Despite the headlines reading “Cheap Gas” for the foreseeable future, General Motors will not be deterred in developing fuel efficient vehicles. The latest being the 2016 Chevrolet Cruze.
The upcoming compact sedan has officially been rated by the U.S. government, where it scored a 35 mpg combined rating.
The fuel economy results are broken down below:
- 2016 Cruze equipped with 1.4-liter turbo and six-speed automatic, 30/42/35 mpg
- 2016 Cruze equipped with 1.4-liter turbo and six-speed manual, 29/41/33 mpg
- 2016 Cruze Premiere with 1.4-liter turbo and six-speed automatic, 30/40/34 mpg
- Cruze Limited with 1.4-liter turbo, 26/38/30 mpg (for both transmissions)
- Cruze Limited with 1.8-liter naturally-aspirated four-cylinder, 22/35/27 mpg with the automatic and 25/36/29 mpg with the manual.
Do the results seem up to par with the competition? Or is the 2016 Cruze still not frugal enough? We think the numbers should make for a very competitive compact vehicle. And it makes us hopeful Chevrolet will really bring the frugal goods with a diesel variant in the future.
Comments
The Cruze base automatic is now very segment competitive.
It matches the combined fuel economy rating for the new Civic (I think that is it’s main competition in the segment) and trounces the 2016 versions of others in the segment like the Corolla, Sentra, Elantra and Focus which are all have a 32 mpg combined rating according to http://www.fueleconomy.gov
The new 2016 Civic is a very strong vehicle. Honda really stepped up it’s game. I think new Cruze should be right there with it and attract new clients to Chevrolet.
New Civic is fugly in-person. It may match the Cruze in the economy department, but gets trounced itself in the art department. The new Cruze is a very strong vehicle, all around. I think it would be hard for any rational person to choose any of the other ones you mentioned over the Cruze. Surprisingly, I think the Americans are leading the pack in this segment with the Focus and now the Cruze. Sorry, Dart.
I’ve seen many of the new Civic’s and they look great in person. I can’t make it to the CIAS this year to see the new Cruze but Civic production has been going on since October/2015 so they are plentiful right now.
I gotta say in person the Civic is impressive especially from the back.
The back is the worst part about it, imo. It’s like an Audi A7 (ok) mated with a Crosstour (really bad). So, not necessarily the worst thing in the world. But just because you have a great backup camera, doesn’t mean you have to twerk your fastback.
Where is that nine speed they was rumored to be developing with Ford? It has been a long time since development was announced. It should be available by now. Has it proven to be not enough effefency gain to be worth the extra cost?
My understanding is the 9 and 10 speed transmissions that are being jointly developed by Ford and GM are for larger vehicles that would benefit more from the extra cogs.
Ford is using the co-developed 10 speed automatic first in the 2017 Raptor.
I am not sure when GM will first use the transmission but I would think the Escalade is a good place to start.
These are really good numbers and should help move the metal.
GM is complying with the future CAFE specification to get the corporate average MPG rating over 40. Increasing the efficiency of every model is much bettter than just selling many small models to compensate for the gas guzzlers. The Gen 2 Volt’s powertrain can be the secret to getting even better MPG by replacing the complex, hydraulic-mechanical transmissions with a hybrid-electric-mechanical drive unit in both FWD (as in the Volt and Malibu) and RWD (as in the Cadillac CT6) with a small rechargeable battery for braking regeneration. In other words, make every model a hybrid.
Even when gas prices were high hybrids were not mainstream. Making every model only hybrid would cut sales and profits dramatically for the foreseeable future for GM especially when they entire industry is not going that direction.
An all hybrid lineup is still many many years into the future.