The Chevrolet City Express was introduced at the Chicago auto show in February and is scheduled to arrive at dealerships this fall. The City Express gives General Motors a vehicle to compete in a class that also includes models like the Nissan NV200 and the Ford Transit Connect.
The Chevy van is essentially a Nissan NV200. Both are built on a Nissan front-wheel-drive platform in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Both offer 122.7 cubic feet of cargo space and use a 131-horsepower 2-liter 4-cylinder engine with a continuously variable automatic transmission. They even share a 5.8-inch dashboard touch screen.
The City Express offers some features not found in the NV200, including six standard cargo tie-downs, optional door glass and a second dome light. Both vans have an estimated payload capacity of 1,500 pounds and a 6-foot 10-inch stretch of floor space from the rear doors to the back of the front seats. Sliding doors on each side and 60-40 split rear doors offer good access.
G.M. is betting that van buyers will be pleased with the Chevrolet version. Prices for the City Express LS start at $22,950 and a better-equipped LT version begins at $24,510.
The NV200 may be best known in the United States as the vehicle that was intended to be the Taxi of Tomorrow. It won a 2011 competition aimed at selecting a uniform taxi design for New York City, but the plan was derailed by political wrangling and complaints over shortcomings. Rulings by the New York State Supreme Court ultimately doomed the single-source taxi plan.
Still, it was not the loss of the New York taxi monopoly that led Nissan to forge a deal with G.M., a Nissan spokesman, Dan Bedore, said in a telephone interview. Rather, it was G.M.’s desire to fill a hole in its product line, and the NV200’s appeal as an urban delivery vehicle, that sealed the deal. “G.M. had a need,” he said, “and we had a van that suited their needs.”
