When General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson met with the company's new Board of Directors earlier this month, he didn't tell them the future was riding on the much-hyped Chevy Volt. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Mr. Henderson said the most important product launch in 2010 will be the Chevy Cruze, a small car developed overseas to better compete with Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla."
Early reports say the Cruze is a significantly more refined vehicle than the Chevy Cobalt it replaces, but winning the compact car war with the Japanese may depend, in a post-recession market, on fuel economy.
With that in mind, Motor Trend reports, GM is aiming high. "Enter the Special Project, GM's high-fuel-mileage version of the Cruze, fashioned after Chevy's Cobalt XFE and Silverado XFE. Engineers reassigned from GM's Performance Division are tweaking the 1.4-liter turbo and the Cruze's six-speed automatic with the goal of achieving 44 mpg in EPA highway-mileage estimates." A 44 mpg rating would make the Cruze more efficient than a Honda Insight hybrid - without the benefit of hybrid technology.
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