General Motors Co. ‘s oldest brand, Buick, is striving to reinvent itself with a long-lasting all-electric model that experts say could spark new interest among prospective consumers who have never looked in its direction, if the plan works.
“Electrification is one of the only things that will help bring the logo back to life,” said Ivan Drury, chief knowledge officer at Edmunds. com Inc. , a vehicle data website. “Really, at the end of the day, the one thing virtually everyone is willing to roll the bucket on is an EV. “
Longtime Buick enthusiasts hope the transition will keep the historic call alive. Meanwhile, dealers are debating whether to invest thousands of dollars in their retail stores and bet on Buick’s resolve to go all-electric by 2030, or settle for an acquisition through gm.
Buick, the first logo under the GM umbrella when the automaker was founded in 1908, will be the last of the Detroit automaker’s North American logos (Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac and eventually Buick) to offer an electric vehicle. Logo and its luxury sister Cadillac have announced that they will be fully electric until 2030.
And like Cadillac, Buick is looking to reduce the number of its dealerships in the United States. GM showed in September that it would make unspecified acquisition donations to U. S. Buick dealers. The U. S. doesn’t want to be part of the brand’s electric future. The buyback program presented to the brand’s 2,000 U. S. distributors.
GM did not say how many dealers have settled for the buyback offer so far, how many dealers it expects to accept the offer or when it plans to publicly detail the results. Nor did it specify how much dealers will offer to necessarily abandon Buick.
“The needs of future racers are the next logical and mandatory step on our path to electrification to ensure our brokers are in a position to sell and service those exclusive cars to provide consumers with an exceptional experience,” spokesman Mikhael Farah said in a statement. “We see Buick’s network of brokers as a commercial advantage, and they will continue to be a critical component of the retail chain and visitor relationships. “
Bob Vail, president of Vail Buick GMC in Bedford Hills, N. Y. , and head of industrial relations for Buick and GMC at the National Association of Automobile Dealers, estimates that 25% of dealers will accept the offer. As of this week, I hadn’t heard any deals.
He declined to accept it but listened to GM. Se’s offer to say how much the automaker offered him for a full purchase. Vail has already spent between $200,000 and $250,000, most commonly on equipment to prepare for the Hummer EV. Expenses included charging stations.
He sells electric cars because he thinks “you have to have it to do everything,” he said. “Certainly the sum is worth more than the coins. It’s kind of the explanation why I turned down his offer at Buick because I feel the combination of the Buick GMC now with the addition of the Hummer is worth so much more overall.
Buick has been a logo for Vail, he says, even as giant trucks and SUVs have taken precedence over customer desires. He has been a Buick broker since 1991, when the logo captured 4% of the market. It now has 0. 8%, according to Edmunds.
“Years ago, I sold more Buicks than GMC. And then it started to change. . . and then I promoted more GMC than Buicks,” he said. Their product didn’t seem to evolve with the market. And in the last two of years, especially since COVID, we just can’t get enough products.
Bo Mandal, president of the Buick-GMC National Dealer Council and owner of a Buick/GMC brokerage agency in Biloxi, Mississippi, did not make a takeover bid for Buick because he expects its market to “excel” in the long term of electric vehicles. No broker has spoken to him about accepting a purchase, but the feedback he has gained about the procedure “hasn’t been positive yet. “
Mandal hopes Buick’s transition to an all-electric line will “absolutely” attract new customers. “There’s been a selection for so long,” he said, claiming GM is now “leading” the electric vehicle revolution.
“You see everyone following them now, so it’s great to be a part of GM while running anything because all the other OEMs are seriously looking to catch up and catch up,” he said.
Detroit GMC and Buick running back Jeff Laethem also didn’t listen to Buick’s offer as he moves forward with the electric transition.
In June, Buick unveiled its Wildcat EV concept vehicle and announced a “logo transformation that will fully electrify its lineup in North America, led through a new logo and new logo identity. “Call from the past of the logo.
“It brings back that old thing that suddenly becomes new,” Laethem said. “I’m very excited. “
Buick is still struggling with the stigma of not being the vehicle of younger generations, a stigma Buick has been fighting for years to get rid of. He introduced the “He’s Not a Buick” crusade in the 2010s and then got rid of all his sedans in the US. U. S. SUVs and crossovers.
“I think we’ve proven that we’re at the forefront of converting industry trends, from sedans to SUVs. . . our announcement of a long-term all-electric helps us stay ahead of what’s happening in the industry,” Duncan Aldred, global vice president of Buick and GMC, said in an interview.
Buick unveiled a new media crusade this summer called “Dream of Us” that he produced in collaboration with Hello Sunshine, the media company founded by actress and producer Reese Witherspoon. a Wildcat EV. The vehicle selects it and adjusts its exterior color according to its attire. Project a wooden decoration on the windshield while the vehicle is in motion.
The ultimate goal: to tell the story of how Buick can help consumers better live their lives through its technology, driving and design.
“You have more paintings to do,” Aldred said. Building brands and moving brands is like transforming proverbial oil. “Buick “certainly shows that we are transforming the brand, but we still need to be better, we need to grow. “. . It’s a journey. “
Buick enthusiasts with classics in their garages are grateful that the logo lives on and their good fortune in China has a lot to do with their survival in the US. U. S. GM sells more Buick in China, the world’s largest car market, than in the U. S. The U. S. is currently in the U. S. state. Buick also offers a larger portfolio of cars in China, where it has so far kept sedans in its lineup.
Affected this year by origin issues that restrict availability, Buick has sold 76,500 cars in the United States, the lowest volume of GM’s 4 brands. In the third quarter alone, by comparison, Buick sold 185,000 cars in China.
“The segments. . . they have a tendency to look like those in North America, but they’re not the same, so there are even more orders for sedans there,” Aldred said.
Last week, Buick announced it would introduce its first electric vehicle in China later this year and that deliveries of the five-seater SUV will begin in the first part of 2023, ahead of the U. S. Buick EV. U. S. A moment in which the Buick EV will also arrive. in China next year.
Bob Starzyk, vice president of the Buick Club of America, shows off Buick classics and used to have a Buick as a driver. He says “the only explanation for why Buick still has business with General Motors is China. “
Starzyk and his wife Bonnie of Palos Heights, Illinois, had a Buick LaCrosse as a daily driver. They are a Buick SUV, but the Envision is manufactured in China and the former autoworker did not give in on it. And Bonnie didn’t like the larger SUV enclave.
They switched to Cadillac and were given the XT5 SUV. Bob would prefer an electric Buick “if they have something that’s a decent SUV. “
Melanie Mauser of Downers Grove, Illinois, a member of the Buick Club of America for 40 years, still has a Buick driving force in her driveway led by her husband, Robert. It switched to pickup trucks, but still shows a 1970 Buick Classic Gran Sport 455 in military green called the Sweet Pea.
“Most of our members, if you take a look at their garages, still have old cars, but they still have a Buick,” he said. “People are passionate about their Buick. “
Buick would possibly be in a project to reinvent itself, but Mauser still expresses the fear of many Buick enthusiasts: Will it end up like GM’s old Oldsmobile and Pontiac brands?
She “hopes it never goes away. ” At the moment, the discontinuation of the logo is planned. Instead, GM is running to attract the attention of new consumers and grow Buick with a strategy firmly rooted in GM’s turn toward electrification.
At the automaker’s recent investor day in New York, GM Chairman Mark Reuss announced the plan: “As we electrify Buick, we have an opportunity to replace the way other people think about it and attract an entirely new organization of other people. “
khall@detroitnews. com
Twitter: @bykaleahall