost half were unrestrained at the time of the crash (when restraint use was known)." Related Video: