General Motors’ equity investment arm, GM Ventures, has announced an investment of $7.5 million in Sunlogics PLC, strengthening GM’s Clean Energy Commitment. The investment will spur the development of solar energy systems and create 310 new jobs.

Some of the investment from GM will be used to establish Sunlogics’ corporate headquarters and open a manufacturing facility in suburban Detroit, and to set up a manufacturing facility in Ontario.

“Global solar energy use is predicted to more than double by 2016, so we believe that investing in renewable energy is a smart and strategic business decision,” said Jon Lauckner, president of GM Ventures. “And the Chevrolet solar charging canopy project complements our electrification strategy that started with the Chevrolet Volt by helping our cars live up to their fullest green potential.”

GM made it official today that it will spend $328 million to refit its assembly plant in Flint, Mich., the General's historic home, to build the next generation of its key, profit-driving full-size pickups expected in 2013.

Flint is where 2,047 workers now build mostly heavy-duty versions of Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. GM says the money will keep or create 150 jobs. GM also builds versions of the trucks in Fort Wayne, Ind., and Silao, Mexico.

General Motors will sell a diesel version of the Chevrolet Cruze compact car in the U.S., GM CEO Dan Akerson says.

Planned for introduction in 2013, it would be the first Detroit passenger-vehicle diesel since the 2006 Jeep Liberty CRD sport-utility, and the first diesel car from Detroit since the 1980s.

A U.S. diesel Cruze has been the subject of heavy speculation, but was unconfirmed until now.

"I drove it the other day. It is great," Akerson said in an interview with USA TODAY. "These new diesels are quiet. Should make it in the low- to mid-40s, and that's with an automatic," the CEO said, referring to the likely fuel economy rating with an automatic transmission.

If you find your self living anywhere where it gets pretty hot in the summer, you'll want to know what locals know about summer car safety. Having the right items--and never having the wrong items--in your vehicle will make driving in the heat a much safer and enjoyable experience.

If you ever park outside during the summer months, your car will heat up quickly. Heat coming in through the windows is absorbed by the interior, and the glass acts as an insulator. The temperature in your car get up to 200 degrees, depending on the temperature outside, the kind of vehicle you have, and how long it has been in the sun.

The hatchback — a car with a top-hinged rear door, or hatch, instead of a separate trunk — has for years been held in such low esteem by buyers that automakers invented euphemisms to describe them, if they offered them at all. Now, they're making a comeback, driven by a push to roomy, fuel-efficient alternatives to crossovers or bigger cars.

Sales of hatchbacks from all brands increased 63% from the 2006 to the 2010 model years, says Ford Motor, citing data from Ward's Automotive. By comparison, total car sales fell 21% in the same period.

Ford officials say 43% of buyers opt for hatchback versions of its Focus compact, instead of the sedan. Its smaller Fiesta hatchback is hot, too. "A surprising number of people are taking the hatch," says Robert Parker, group marketing manager for Ford.

It's a victory for truth, justice and anybody who ever towed a trailer up a steep hill.

Major makers of pickups and SUVs have agreed to a standard test to rate their vehicle's towing capacity. By the end of the 2013 model year, most truck buyers should know -- for the first time -- how a vehicle performs vs. the competition.

"We wanted our customers to know that 10,000 pounds of towing capacity means the same things for all trucks," said Robert Krouse, the General Motors engineer who chaired the Society of Automotive Engineers committee that created the new standard.

This is a really big deal for millions of drivers. Towing capacity measures how heavy a trailer a vehicle can safely haul. The rating is as important to many pickup and SUV buyers as fuel economy or horsepower are to minivan or sports-car shoppers.

The big difference, and the reason the SAE standard is a breakthrough, is that, until now, automakers could pretty much make up the numbers they claimed for towing capacity.

Chevrolet, which recently noted its 50th anniversary of involvement with the nation's space program, is showing it still has the right stuff.

If you're on the last mission of the space shuttle Atlantis, some of your last and fondest memories of Earth before you get back are going to be of tooling around in an all-American Chevrolet Camaro. That's the shuttle's commander, Chris Ferguson, taking pilot Doug Hurley for a spin in the red one in the photo above at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility yesterday. They went right from a training jet to the car.

The last mission, STS-135, is set to blast off Friday.

For years, General Motors made sure that astronauts had spiffy new Chevrolet Corvettes to drive around. Each of the original Mercury astronauts got one, and it kept up the program all the way through the Apollo moon missions. So no Corvettes today -- probably deemed too flashy -- but the space travelers can still get plenty of terrestrial kicks in a Camaro.

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Back in line with the unwashed masses, you Prius folks. You, too, Honda Insight drivers. In fact, all you yellow-stickered, solo-driving, HOV-using people are just like everybody else on California highways, starting today.

After years of smugly wheeling down the high-occupancy vehicle (carpool) lanes all by your lonesomes, while other users had to have a passenger or two, you hybrid pilots lose the perk.

The California DMV says, "On July 1, 2011, hybrid vehicles carrying the yellow sticker will no longer be allowed to operate in an HOV/carpool lane unless the minimum passenger requirements are met. This expiration date will not be extended."

Thanks to an impressive effort from Chevy engineers, the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro will get a noticeable bump in horsepower for the new model year—but without sacrificing its ability to achieve 30 mpg on the highway.

The key to this achievement is the new, integrated exhaust-manifold cylinder head that will be used with the Camaro’s advanced 3.6-liter V6 engine. The new cylinder head—”heads” actually, as each V6 requires two—is made of lightweight cast aluminum and replaces an iron exhaust manifold, gasket and heat shield, along with nine bolts needed to attach those components. Not only does the change eliminate a potential site of gasket failure where the old head met the block, but it also slices a full 13 lbs. off the powerplant’s overall weight.