REPORT: GM aims for 44 mpg from 2011 Chevy Cruze XFE
2011 Chevy Cruze - Click above for high-res image gallery
When General Motors first announced the 2011 Chevy Cruze for the United States market, the automaker bandied about a fuel mileage estimate of over 40 miles per gallon on the highway. That's a laudable goal to be sure, but there's apparently more in store from GM's next small car platform in the form of an XFE edition. Interestingly, Motor Trend reports that the engineers that had previously worked for GM's Performance Division are now tweaking future cars for XFE.
That's eXtra Fuel Economy, for what it's worth. You may recall that GM was able to wring a few more mpg from its long-in-the-tooth Cobalt XFE and Silverado XFE, and the same treatment is reportedly in the works for the Cruze with the goal of hitting 44 mpg. The most miserly powertrain combination will be based on the optional 1.4-liter turbocharged four cylinder and six-speed automatic transmission, which will be a step up from a standard 1.8-liter naturally-aspirated mill.
Gallery: 2010 Chevy Cruze - live shots
[Source: Motor Trend]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ziv 8:51PM (10/20/2009)
Pretty good mileage and the car is a bit more attractive than GM's usual product. They may be learning something. I will be curious to see if Ford tunes the Ford Fusion Hybrid to meet or beat this mileage in Ford's version of an XFE. It would be cool to see domestic car makers fighting for green halo's.
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Toledo Guy 8:02PM (10/20/2009)
Well the car in the photo that accompanies this story is not going to be the finished product. GM has a habit of decontenting cars to squeeze the mileage out of them. You can be sure they'll take as much weight out of the Cruze as possible to get the mileage. While its okay for some, I personally hate to drive a stripped down model just to get a few more MPG.
ziv 8:56PM (10/20/2009)
I am not sure how much weight will affect highway mileage, I thought aero was the major factor there and weight was more important in city mileage. It is interesting that GM was touting hwy mileage, not city.
Regardless, it sounds like the new Cruze is going to have very good mileage right about the time gas prices go up next year.
Wanted 9:04PM (10/20/2009)
What could they possibly strip from the car, is my question.
why not the LS2LS7? 10:50PM (10/20/2009)
I would think if Ford could tune the Fusion Hybrid to do better, they wouldn't have shipped it massively underperforming its ratings in real-world tests. It real-world tests it gets the same mpg as the 35mpg-rated (15% less!) Camry Hybrid.
Joey Mazz 5:13PM (10/21/2009)
I doubt that Ford will re-tune it's large mid-size sedan to compete with a compact car that it does not directly compete with. This car will have to go head to head with the upcoming 2011 euro-spec focus and the superior Ford design will destroy the cruze...cobalt...cavalier...whatever they call this thing. Furthermore, I've been in a cobalt xfe and it is not a terribly impressive car, even compared to my 07 focus zx3.
neptronix 7:41PM (10/20/2009)
geez, given the mpg GM is getting out of their newer engines, they make hondas look like gas guzzlers.
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FitFan 8:07PM (10/20/2009)
This would be very impressive. Good looking car, too.
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Lucien 8:21PM (10/20/2009)
The Cruze is already sold in Europe and so far reviews have been favorable (especially since it's relatively cheap). I don't get why it's not sold in the US yet.
The Toyota Yaris gets 36mpg highway with 1.5 engine. So 44mpg would be amazing and would even exceed Honda's Hybrids (with only 1.3 engine). Well let's wait and see...
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FitFan 1:57AM (10/21/2009)
This wouldn't really exceed the fuel efficiency of Honda's hybrids. The Insight gets 43 and the Civic Hybrid gets 45 on the highway. Let's see what the final EPA numbers are before getting too excited.
It will also be interesting to see what kind of power they get out of a 1.4 turbo setup.
RSR 10:22AM (10/21/2009)
You can thank OBD II (CARB) for its late introduction to the US market. Its stringent requirements and certification application process is very costly and time consuming. OBD II requires unique systems that no others (ex. EU VI) require, such as fuel vapor leak monitoring. It's more than adding hardware. The overall work involved, tweaking for emissions and diagnostics, take months and months.
Often misunderstood, but the US emission requirement for HC, NoX, and CO are the most stringent in the world (not counting CO2 - this has not been regulated by EPA since the agency only regulates 'toxic' materials). This also tends to add extra or bigger catalyst - more time for engineering and cost.
So I am impressed how the car prices in the US can be so low relative to other countries. Competition is good for consumers for sure. : )
Lucien 11:07AM (10/21/2009)
It's not a diesel, is it? All other vehicles are sold in the US without delay compared to Europe so I can't imagine that stringent requirements would delay this for more than 1 year.
I do know that a diesel version is sold of the Cruze in Europe (2.0l) but I thought this new 1.4 turbo engine is a non-diesel. The 2.0l diesel gets 43mpg highway on ECE rating (so more like 35mpg in EPA).
Indeed I'm mistaken: it doesn't exceed Honda's Hybrid highway mpg but incredibly close. I'm kind of sceptic though as well. Let's first see if they really can do it.
RSR 12:17PM (10/21/2009)
"All other vehicles are sold in the US without delay compared to Europe" - I am not sure which ones you're referring to. Many are in fact delayed compared to Europe (VW) and Japan. Perhaps not as much as 1 year though, as you pointed out. And if they come out at the same time, it means their product development timing had it planned that way. But that doesn't always happen. In short, development work and planning for things like cars and airplanes are just too complex for many to realize without first hand experience (I don't mean to say that ordinary people are not smart enough to understand this, but trying to state the complexity).
There are many other requirements other than emissions; we're talking about government bureaucracy here. Many FMVSS requirements are different from other countries: EU and Asia often have different standards. They have to ensure that the cars sold in each market meet the local regulations. Take a look at the original (1st gen) Euro spec Focus: it has an additional back-up lamp on its rear bumper compared to the US spec Focus. Just one example of local requirement.
For emission part, each region requires different fuel to be used for emission certification process. Hence, the engine controller tunings are different (different fuel = different combustion and knock control), and the certification processes must be done again accordingly.
why not the LS2LS7? 12:52PM (10/21/2009)
OBD II is mandated for all cars sold in the US, not just CARB.
Wanted 9:02PM (10/20/2009)
Why haven't they put more spotlight on the Cruze? It's coming out sooner than the VOLT, and will sell exponentially more than the Volt as well!
Either way, this is impressive. I've been waiting (too long) for the Cruze since its leak in 2008, and nothing will stop me from driving it.
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why not the LS2LS7? 10:52PM (10/20/2009)
Its not their halo car, it isn't a game-changer. Also, I think when you have your hand out to the US government you don't play up Korean cars you're working on bringing here quite so much.
Invisible 6:40PM (10/25/2009)
Very true, Obama motors doesn't want to put too much of a spot light on this Korean designed, engineered Chevrolet.
Boyprodigy1 10:47PM (10/20/2009)
Can someone ddos this guys site so he shuts up about it?
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Chris M 11:13PM (10/20/2009)
That's a "cure" worse than the disease (and possibly criminal). There's a better way.
Note up in the upper right corner of each comment are stars, a -minus sign, a +plus sign, and an !exclamation point. The +plus raises the rating shown by the stars, the -minus lowers the rating, but best of all, click on the !exclamation to report spammers and bad language to ABG for review and possible removal.
Hmm, I do believe that spam has been removed!
Nixon 11:30PM (10/20/2009)
Am I the only person who finds it odd that suddenly right after the CAFE standards are FINALLY updated after a couple of decades, that all these higher and higher MPG cars magically appear out of nowhere?
I simply can't believe that they haven't had any of this technology developed anytime in the last few decades, and all the sudden they whipped it out of nowhere. The've been sandbagging us for decades.
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