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UAW strike's three-pronged attack focuses on popular midsize trucks, SUVs

The United Auto Workers announced at midnight last night that they would begin targeted strikes at Ford's Michigan Assembly, Stellantis' Toledo Assembly and GM's Wentzville Assembly — all three home to midsize pickups and, in the case of Toledo and Michigan, popular midsize SUVs.  The Ford Ranger, Jeep Gladiator (just updated for 2024), Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon are all built on lines that have been shut down by the strike. The Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler, which share fundamental underpinnings with the Ranger and Gladiator, respectively, are also in on the party. GM's Wentzville Assembly also builds the GMC Savana and Chevy Express vans, neither of which is a big player in the retail market. While midsize pickups may not move in the quantities we see from the half-ton segment, all of these are fairly high-volume models. Ford sold nearly 120,000 Broncos along with more than 55,000 Rangers in 2022; Wrangler and Gladiator combined for nearly 260,000 units last year (181,000 of those were Wranglers) and the Colorado/Canyon represented more than 117,000 sales for General Motors. Throw in the nearly 80,000 units for Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana, and production from these facilities equated to more than 500,000 units sold in 2022.  Ford has been struggling since launch to deliver its wildly popular Bronco to waiting enthusiasts. With supply woes largely easing last year, the company caught up to a great deal of its pre-existing demand, but lingering supply chain and quality control issues have continued to plague the manufacturer even as general constraints have eased. Even earlier this year, Ford said it was selling every unit it could produce. The Ranger, freshly redesigned for the U.S. market, is still getting its feet wet.  Jeep likewise has been on a tear. Sales of the 4x4 have remained so steady that the Wrangler 4xe became the country's best-selling plug-in hybrid vehicle pretty much by accident. Jeep just formally confirmed this week that a 4xe variant of the Gladiator pickup is on the way by 2025 — and they said you couldn't sell hybrids to truck and SUV buyers.  At GM, meanwhile, the Colorado and Canyon are sporting fresh redesigns for the 2023 model year, with production of both still ramping up. And while the Chevy Express and GMC Savana vans may not be popular consumer models, GM still sold more than 77,000 of them last year combined.  Related video: Plants/Manufacturing UAW/Unions Chevrolet Ford GMC Jeep Truck SUV

Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers

Texas filed a lawsuit Tuesday against GM over years of alleged abuse of customers' data and trust. New car owners were presented with a "confusing and highly misleading" process that was implied to be for their safety, but "was no more than a deceptively designed sales flow" that surrendered their data for GM to sell. The suit contends that at no point was selling driving data ever even suggested as a possibility, putting GM in violation of the state's consumer protection laws. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking a jury trial and at least $10,000 per offense (every GM car sold in the state since 2015) and a hefty add-on of $250,000 in cases where the victim was over 65. Texas seems to be flying high after a recent $1.4 billion settlement from Meta over other privacy concerns. This may well be a way to solve any pending budgetary issues in the Lone Star State.

2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV Second Drive Review: Moab made easy

MOAB, Utah — The title of our First Drive of the 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV included the phrase, "It's big, but this elephant can dance." The truck earned that compliment after a day of squeezing through San Francisco lanes and the slightly-more-commodious back roads in Napa Valley. But an SUV can't be called a supertruck without equivalent mastery on dirt, so GMC led a posse of media to Moab, Utah to run the Hummer's favorite stomping grounds. What happens when you subtract 20 inches of overall length and nine inches of wheelbase from a megafauna pickup? You find the dancing doesn't stop where the pavement ends. Allowed to roam Moab's challenging terrain — and ample room — the SUV is more than ready to do the Hokey Pokey and turn itself around. Admittedly, we knew this from our First Drive of the Hummer SUT two years ago, also performed among Moab's red rocks and red dust. The two variants share the same tricks, and GMC engineers chose Moab for prototype development, so there was no question of successfully navigating the trails. The SUV's simply nimbler about than the SUT. Clearance angles are better all over. Compared to the SUT, the SUV's 49.6-degree approach angle is just 0.1 better, but the 49-degree departure angle is 10.6 degrees better, and the breakover angle is 2.2 degrees better. Having four-wheel steer to rotate the SUV's shorter wheelbase shrinks the already tiny turning circle by 1.7 feet, to 35.4 feet. That's only four feet wider than a BMW i3, but 14 feet more compact than a GMC Sierra Crew Cab with the Short Box. And there are 'only' 15 standard cameras on the SUV, one shy of the 16 cameras in the SUT; the pickup adds an angle on the cargo bed the SUV doesn't have. Our 3X trim packed three motors producing a combined 830 horsepower and 1,200 pound-feet of torque. The $9,995 Extreme Off-Road Package threw on rock sliders with integrated steps that can support 1.5 times the Hummer's weight, full underbody skid plating, two additional underbody cameras front and rear, an electronically locking mechanical front differential for the single motor on the front, a virtual rear differential (programming that makes the two rear motors behave like a locked diff), heavy-duty ball spline half shafts, tow hooks and 18-inch black wheels on 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Mud-Terrain tires.