GM buys out 50% of Buick Dealers in the USA

[JSH]

Not sure if people saw the recent news but GM offered Buick dealers a choice this year. Either spend $300K on chargers, tools, and training to start selling EVs or exit the brand and sell their franchise back to GM. 47% of the 1958 US Buick dealers took the buyout and dropped the Buick brand. That leaves 1,038 Buick dealers and GM says 89% of the US population still lives within 25 miles of a Buick dealer.

This has been a long time coming. GM has way too many dealers for all their brands and they compete with each other driving down sale prices. There are 4205 Chevy dealers in the USA. For reference Toyota sells as many vehicles as GM in the USA with only 1,277 dealers.

Then there is the fact that Buick is now completely redundant. Historically Buick was paired with GMC and that made sense. Buick sold cars and GMC sold trucks and SUVS. By carrying both brands the dealer had a full model lineup. Fast forward to today and all the cars are gone. Buick only sells crossovers and every crossover they sell is sold by at least 2 other GM brands.

[Isaac Zachary]

When I moved to the town I live now there was a Ford dealer and a GM/Chevy dealer. Then the Ford dealer went out of business. Then the GM/Chevy dealer got out of the franchise and now is a used car lot only. Now the closest dealership of any sort is 60 miles away.

[freebeard]

Ford dealers you say?

Originally Posted by DDG

Half of Ford's dealers still don't want to sell electric cars and trucks
Business Insider on MSN.com | 1 day ago
Just over half of Ford's nearly 3,000 dealerships in the US have opted out of the investments necessary to sell electric vehicles like the F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-e, the Detroit Free Press first reported and Ford confirmed.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Buick only exists because it even outsells Chevrolet in mainland China, otherwise it would have already been phased out. And the sale of Opel/Vauxhall to PSA, now Stellantis, also caused Buick to become somewhat dislocated within GM, as it relied mostly on rebadges from Opel in the USDM. Even the current generation of a Chinese Buick sedan, which has the same underpinnings of the 2nd-generation Chevrolet Onix, was meant to have a sedan variant to be available in China as Buick and a hatchback meant to be sold in Europe as a new Opel/Vauxhall Corsa. After PSA had bought Opel/Vauxhall, it switched to the same underpinnings of the current Peugeot 208.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Buick only exists because it even outsells Chevrolet in mainland China, otherwise it would have already been phased out. Peugeot 208.

That is one reason and a big reason. However, GM executives are on the record as saying Buick was saved in 2009 because:

1. It was profitable. (All the divisions that were shut down lost money)
2. Buick was very important in China (and the fact that Buick was an active US brand was important)
3. GMC dealers needed Buicks to complete their lineup. (GMC is very profitable)
4. Buick's model line-up was the newest in the company and unique because it was based on European models.

Only one of those is still true today - Buick still makes money.

[oil pan 4]

The dealers know the electric market is starting to hit saturation.

[Piotrsko]

I recall something like some part of chevrolet is a chinese slur, much like you can not sell NOVA in spanish countries.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

The dealers know the electric market is starting to hit saturation.

I've read the same from several sources; that EV sales are plateauing. On EV forums, there are some that believe Toyota is hosed because they are hopelessly behind in EV development, and there will be no ICE demand in 2 years

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I've read the same from several sources; that EV sales are plateauing. On EV forums, there are some that believe Toyota is hosed because they are hopelessly behind in EV development, and there will be no ICE demand in 2 years

It's the bipolar world we live in that drives me nuts. One source says everything will be EV in 6 years. Another says that EV's are soon to go away. Others say it's somewhere in the middle, but tend to lean heavily towards one side or the other.

My thoughts are, who really knows. All I know is that used cars are still expensive and I'm not getting a Nissan Leaf ever again.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

It's the bipolar world we live in that drives me nuts.

My thoughts are, who really knows. All I know is that used cars are still expensive and I'm not getting a Nissan Leaf ever again.

Exactly, people have never been good at having a nuanced opinion, and it's made worse by our tribalistic nature to unquestioningly agree with our team colors, teams which have increasingly been antagonistic and polarized.

I like to make guesses about the future that are sure to be wrong, just as an exercise. My guess is that EVs will represent 50% of sales in 2035. My hope actually is that plug-in hybrids become very popular, but that doesn't seem to be popular since people don't understand the technology, and people are purists.

...your perfect car would have been a 2017 Chevy Bolt, purchased in early 2021.