The Ohio-made Chevrolet Cruze is ready to enter U.S. production after delays resulting from technical problems, General Motors officials said.

"Cruze will bring mid-sized presence to the compact-car class," said Jim Campbell, general manager of Chevrolet.

The Cruze is available in some overseas markets. GM says it has invested $350 million to prepare to build the vehicle in Lordstown.

Jamie Hresko, GM's global quality vice president, told The Plain Dealer of Cleveland that he had been concerned about problems with shifting the Cruze's gears, but those have been solved.

With the Cruze, Chevrolet hopes to compete with the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla.

Tentatively, the Cruze is scheduled to go on sale during the third quarter of this year.

 

Cruze can not compete with Toyota's Optimal Drive engines in the Corolla/Auris & the Avensis the GM /Korean petrol engines are crap

 

Toyota has a ton of problems right now. The financial hit to their company just seems to be getting worse. Will they even be here in 1 year? I would think so, but they are certainly in trouble.

 

Visited my local Toyota Dealer recently and they were so busy that I had a long wait for a salesman. Do not think existing problems will effect them very much. Was going to buy an Avensis T4 but decided it was very much overpriced plus long wait for 2010 model.