Skip to main content

2019 Chevrolet Silverado goes on a diet, gains diesel power

In recent updates of their full-size pickup trucks, Ford and Ram have taken some risks with new features and a heavier emphasis on technology, while General Motors has stuck to a more traditional approach. But our first look at the next-generation 2019 Chevrolet Silverado indicates GM may be changing things up.

We got a glimpse of the new truck at an event celebrating 100 years of Chevy trucks in Texas, the obvious location for anything truck-related. But now we also have more details on powertrains and design following the Silverado’s appearance at the 2018 Detroit Auto Show. The new Silverado is less conservatively styled than its predecessor and, naturally for a new vehicle, Chevy is promising performance improvements over its predecessor.

Recommended Videos

The new Silverado has a very different look from the old one, which looked like it was designed using only a ruler. The new truck has more sculpted bodywork, with rounded wheel wells that bulge out from its flanks. The 2019 Silverado also features a new take on Chevy’s familiar stacked headlights, with a bit of bodywork folded in between the lighting elements. It will be interesting to see if truck buyers dig this new approach to Chevy truck styling.

Despite being slightly larger than the previous-generation Silverado, Chevy says the new truck is 450 pounds lighter, when comparing crew cab V8 models. Part of that savings comes from a steel frame that’s 88 pounds lighter than before. Chevy also reduced the body weigh by 88 pounds, thanks to a mix of materials. The doors, hood, and tailgate are made of aluminum, while the fenders, roof, and bed are made of steel. But Chevy didn’t equip the Silverado with a carbon-fiber bed, as was widely reported ahead of the launch.

The bed may not be made of carbon fiber, but it’s more than just a box. It sports 12 fixed tie downs for securing cargo, and an available power tailgate. Chevy will offer optional storage bins that fit over the wheel wells, with seven cubic feet of lockable storage space (but some competitors offer lockable storage built into the bed itself). Chevy claims best-in-class bed space, as well as the ability to lay a 4×8 sheet of plywood flat in the bed.

Like the rival Ram 1500 and Ford F-150, the Silverado is going diesel. Chevy will offer a 3.0-liter Duramax turbodiesel inline-six, as well as 5.3-liter and 6.2-liter gasoline V8s. The diesel and 6.2-liter V8 will be paired with a 10-speed automatic transmission. Chevy says it will offer six engine/transmission combinations, so there are still some pieces of this powertrain puzzle missing.

Thanks to a longer wheelbase, Chevy claims greater interior space than before, including 3.0 inches of extra rear legroom in crew cab models. As before, the Silverado gets a built-in WiFi hotspot and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. Other tech features will be announced later in the year, Chevy says.

The 2019 Silverado also get a new Trailboss trim level. It includes the off-road hardware from the carryover Z71 package, plus a 2-inch suspension lift, giving owners one of the most popular truck modifications right from the factory, with a warranty. The Trailboss will be one of eight trim levels for the 2019 Silverado.

Additional details on the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado, including pricing and a full list of available powertrains and optional features, will be available when the truck goes on sale.

Stephen Edelstein
Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…
Tesla, Warner Bros. dodge some claims in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ lawsuit, copyright battle continues
Tesla Cybercab at night

Tesla and Warner Bros. scored a partial legal victory as a federal judge dismissed several claims in a lawsuit filed by Alcon Entertainment, a production company behind the 2017 sci-fi movie Blade Runner 2049, Reuters reports.
The lawsuit accused the two companies of using imagery from the film to promote Tesla’s autonomous Cybercab vehicle at an event hosted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Studios in Hollywood in October of last year.
U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was inclined to dismiss Alcon’s allegations that Tesla and Warner Bros. violated trademark law, according to Reuters. Specifically, the judge said Musk only referenced the original Blade Runner movie at the event, and noted that Tesla and Alcon are not competitors.
"Tesla and Musk are looking to sell cars," Reuters quoted Wu as saying. "Plaintiff is plainly not in that line of business."
Wu also dismissed most of Alcon's claims against Warner Bros., the distributor of the Blade Runner franchise.
However, the judge allowed Alcon to continue its copyright infringement claims against Tesla for its alleged use of AI-generated images mimicking scenes from Blade Runner 2049 without permission.
Alcan says that just hours before the Cybercab event, it had turned down a request from Tesla and WBD to use “an icononic still image” from the movie.
In the lawsuit, Alcon explained its decision by saying that “any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”
Alcon further said it did not want Blade Runner 2049 “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”
But according to Alcon, Tesla went ahead with feeding images from Blade Runner 2049 into an AI image generator to yield a still image that appeared on screen for 10 seconds during the Cybercab event. With the image featured in the background, Musk directly referenced Blade Runner.
Alcon also said that Musk’s reference to Blade Runner 2049 was not a coincidence as the movie features a “strikingly designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car.”

Read more
Audi halts vehicle deliveries to the U.S. as it mulls impact of tariffs
2021 Audi Q5

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time.  The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

Read more
Waymo faces questions about its use of onboard cameras for AI training, ads targeting
Two people exit a Waymo taxi.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.

Read more