Once again, it’s not possible to bang out this from the device itself. But I could send it, because the Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid comes with a 3-month-or-3-GB wireless LTE hotspot, which is maybe the most unfathomable thing. Next to that, the touchscreen iPhone interface, the front and rear collision detectors, the blind-spot warning indicators and backup camera are all plausible, and the hybrid drivetrain and steering wheel radio controls and panoramic sunroof and keyless entry barely rate a mention.
It’s definitely a future jump. When I got the family’s old Monte Carlo handed down after five years and 125,000 miles, it still had an analog dial radio. The Rabbit had a custom stereo put in, but it was a couple of months before the iPhone announcement and only ever had a one-line display. This one effortlessly combines AM, FM and XM without distinguishing on the preselects and has not only a full screen display but Apple CarPlay, so plug in the phone and boom, there’s your Maps and your Podcasts and everything. And as a work colleague pointed out, making the car a dumb terminal and putting the smarts in the phone means that your car’s entertainment system is upgradable as your phone is.
The sensation of the hybrid ride is normal these days, having taken so many Prius trips since that first awkward moment in the airport lot in 2004 when I was trying to figure out where the key went and how to shift gears. Now, it’s nothing to walk up to the car, touch the button on the handle before pulling it, sit down and hit the START button and the car’s all ready to back up without a sound. It feels like a car in the future should feel.
But in many ways, this is a bet. This is the first Malibu Hybrid the dealership has sold. It was the only one on the lot, and providentially spec’d out just like we wanted, but because the true hybrid is new for 2016, there isn’t a lot of data to go by for comparison. We are the beta testers. This is a wager that Chevrolet, back from the dead with the rest of GM, has learned its lesson and gone to school on the Volt and Bolt development, and can produce a modern and contemporary car that will punch its weight with the Toyotas and Fords of the world that have been doing hybrid for a decade. (Don’t forget, Obama dumped his Chrysler 300C for a Ford Escape Hybrid once he started running for President.) This is that rarest of birds in Silicon Valley: an American-made sedan. My immediate family bought only Chevrolet from 1969 until 1993, I was raised on the bowtie as much as I was raised Democrat or Baptist, and this is a leap of faith that an American car company is something other than perpetually teetering on the precipice of doom – or worse, irrelevance.
But it’s comfortable and drives well so far. I think this could work out.