They’re warm, cuddly and put a smile on the face of their owners. As they become a bigger part of their owners’ lives, pets also should be top of mind when buying a new automobile.

Nearly six in 10 respondents to a 2011 AAA/Kurgo survey said they had driven with their dog in the automobile at least once a month in the past year. As thousands of consumers check out the latest automobiles this week at the New York International Auto Show on National Pet Day, they can make life easier for them and their pets by taking a closer look at what works best for their four-legged friend.

“From subcompact hatchbacks to full-size SUVs, Chevrolet vehicles today provide plenty of choices to meet the needs of owners and pets of all shapes and sizes,” said Charlotte Reed, a pet lifestyle expert and First for Women pet solutions columnist.

“To avoid stress, do your homework in advance and make note of your specific pet’s needs and review safety features,” Reed said. “Whether you need space, special safety features or convenience technologies, today’s automobiles offer a range of options that can make traveling more enjoyable.”

Here are a few tips to keep in mind for finding a pet-friendly vehicle:

• Safety features. According to the 2011 AAA/Kurgo study, three out of 10 pet owners admit to being distracted while driving.  One in five admits to driving with a pet in their lap. The Chevrolet Equinox, for example, has lane-departure warning systems, stability and traction control and forward-collision alerts that help heighten driver alertness to possible danger. Owners can reduce distractions by keeping pets restrained in the back seat or in a pet carrier.
• Exterior and interior features. Look for vehicles that are wide, tall and slightly square at the back. This will make it easier to get pets and pet equipment into and out of vehicles. Cargo room and additional cup holders are useful to stow pet food, water and accessories.

• In-vehicle technology. The Chevrolet Equinox offers power lift-gates that make it easier for pets to access the vehicle. They also have fold-flat seats offer more space for transporting pets and crates. Additional safety and security technology such as remote unlock, vehicle location and crash-detection services from OnStar can provide live help at a touch of a button during pet-emergency situations.

All Chevrolet vehicles come equipped with OnStar that uses GPS and cellular technology to provide help during emergency situations — such as finding the nearest veterinarian’s office while travelling in unfamiliar locales.

• Fuel efficiency. Gas-saving vehicles can save money, leaving more to spend for pet treats and toys. In addition to extra space, the Equinox crossover offers the interior room of an SUV along with the improved handling and fuel economy of a car. With its rear hatch and fold-down seats, the Volt extended-range electric vehicle is an option that’s good for both your pet and the environment.

Got backseat boredom? DVD players and Game Boys are so five years ago, but a new concept in rear seat entertainment technology that uses the windows themselves could replace squirminess and snoozing with interactive scribbling, sweeping and pinching. You could someday see this kind of technology in the back seat of a new Chevy Equinox!

General Motors Research and Development put that challenge before researchers and students from the FUTURE LAB at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel. The task: Conceptualize new ways to help rear seat passengers, particularly children, have a richer experience on the road. Watch this video and let your mind be blown:

The Windows of Opportunity (WOO) Project was inspired by psychological studies indicating car passengers often feel disconnected from their environment, GM asked the Bezalel students to turn car windows into interactive displays capable of stimulating awareness, nurturing curiosity and encouraging a stronger connection with the world outside the vehicle.

“Traditionally, the use of interactive displays in cars has been limited to the driver and front passenger, but we see an opportunity to provide a technology interface designed specifically for rear seat passengers,” said Tom Seder, GM R&D lab group manager for human-machine interface. “Advanced windows that are capable of responding to vehicle speed and location could augment real world views with interactive enhancements to provide entertainment and educational value.”

Since GM has no immediate plans to put interactive display windows into production vehicles, the R&D team gave free reign to the Bezalel students to create applications without concern whether they could be mass produced. Bezalel is Israel’s oldest institute of higher education and one of the more prestigious schools of its kind in the world.

The apps include:

• Otto, an animated character projected over passing scenery that responds to real-time car performance, weather and landscape. With Otto, passengers can learn about their environment in fun, playful ways.
• Foofu, an app that allows passengers to create, explore and discover through finger drawing on window steam.
• Spindow, an app that provides its users a peek into other users’ windows around the globe in real time.
• Pond, an app that allows passengers to stream and share music with other cars on the road, downloads favorite tracks, and share messages with other passengers on the road.

To demonstrate these apps, the students produced a full scale functional prototype of a rear passenger seat and side window. The students used motion and optical sensor technology developed by EyeClick to turn standard window glass into a multi-touch and gesture sensitive surface.

If such interactive windows were put into automotive production they likely would use electronically charged “smart glass” technology, which is capable of variable states of translucence and transparency, and can reflect projected images. Smart glass is increasingly used in architectural and display applications, but outside of movies like Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is rarely seen in cars.

“Projects like WOO are invaluable, because working with designers and scholars from outside of the automotive industry brings fresh perspective to vehicle technology development,” said Omer Tsimhoni, lab group manager for human-machine interface, GM Advanced Technical Center in Israel. “WOO is just one of many projects underway at GM that could reinvent the passenger experience in years to come.”

Chevy is getting into the holiday spirit of giving even more this season. Stop on by Ross Downing Chevrolet to see our best vehicle line up yet and take advantage of our impressive seasonal offers. There’s a vehicle to meet every holiday wish this year.

Get 0% APR for 36 months and no monthly payments until Spring on a new 2012 Equinox! Click here for more details!

ALSO:
Test drive the 2012 Chevy Cruze that gives you more of everything you need and deserve from efficiency to safety, features to styling. See first hand how Chevy raises the standard of excellence for crossovers while sitting behind the wheel of a 2012 Traverse or Equinox. Experience the style and extensive offerings of the 2012 Malibu first hand and you’ll see why it was named a Consumers Digest “Best Buy” four years in a row (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 model years). And for those that need a hardworking vehicle that can keep up with them, there’s the 2012 Silverado 1500 because, really… what’s a sleigh good for the rest of the year? Guess it’s time to make room under the tree—a lot of room.

The new 2012 Equinox isn’t resting on its laurels despite a 52 percent increase in retail sales for the first 10 months of the year.  New equipment available for 2012 includes Chevrolet MyLink in-vehicle wireless connectivity, customized infotainment options and new safety-enhancing features.

“Since this generation went on sale in mid-2009 we have sold every Equinox we can build, but we aren’t counting on that momentum to carry us,” said Russ Clark, director, Chevrolet marketing. “We have carefully selected technologies that our customers will find valuable and are able to offer them at very attractive prices.”

Chevrolet MyLink is an in-car infotainment package that builds on the safety and security of OnStar. It seamlessly integrates online services such as Pandora® internet radio and Stitcher SmartRadio® using hands-free voice and touch-screen controls via Bluetooth-enabled phones.

MyLink adds stereo audio streaming and wireless control of smartphones, building on the voice-activated Bluetooth hands-free calling capability already offered in most Chevy vehicles. MyLink also includes a seven-inch, high-resolution, full-color touch screen display that makes media selection easy to navigate.

MyLink also retains all the capabilities of today’s entertainment functions, including AM/FM/Sirius XM tuners, CD player with MP3 playback, auxiliary and USB inputs.

The 2012 Equinox features a General Motors’ exclusive crash- avoidance system that uses a single camera to help drivers avoid front-end and unsignalled lane departure crashes. The $295 option on LTZ trim levels is much less than systems that offer the same functions for more money.

This new active safety system uses a high-resolution digital camera mounted on the windshield ahead of the rearview mirror that looks for shapes of vehicles and lane markings. The system uses audible warnings and a high-mounted visual display to warn the driver if he or she is following another vehicle too closely, when a collision is imminent, or when departing a lane without signaling first.

Equinox’s warning display contains green “vehicle ahead” and “lanes detected” icons, as well as flashing red “forward collision alert” and amber “lane departure warning” icons that are accompanied by warning chimes. Forward collision alert operates at speeds above 25 mph and warns a driver if he or she is following too closely or in imminent danger of a front-end crash.  When a collision is predicted to be imminent, vehicle brakes are pre-charged to help drivers quickly reach maximum braking.

In addition to searching for other vehicles, the image processor also looks for lane markings to provide lane departure alerts. Available at speeds above 35 mph, the lane departure warning icon shines green when lane markings are detected to indicate the system is active. If the vehicle drifts out of the lane without a turn signal, the lamp switches to flashing amber and is augmented by warning beeps.

The 2012 Equinox is a Top Safety Pick based on testing by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and was a Consumer Guide Best Buy for 2011 and 2010.  

General Motors engineers borrowed from stereo headphone technology to help give the Chevrolet Equinox segment-leading fuel economy. 

Noise and Vibration Development Engineer Jim Vallance and his colleagues at GM’s Milford Proving Ground were tasked with pushing the 2011 Equinox to get 32 mpg on the highway, four mpg better than segment competitors Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4 and Ford Escape – all rated at 28 mpg.

They knew they could accomplish this if they could run the Equinox engine at a lower RPM and find a way to offset the higher cabin noise levels that resulted.  

“There’s a boom, or very low frequency rumble that comes from the engine when it runs in that RPM range,” said Vallance. “We knew if we could deaden those booms, we could run the engine at the lower RPM, which would provide a significant boost to fuel economy. So we started kicking around ideas and came up with noise cancellation like you see in some high-end stereo headphones.”

Vallance and his colleagues created an Active Noise Cancellation module that detects when the engine is running in the 1,000 – 1,500 RPM range. This engine speed triggers the module to create a sound-killing countermeasure through the vehicle speakers, essentially eliminating the unwanted sound.

Adapting noise cancellation technology to work in a vehicle interior was difficult. High levels of ambient noise from the road, stereo system and occupant conversations posed challenges that required a surgical approach to noise cancellation.

“We take a proactive approach and target only the unwanted sound in the vehicle, which in this case is linked with the engine firing frequency. Then we eliminate it,” said Vallance.

Vallance is a second-generation GM engineer with a patent and other innovations under his belt. He characterizes Active Noise Cancellation as a “bold step taken late in development” that improved fuel efficiency by up to one mpg.

Active Noise Cancellation is standard on the Equinox with a 4-cylinder engine.

According to Chevrolet, more and more buyers of the Chevy Equinox and Traverse are trading in non-Chevy vehicles for their purchase. So what does this mean? Well, it’s safe to assume that buyers are switching to the Equinox from other brands after hearing the positive word-of-mouth and reviews that the new Chevy Equinox has been getting lately.

Two out of three buyers of the Traverse and Equinox are traving in a non-Chevy vehicle, which is proof positive that the recent spike in Equinox sales is no coincidence! Get started today and shop online for a new Chevy Equinox!

The results speak for themselves.

Every Chevrolet is built to be safe. We’d like to say we do it to win awards, but the truth is, we just think about safety – a lot. Some would even call us safety fanatics. Thankfully, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, that isn’t a bad thing.

In a recent evaluation by the IIHS, the 2011 Chevrolet Equinox and Traverse received the highest possible rating of “good” in a rollover test assessing vehicle roof strength. Just one rigorous test among four, these high marks carried over and, in the end, resulted in the Institute’s Top Safety Pick award for every 2011 Equinox model and 2011 Traverse models built after January 2011.

The 2011 Traverse is a great example of Chevrolet’s commitment to safety – before, during and after a crash.

To help drivers avoid accidents, Chevrolet added safety features like StabiliTrak Electronic Stability Control, Traction Control, and antilock brakes.

Rollover sensing, six standard air bags(1), front-seat safety belt pretensioners and load limiters help protect occupants during an accident. And afterwards, OnStar’s Automatic Crash Response, which is standard for six months(2) alerts first responders, allowing medical assistance to arrive as quickly as possible.

The IIHS Top Safety Pick award reinforces what Chevrolet already knew about Traverse and Equinox.