Uber reaches a deal with another automaker in a continued effort to build a fleet of self-driving vehicles for its service. The popular ride-hailing company today announced it has secured a partnership with Mercedes-Benz and plans to incorporate the German automaker’s autonomous vehicles into their prospective self-driving transportation network.
There is no exclusivity in this deal, Mercedes can supply autonomous vehicles to Uber’s competitors and Uber can use vehicles from other automakers as the company opens up its platform for manufacturers to introduce their own self-driving cars. A timeline has yet to be announced.
Such alliances are starting to become commonplace due to the fact that Silicon Valley firms do not have the capability to produce their own autonomous vehicles. “Auto manufacturers like Daimler are crucial to our strategy because Uber has no experience making cars — and in fact, making cars is really hard,” Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said in a statement.
However, in this deal, Uber is simply opening up its fleet to include Daimler models; it will not manage vehicles or assist Benz with its development of self-driving technology.
The Chevrolet Spark EV has been officially axed from the automaker’s lineup, ending a U.S. sales run that spanned over three years.
According to The Detroit News, Chevy actually stopped production of the subcompact electric vehicle last summer. The automaker has also removed the Spark EV from its consumer website, leaving the Bolt EV as Chevy’s only electric vehicle in its lineup.
When General Motors unveiled the Bolt EV back in 2015, the company said it didn’t intend on cancelling the Spark EV, The Detroit News reports. Now, GM will instead focus its efforts on the Bolt EV.
“We’re excited to build on the great experience of our electrification program, including Spark EV, to introduce the first affordable, long range electric vehicle, the Bolt EV,” a Chevrolet spokesman told The Detroit News.
Chevrolet sold approximately 7,400 Spark EVs since introducing the electrified hatch in the U.S. back in June 2013. The Spark EV was offered in California, Oregon, and Maryland. Chevrolet plans to launch the Bolt EV nationwide.
The 2016 Chevrolet Spark EV was rated at 140 hp and a whopping 400 lb-ft of torque driving the front wheels. With a 19- kWh lithium-ion battery pack, the Spark EV was EPA rated to travel approximately 82 miles in between charges. Meanwhile, the Bolt EV offers almost three times more range at 238 miles thanks to its 60-kWh lithium-ion battery.
As if the stars had aligned, I received a friendly “time for you next maintenance” reminder email from our local Chevy dealer’s service department. They were right. With the odometer at 14,356 miles and the self-reported engine oil-life indicator reading at 2 percent, it had been five months and nearly 7,500 miles since the last one. And you might recall in the second update that I mentioned that the car’s limited-slip differential began groaning during slow-speed parking lot maneuvering, especially after sitting outside all day. It’s grown more noticeable over time. In the interim, I was contacted by concerned reader, David Z., who pointed me to a forum in the Camaro6 community where owners had been discussing their moaning and groaning sixth-gen Camaro differentials. (Apparently some fourth-gens did this, too.) This yielded a service document ID# 2866369, which recommends draining and replacing the gear oil. With the Camaro’s odometer quickly approaching 15,000 miles and a service bulletin in hand, I made a 7 a.m. service appointment.
When I arrived and described the problem, the service writer found the document in his system and added it to the work order. In addition to a complimentary general inspection, 8-quart oil change, and a filter change, they indeed drained the offending pumpkin juice and replaced it with 2 quarts of Dexron LS Gear Oil 75W-90 (GM part number 88862624), also at no charge because it is a warrantied item. Some folks in the forums reported that after the differential oil replacement and several walking-speed figure eights with steering at full lock (which sounds like a reasonable idea to help circulate the new oil), this was a permanent fix, some said it didn’t change a thing, and still others reported that the groan came back after a period of time and so repeated the process with various degrees of success. It seems odd that it’s so hit or miss, which might explain why some forum contributors are having difficulty convincing their local Chevrolet service writers to look up the service document and perform the oil replacement. Our source within Chevrolet said this on the matter: “On early 2016 [Camaro] builds that have limited-slip differentials, this was a known issue. The ring and pinion gears had too much gear-marking compound [used to evaluate/adjust pinion depth] applied by the diff supplier, which [in turn] contaminated the fluid. Doing a fluid flush fixes the issue.”
It’s only been a week, and our differential remains smooth and silent after the service and slow-speed figure eight. If this changes, naturally, we’ll let you know in the next update. You should also know that because we don’t technically own this year-loan car, we don’t enjoy the two-year/24,000-mile free scheduled maintenance that actual owners do; we had to pay $58.76 for the oil, filter, and disposal fee.
Since the last update, we’ve added 2,842 otherwise in-service miles to our Camaro 2SS, and the running average fuel economy is still hanging at 16 mpg, or precisely the EPA’s city estimate. Short-shifting every gear, trying to maintain a steady pace, and using cruise control as much as possible, I’ve managed to eke out a self-reported 21 mpg in the instrument panel over my 33-mile commute (22 of which—66 percent—are on the highway). That does slightly surpass the EPA’s 19 mpg combined. That makes sense because the government’s calculation is based on 45 percent highway driving. Still, it’s not uncommon to get in the car after it’s been out of my sight for a few days to find an 11-mpg reported average on the instrument panel. That might be the result of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, standing on the go pedal too often, or the first one causing a desire for the second. I dunno. I wasn’t there, but I guess this 16-mpg average in Los Angeles is the best we can hope for without another long road trip or a perpetual tailwind.
And oh hey, Mustang drivers! I don’t want to race you. And not you Challenger dudes, STI/Evo club, or modded Civic/Genesis Coupe kids, either. I know I’m driving a bright-red Camaro SS with black wheels, and it’s likely got the exhaust baffles openish in Sport mode (I blip my own downshift, thank you, despite having the option to let the car do it for itself), but I’m not interested in the glory of beating you, the infamy of trending on social media, and certainly not the inconvenience and cost of getting a ticket. This pushrod V-8-powered Camaro SS certainly is an attention magnet, but not the kind I’d like, if you know what I mean.
In a meeting with President Donald Trump, Ford CEO Mark Fields said that 1 million jobs could be in jeopardy if new fuel economy rules don’t take into account consumer demand.
Trump met with the CEOs of Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler last week in an effort to encourage automakers to build new plants in the U.S. The three executives didn’t ask Trump to get rid of the standards, Fields later said, but instead focused the discussion on balancing regulations with market realities.
“We think having one national standard on fuel economy is really important,” Fields said at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in New Orleans, reports Bloomberg. He also said jobs “could be at risk if we’re not given some level of flexibility on that—aligning it to market reality. So that really resonated.”
Automakers have long been at odds with regulators over fuel economy standards. After the most recent election, a group of major car companies in the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers asked Trump to roll back the rules, citing costs as a major concern. Just one week before former President Barack Obama left office, the Environmental Protection Agency locked in fuel economy standards for 2025.
“Our fundamental priority remains striking the right balance to continue fuel economy gains and carbon reduction without compromising consumer affordability and vital auto-sector jobs,” Gloria Bergquist, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said about the EPA’s decision at the time. The Alliance includes General Motors, Ford, Fiat Chrysler, Toyota, and a number of other automakers.
Originally, regulators wanted automakers to achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 mpg by the year 2025. It said the move would save drivers $1.7 trillion in fuel costs over the course of their vehicles’ lifetime. Due to booming sales of SUVs and trucks, the EPA relaxed that target to between 50.8 mpg and 52.6 mpg last year.
National Electric Vehicle Sweden, which owns the main assets to Saab, has been given the green light to start producing electric vehicles at a plant in China. Now that it has the approval of the Chinese government, the company hopes to eventually produce 200,000 electric cars annually at its Tianjin plant, which is currently under construction.
Part of the plan is to build 150,000 new 9-3 sedans for Panda New Energy, an energy vehicle leasing company in China. The new 9-3 will be an electric vehicle and won’t wear a Saab badge.
It has been a long road for the electric vehicle company to get to this point. Back in 2012, NEVS rescued Saab from bankruptcy and acquired its assets. Later, NEVS lost the rights to use the Saab brand name on its future vehicles.
The Tianjin plant is expected to be operational by the end of this year. Along with the upcoming Tianjin plant, NEVS acquired the Trollhattan production plant formerly occupied by Saab.
NEVS wants to develop an entire line of electric vehicles and mobility solutions around the world “with China as the first and most demanding market for the coming years,” the company said in a recent press release. NEVS’ main office and R&D facilities are located in Sweden.
The mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette has been caught once again, this time testing alongside its high-performance front-engine stablemate, the ZR1. We’ve seen both upcoming cars before, but this is the first time we’ve seen them together. These are also the best shots we’ve seen so far of the mid-engine ‘Vette.
The shooter says GM tried desperately to conceal the mid-engine Corvette’s bodywork, covering the car with a black sheet and attempting to block it from view with two Silverado HD trucks. But when the sheet inevitably did come off, it was impossible to hide the mid-engine car’s proportions, especially next to a front-engine Corvette. Seeing the mid-engine Corvette and the ZR1 side by side, we can more clearly see the differences between them. The mid-engine Corvette’s hood is much shorter than the C7’s, and the whole car looks like it’s been stretched from the B-pillar back. The hood line is also lower on the mid-engine Corvette, another clue that there’s no engine up there.
As we’ve previously reported, GM’s mid-engine supercar is expected to join the Corvette lineup alongside the existing front-engine offerings. The ZR1 would be the highest-performance iteration for the front-engine Corvette range, while the mid-engine car, rumored to be named Corvette Zora, would be positioned as a true supercar-fighter designed to take on the best from Ferrari and Porsche — not to mention its cross-town rival the Ford GT. The mid-engine Corvette could receive a new DOHC 6.2-liter direct-injected LT5 V-8 that was leaked in an internal GM document. The ZR1, on the other hand, may get an evolution of the Z06’s 650-hp supercharged LT4 V-8.
We can’t wait until we can bring you full details on these upcoming Corvettes, but until then, enjoy these revealing spy shots.
