For the 2018 model year, GM says keyless ignition is optional on the Chevy Cruze, Sonic, Spark, Trax, Suburban and Tahoe and on the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL. It's not available on any pickups or commercial trucks and is standard on all other vehicles it sells in the U.S.
"There are some customers, notably fleets, who still want keyed ignitions, so those will continue to be available on some models and trims," GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson wrote in an email.
For the Cruze — which replaced one of the cars at the center of the ignition recalls, the Cobalt — keyless ignition is standard on the Premier trim, available as part of a $1,195 upgrade on the LT and not offered on the L or LS. The Cruze was redesigned in 2015.
"Price sensitivity is an issue," said Dan Edmunds, director of vehicle testing at Edmunds. "It adds price to the car."
In just the last few years, push-button start has gone from a novelty on higher-end vehicles to something that many mainstream buyers have come to expect.
"Eventually, market forces make it stick out when [vehicles] don't have it, and we might be getting close to that point. But we're probably not quite there yet," Edmunds said. "It's going to be like power windows or power mirrors in a few years."
There are reasons besides price that automakers can be hesitant to universally adopt keyless ignition. While it may eliminate the problems that GM experienced on the Cobalt, it also can introduce issues for consumers. Toyota's sudden-acceleration recalls were in part prompted by a fatal crash involving a driver who wasn't able to shut off the ignition of a car with a stuck throttle. The New York Times reported last month that more than two dozen people had died since 2006 from carbon monoxide from a keyless-ignition vehicle accidentally left running in a garage.
Wilkinson said all newer GM vehicles equipped with keyless ignitions have audible warnings and automatically shut off after a certain period of unattended idling.
