2009 North American Car and Truck of the Year -- the short list

Contenders have been announced for the 2009 North American Car of the Year, along with the 2009 North American Truck of the Year. To be eligible, vehicles have to be completely new or represent a redesign for the model year. This list and the final accolades are determined by a panel of automotive journalists. The winners will be announced Jan. 11 at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show. Let’s check out the car category hopefuls first.

Flying the home flag is the Ford Flex SUV/crossover. As its name suggests, the interior offers plenty of scope for various combinations of passengers and cargo. It’s comfortable, practical and drives well. Plus, with the Scion xB, Nissan Cube and Kia Soul coming from the East, the time of the box is nigh. The Flex is flung by a 262-horsepower 3.5-liter V-6; it comes with front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive; and starts at $28,295.

Fresh from winning the 2009 Green Car of the Year is Volkswagen’s Jetta TDI with its Clean Diesel technology. If ever there was a car for the times, this could be it. This sedan (or wagon) is compact yet sturdy, thrifty yet nifty, and there are no pesky hybrid-related batteries to worry about at the end of the car’s life. Emissions-wise, it gets a clean enough bill of health to be legal in all 50 states. Fuel consumption is rated at 30 mpg in the city and 41 mpg on the highway, and it starts at $21,990.

More contenders after the jump...

Diesel pickups from India delayed

Mahindra & Mahindra still hopes to be the first Indian automaker to enter the passenger vehicle market in the U.S., but the company has miles to go before ringing up its first sale.

Make that millions of miles. Global Vehicles USA Inc., Mahindra’s American distributor, had hoped to have the automaker’s compact pickup trucks on showroom floors here by next summer. That launch date has now been pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2009.

The reason? Execs at Global Vehicles, based in suburban Atlanta, say Mahindra ordered up more testing to make sure the trucks meet the expectations of American buyers. So 25 pickups will be driven 125,000 miles each over U.S. roads over the next several months. That’s more than 3.1 million miles.

“They want to make sure they get the vehicles right,” said Xavier Beguiristain, Global Vehicles’ vice president of marketing. “They’re very keen on that.”

Mahindra’s diesel-powered two- and four-door pickups still need get all the requisite U.S. regulatory approvals as well. They will have to meet the EPA’s tough new diesel emission requirements for the 2010 model year, a goal that Beguiristain said is attainable.

“These will be 50-state vehicles,” he said....

GM wants to be rated X -- for extra fuel economy

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When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

That’s the approach General Motors is taking as it tries to squeeze a few more miles per gallon — and hopefully a few more sales — out of its beleaguered lineup of big pickup trucks and SUVs.

This fall, GM will introduce XFE versions (as in “xtra fuel economy”) of its full-size Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks and the Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon sport utility vehicles. Using a combination of improved aerodynamics and mass-reducing aluminum parts, GM has upped the vehicles’ fuel economy ratings by one mile per gallon, to 15 MPG/city and 21 MPG/highway.

Over 100,000 miles of city driving, the difference would save 476 gallons of gasoline, or about $1,900 based on $4-a-gallon gas.

GM’s truck and SUV sales — a source of immense profits in the days of $1.50 gasoline — are down by one-fourth this year, and whether such incremental improvements will juice sales of the once-popular models is debatable.

“The effort is admirable, but I just don’t see it making a tremendous difference,” said analyst Erich Merkle of the consulting firm Crowe, Chizek and Co. “Even 21 miles per gallon/highway isn’t enough for consumers. They’re looking for something approaching 30.”

GM can boast of having the best MPG ratings in a vehicle segment not known for fuel economy. Rivals such as the Toyota Tundra and Ford F-150 pickups and the Nissan Armada and Jeep Commander SUVs get mileage in the range of 12-14 MPG/city and 17-19 MPG/highway.

With consumers clamoring for better mileage, GM apparently decided small improvements were better than none.

“We fast-tracked the XFE models to get them into dealer showrooms as quickly as possible,” said Gary White, head of GM’s full-size truck line.

GM hasn’t released pricing info on the XFE models, but a spokesman for the automaker said the difference compared with non-XFE versions will be “minimal.”

— Martin Zimmerman

Photo: The 2009 Chevy Silverado XFE. Credit: General Motors