GM’s All-New Buick Envision Plus Could Be Exclusive To China
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General Motors has just officially launched the all-new Buick Envision Plus in the Chinese market, further strengthening the brand’s utility offering in the Asian country, where the Envision nameplate is now a three-member crossover family. Although it was believed from the beginning that the new variant of the second generation would also arrive in North America, the Envision Plus could actually be exclusive to China.
The automaker’s official announcement at the launch of the Buick Envision Plus in China suggests that the crossover will be reserved exclusively for that country, with a special emphasis on product localization. In other words, GM stated that the new Envision Plus was “tailored for China,” as highlighted by the comments of Buick’s chief executive in the world’s largest automotive market.
“The Envision Plus is a strong testament of Buick’s global SUV expertise integrated with unique China market insights,” said Executive Director of Buick Sales and Marketing at SAIC-GM, Molly Peck, in a statement. “With the newest entry, Buick is further strengthening its SUV presence to satisfy customers’ diverse needs, forging ahead to become a leading SUV nameplate in China,” she added.
Until now, we expected the all-new Buick Envision Plus to arrive during the second half of this year in the United States and Canada, under the Envision GX nameplate, as the second GM product imported from China, in this case the SAIC-GM Dong Yue assembly plant. However, the company’s comments seem to indicate that the vehicle may ultimately not be sold in any other market outside of that country.
If this interpretation is confirmed, the all-new Buick Envision Plus would become the American brand’s fourteenth vehicle currently sold in China, but not in North America. That list includes the Buick Excelle, Excelle GT/GX, Verano, Regal, LaCrosse, second-generation Encore, refreshed first-generation Envision, midsize Enclave, GL6, GL8 Classic, third-generation GL8, Velite 6 and Velite 7 EV.
The Buick Envision Plus is already on sale throughout the Tri-Shield brand’s official dealer network in China, with a total of five versions spread across Elite, Luxury and Avenir trim levels. The model offers five- and seven-passenger seating configurations, as well as an exhaustive list of advanced safety and technological features from the base trim level up.
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I wish the article would have given us some reason for this decision. I know that rear seat room is an essential feature for Chinese buyers. I wonder how the back seat roominess of the new Envision Plus compares to USA market Envisions.
Lousy assumption-based article focused on a few words. Envision GX is a natural replacement for TourX, can compete with highly trimmed Highlanders (even though Buick should be chasing Acura and Lexus in N America).
Buick must brand build before anything more will be built here. The larger GX will also off set suppised plans to import low cost GEM Encore which is attractive but far from luxury
At first sight this looks like the envisioned “flagship” for the then GM subsidiary Opel.
But… history went another way. In August, Opel will present the new Astra, which is based on the PSA developed platform EMP2. Four years after the sale of Opel to PSA, the only remaining car with GM technology will be the Insignia (marketed in NA as Buick Regal).
The new Astra will be produced in the historic first Opel factory in Rüsselsheim, along with the DS 4 and the Insignia. The passenger car production in Gliwice (Poland) will be retooled as the 2nd European factory to produce the large van which is known in North America as the Ram ProMaster.
Too bad that GM does not make the Envision here . I bet that with smart marketing and at a reasonable price point it would be a big seller. Nothing wrong with the Chinese having jobs -but we need jobs over here. I guess GM figured that since few Envisions are sold here it doesn’t pay to build them here. If they did build them here they would sell more. It seems that the “new” GM thinks in the same befuddled half assed way as the “old” GM. if GM thinks that building Envisions here will cut into sales of the Enclave I have news for them- I see very few of those on the road.
I hope the article is wrong as we were looking to buy a 3 row SUV next year and the Enclave is too big for us. The Envision GX would have been perfect. GM can’t seem to do anything right. I am glad I sold my stock in them several years ago!
18 months ago GM stock was at $30. Now over $60. Made $3 billion in Q1 despite COVED-19 and chip shortage. It does seem to indicate GM is doing something right.
That stock price may reflect GM’s future plans, rather that the product portfolio they have in dealerships at this time.
It could also reflect the current growth of the company. Check this out…https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/05/general-motors-gm-earnings-q1-2021.html#:~:text=The%20automaker%20reported%20pretax%20adjusted,%241.3%20billion%20a%20year%20earlier.
The point is they are currently doing something right and the future certainly looks bright as well. they are leading the charge instead of following the crowd.
That’s it gm, make those virus spreaders comfy.
Thanks for the totally irrelevant comment. China is the largest market in the world and gm is making money there.
If you make it in China. Keep it in China.
I don’t want anything from gM unless it is made in the good old USA.
Envision Plus looks a lot like Chinese Enclave though it rides lower. No doubt there will be a cannibalizion of sales unless each vehicle hits a radically different demo/price point.
As a longtime Buick buyer/owner I don’t like to say this but maybe its time GM pulls the plug on it in the U.S. They obviously don’t care about it here or its longtime customers.
gm is just blending BUICK into GMCs now, no need for BUICK name in the USA, sad as it is really don’t understand gm marketing in N. America at all.
They (gm as well as China) can keep their cars; I will NEVER buy a vehicle built there. Being a very-long-time buyer of gm vehicles (mostly Chevrolets and one Pontiac), it pains me to state that I’ll walk before I’ll buy chinese crap. srs.
And piss on gm’s “stock price” based on building cars in china and shipping them here. If that’s what gm CEO thinks the company needs to do in order to survive, then gm should perish. Again, srs.
Haters, go ahead and downvote this post if you don’t like it; I get it—the truth hurts. Get your heads out of your asses and aware yourselves over what is happening to world economics in general—and that of the US in particular. Russia, and that goon who runs it, is no real threat to us, but china certainly is, and handing those bastards our $$$—and getting in bed with them— is the LAST thing America should be doing.
Hi Tom, There is a misunderstanding. I never said they build the cars in China and ship them here. That did happen with the CT6 electric version. The point being made was that China is the largest market for automotive products and Gm is a leader in that market. The profits come home to Detroit and the shareholders.
The Buick is the car of choice for the up-and-coming Chinese family. It is better that we make an inroad of our products in their market than build only for the US market. Otherwise, they will build cars there and export them to the Us -Clearly, we are on the right side of that choice.
Automobiles are a global industry and it is best to generate business and profit wherever we can.
The simple politics we read about in the paper are not the basis for good business decisions.
We instituted tariffs in electronics and other industries. The tariffs haven’t cost the Chinese. The primary result is that WE are paying more for products due to the tariffs! The money is going into the US Treasury and NOT creating jobs in the USA.
We need to invest in new industries where, with government investment, we can take the lead. That is how the Japanese and Chinese companies became rivals to the US. now it is our turn.
Bullshyte.
China is run by an evil government; just look at what’s happened there over the years to it’s citizens, as well as what’s happening in Hong Kong right now. Their goal is world economic/military domination, and If gm thinks it’s OK to make $$$ off of some alliance with that government and what it stands for, then gm will do it with no more of my support. If you think gm’s plan isn’t to bring these cheaply-built chinese Buicks into the US for sale, I’ve got some ocean-front property in Nebraska I’d like to sell you. Naivety coupled with the hunt for the almighty dollar from any source is going to bring this country to it’s knees.
Your mention of “creating jobs in the US,” considering Buicks being built in China, would be ironic if it weren’t so sad and misguided.
Tom Southbridge re China: »just look at what’s happened there over the years to it’s citizens«
A tremendous increase in their living standards, that is the main think which China’s 1,441 thousand million people have experienced, and they expect that this increase will be continuing in the coming years.
This increase in living standards does not only mean higher monetary income, larger and more comfortable housing, but also a tremendous building up of infrastructure in electricity generation and transport to all points in the country, also in transport (China has the by far largest network of high speed railway lines, and is still expanding it and is building the necessary rolling stock in the country by their own designs, and is beginning to export high speed rail to other countries — USA should consider the Chinese offerings, but has first to get the railway network able to support high speed rail). China’s citizens have also experienced a tremendous growth in their country’s standing in the world, becoming e.g. the by far largest market for automobiles on this planet, landing a rover on the dark side of the moon, on mars, and now building up their own space station.
And as long as they have the confidence that this rise will continue, they have no urge to rebel against the lack of freedom of speech, presse, assembly and association. There will come a day somewhere in the future, and a glimpse was visible early last year when this doctor in Wuhan was reprimanded for voicing his concerns about this new pulmonary illness, which later became known as Covid-19. But this person was later rehabilitated.
And people know that, as Xi said these days, China will never again allow colonialist incursions ripping up the country, an attack by the “Eight Nations” (one of them USA) in 1900 to suppress the so-called Boxer uprising (in USA known as the China Relief Expedition), invasions like the Japanese in the 1930ies, or intended invastions like by the USA in 1945/46, which was then prevented by GIs rebelling).
This is what happened to the Chinese citizens in the past decades after achieving their independence in 1949.
The poor people in Hongkong just are nostalgic of British colonial oppression and they have no strategy, not even the slightest intention of fighting for freedom of speech etc in all of China, but are secessionists fighting to turn the wheel of history back, secession which will make the fall back into foreign colonial rule. What to you think the Union should have done against the Southern secessionists in the USA?
I can’t see any intention of China to win »world economic/military domination« (where of course being the largest market and largest producer of the world gives the Chinese economy a heavy wheight on the world market). But if it were so, I think that it is time that the world domination by the USA should finally end after 70 and plus years, where the USA has brought so much misery and wars and torture and dictatorship on the peoples of this planet.
This will allow the USAnian people to live in peace with each other, i.e. end the quasi daily shooting massakers.
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And no, JimM did not say that building Buicks in China would cause “creating jobs in the US,” he said that levying import dues on electronic articles from China does not create jobs in the USA.
As to building Buicks where they are sold, you might want to try and find out, how many parts e.g. the drive train of those Buicks are imported from the USA to build those Buicks in China.
Chinese are so much taller than Americans, they need the extra room. Xi’s subjects are special. They are the emerging global elite and we are merely dogs. As Xi pulls out all the stops on world domination, exclusivity becomes the token cost of doing massive business in China. That’s why the article doesn’t state “why” this will become the 14th (!) Buick exclusive to the CCP while Buick rots on the vine back home in America. The truth wouldn’t be Google approved. Zuckerberg’s feeeelings could get hurt. Supreme Leader might get mad and disappear someone.
Nike CEO Donahoe announces just this week: “…we are a brand of China and for China”. So, too GM. No need to think twice about openly flying their CCP flags anymore, so emboldened are these Corporations by the current feeble US administration.