2007 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Wt Standard Cab Pickup 2-door 4.3l on 2040-cars

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Survey says $25k barrier is a problem for EVs

The majority of consumers are more or less priced out of the market.
Electric cars are gaining popularity with the general public, but are they still too expensive? According to a survey 1,084 consumers by Navigant Research, a consulting firm located in Boulder, CO, 71 percent want their next car to cost under $25,000, while 41 percent won't go a cent above $20K. Looks like people are even thriftier than we'd originally thought.

2016 Chevrolet Camaro: Notes from the reveal

The 2016 Chevrolet Camaro debuted Saturday evening in Detroit at an enthusiast-oriented event near the city's IndyCar course. While the big news was the Camaro's 200-pound weight loss, tighter chassis, and a snorting new V8, plenty of other morsels of Camaro info came out. Here's some of the more interesting stuff we heard. • The 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder is the first turbocharged engine in a Camaro. • The LT1 borrowed from the Corvette Stingray marks the third time a Camaro has used an engine with that badge. It was previously used in 1970-72 (Z/28), 1993-97 (Z/28), and 1996-97 (SS). • The Camaro was revealed in a tent before nearly 1,000 enthusiasts, General Motors executives (including CEO Mary Barra) and mere feet from the Grand Prix course where IndyCars will run in two weeks. • Chevy hopes to continue to attract new customers with the Camaro and said 63 percent of the fifth-generation buyers were new to the brand. • GM product boss Mark Reuss neatly summed up the Camaro's handling character. "It's wicked fast and extremely nimble." • Reuss on the design goal: make it "look like a car for tomorrow instead of a car from yesterday." • Reuss' first car was a 1967 Camaro, and he's reiterated his passion for the car. "People want to be seen in a Camaro, and that never goes away." • Chevy North America president Alan Batey said he plans to line up a red Camaro as soon as the order bank opens. We assume he'll have early access to that. • Though the appearance is similar, the sixth generation of the Camaro appears a little sleeker and is more aerodynamic thanks to 350 hours in the wind tunnel. Only two parts, the SS badge and the rear bow-tie emblem, are carryover. • Al Oppenheiser, the Camaro's chief engineer, said most of the options (except Magnetic Ride Control, which is SS exclusive), will be offered on the inline four. The engine will be capable of propelling the Camaro to a sprint to 60 miles per hour in well under six seconds. "We don't want to ... make it feel like an excuse car," he said. • Without revealing specifics, Oppenheiser said every Camaro variant will be faster than the model it replaces. •The interior is vastly improved. We got an up-close look in the cabin of one of the cars revealed with a red and white layout, and the materials are much better. The setting is more colorful, and 24 different ambient lighting shades are available. Related Video:

GM marks 500 million vehicles

General Motors is marking a major global milestone, as 500 million vehicles have rolled off its assembly lines since the company's founding in 1908. To mark the occasion, the automaker is continuing to invest in production and offering a one-time discount to some customers. GM North America boss Alan Batey used the festivities to announce the Fairfax Assembly factory in Kansas as one of the sites earmarked for the company's $5.4 billion in upcoming investments. The plant will get $174 million of that money for new equipment and technology to build the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu. Among the upgrades will be a shake-and-rattle booth that will simulate road conditions to find squeaks. To commemorate both the production milestone and the Fairfax plant, Batey and company CEO Mary Barra also gave away a 2016 Malibu to a wounded Iraqi war veteran, and the two execs announced that in the third week in May all GM employees can share a one-time customer appreciation discount with friends to help get them into the automaker's products. Barra also gave a speech to the workers there about some of the other milestone's in the company's history, which you can read below. Innovation on the Line: GM Manufacturing Milestones Many of General Motors' most important innovations have occurred behind the scenes, in its manufacturing facilities. Concepts such as changeover, flexible assembly, automation, computer simulation, machine vision and robotics were developed at GM. Over the decades these innovations have helped enable improvements in vehicle quality, efficiency and competitiveness. 1901: Ransom Olds' famous Curved Dash Oldsmobile, designed with simplicity, reliability and value in mind, was the first American car built in a factory designed specifically for automobiles and in standardized volume production. GM acquired Oldsmobile in 1908. 1908: Cadillac wins the Dewar Trophy, Europe's most prestigious award for precision and excellence in manufacturing, by demonstrating the auto industry's highest standards for precision and interchangeability of parts by disassembling three Cadillacs and mixing the parts randomly before reassembling and driving them before a contingent of judges. 1922: GM hires William Knudsen to lead Chevrolet's turnaround. Knudsen implements flexible mass production, which helps Chevrolet incorporate annual styling changes and take market share from Ford.