2021 Gmc Acadia Denali on 2040-cars

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Hertz and GM team up to put 175,000 rental EVs on the road

Hertz and General Motors have announced a significant partnership that will send up to 175,000 electric vehicles into rental fleets across the country. The deal will unfold over the next five years and include vehicles from all GM brands.   The partnership will run through 2027. Hertz estimates that the electric fleet can save as many as 8 billion gasoline-powered miles, removing 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions from the air. Hertz says it will invest in becoming the largest renter of EVs in North America and notes that it already has tens of thousands available at 500 locations in 38 states. By the end of 2024, it plans to electrify a quarter of its fleet. Electric rental cars are a great way for travelers wanting to avoid gas, and they make excellent urban commuter cars. Hertz will also likely save a few dollars by avoiding oil changes and other routine maintenance that gas engines need. However, a hidden societal benefit of this deal may come when Hertz’s EV rental customers begin shopping for new cars. Many people are skeptical of EVs for various reasons, including range, charging, ease of operation, and cost. Giving people a low-risk introduction to EVs and the ability to test-drive one without a pressuring salesperson could drive more people to electrics. At the same time, there's also the risk that renters wanting to take their Hertz-GM EV on a road trip into sparsely populated areas may return with charging and range-related horror stories. Hertz currently doesnÂ’t ask what youÂ’re planning to do with your rental, but it does offer a chat service for questions, and range information is presented clearly on each vehicle. Related video: 2023 Cadillac Lyriq walkaround

2017 GMC Acadia coming to Detroit Auto Show

Well, it's about time. If there's one group of vehicles that are in serious need of an update, it's the GM Lambda crossovers. You know, the Chevy Traverse, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave. They're super old. Good thing, then, that the brand-new Acadia is coming to the Detroit Auto Show next week, as evidenced by this teaser image found on the company's Facebook page. There's not much to see here, except for an LED taillamp signature on what appears to be a much cleaner rear end. We expect the three-row CUV to feature all of the latest GM tech, including a robust infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. V6 power and optional all-wheel drive makes sense here, too, though we won't rule out some kind of four-cylinder option. When GM launched the Lambda crossovers, the Acadia arrived first in late 2006, alongside the now-discontinued (but still very much present in the current Acadia) Saturn Outlook. The Buick Enclave came next, and the Chevy Traverse arrived after that. It's unclear if GM will stick with this rollout plan, of course, but one thing's for sure: all-new versions of these CUVs cannot come soon enough. Related Video:

Could the GMC Jimmy come back as a Wrangler fighter?

Every three or four years, two cars go into heavy media rotation in stories about supposed new competitors. The headlines go something like, "X automaker working on a vehicle to fight the iconic Y." The Y cars are the Porsche 911 and the Jeep Wrangler. For this story, the X automaker is GM. And since GM already has its 911-fighter poised for debut next month, we speak here of the Wrangler. Car and Driver writes that GMC might take another shot at a Jeep challenger, this time by rebirthing a body-on-frame Jimmy SUV. For any who don't know, GMC sold an S-15 Jimmy from 1982 to 2005, a twin of the Chevrolet S-10 Blazer. Those SUVs started their lives as the Chevrolet S-10 and GMC S-15/Sonoma pickups. The Blazer name has returned to the light, albeit without its old-school rugged manners. There's still an opening on the GMC side, though, so C/D says the idea would be to work that old magic on the GMC Canyon pickup. The report is more chaff than grist for the rumormill, with liberal application of phrases like "looking to come up with," "could be," "could take," and "could arrive." Having said that, a potential Jimmy model could come in a few years, could use the same six-cylinder gas and four-cylinder diesel engines as the Canyon, and could start around $30,000. The Jimmy could wear GMC's new mud-and-guts AT4 trim name, or become a mud-and-guts trim for the Canyon just as the ZR2 is for the Colorado. It's not an entirely crazy idea, however, when a body-on-frame Trailblazer SUV based on the Colorado sells in Latin America, Asia, and Australia and does pretty well in the mud and muck. GM's been on the edge of going to war with the Wrangler for at least 12 years, when a Hummer exec said the HX concept would debut at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show and go on sale in 2010 as the H4. In 2015, The Wall Street Journal said GM was canvassing GMC dealers about something to get in the ring with the Wrangler. And all that was before every other automaker had to watch Jeep open a money-counting operation to handle its Wrangler profits, and dealers started charging $20,000 markups on Gladiators. In May, spy shooters caught a sensor-laden Jeep running at GM's Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported GM is considering a Hummer revival as an all-electric hardcore SUV. So we will not be surprised if GM rolls out a Wrangler fighter in the near-ish future. But we won't be surprised if GM doesn't, either.