NEW YORK — Driving the company into the future of the environmentally friendly vehicles,Chevy unveiled its 2016 Malibu hybrid at the New York Auto Show on Wednesday.
Chevy introduced the mid-sized sedan by sending it through a giant paper logo, a la Super Bowl football players exiting a tunnel to take the field.
IMAGE: MASHABLE, DUSTIN DRANKOSKI
"At the end of the day, we've got to listen to our customers, and what our customers told us [they] want a vehicle with good rear leg room, with good fuel economy, too," said Alan Batey, Chevy's executive vice president and president, North America, following the unveiling of the car in New York. "Obviously, as we design and engineer these [vehicles], we ask our customers to rate [them] and this vehicle rated off the charts."
Featuring an 80-cell, 1.5 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, which allows the vehicle to travel at speeds of up to 55 mph on electricity alone, the 2016 model is a full 300 hundred pounds lighter than the 2015 model. According to Chevy, the new version of the Malibu gets 48 mpg in the city and 45 mph on the highway (47 mpg combined).
IMAGE: MASHABLE, DUSTIN DRANKOSKI
Although the redesigned vehicle doesn't throw off any of the more adventurous looks of some of the concept cars at the show, the updated interior does reflect a slight bent toward the tech-centric, including seven inch and eight inch interior color, capacitive touch screens, wireless phone charging areas and dual rear USB outlets.
"The midsize sedan market represents around 15% of the total car market, so that's why it's huge, one in seven vehicles sold is a midsized," Batey, explaining the company's reasoning behind its focus on the category. "Our performance is not good enough [in that area] so we said with this new car we want to be the best, we want to listen to our customers like we never have before, and we want to deliver something that is a winning product, and that's what we've executed."
The 2016 Malibu will be available in late 2015.
BONUS: The coolest tech at the New York Auto Show
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