New Chinese Made Buick, Coming Soon!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am not sure if this belongs in this forum, but I was curious to our automotive insiders here as to how well the Buick Envision will be received here in the USA, despite the UAW’s supposed protests and it’s 100% Chinese roots.

We already have the Buick Encore, a small crossover that’s produced in Korea (I’m in auto sales of this and GMC branded vehicles. and even my jaded ass had to stifle a grin while I sold an Encore to this crotchety old man with the “Korean War Veteran” hat on that was a Marine and used constant profanity and racist remarks towards his former enemies, and I was not in a position to disabuse him of the notion that he’d bought “A Gosh-Darn American Made Car, goddammit!” for his wife that was likely built by the prosperous grandchildren of people he may have killed or interacted with in the early 1950’s…I’m an honest salesman, but not THAT honest!).

Anyway, this brings me to an interesting issue: Many, many parts for GM and all the other major automakers are sourced from around the globe. The thing that used to matter to American car buyers was the final assembly point on the sticker, or barring that, the percentage of American parts on the final vehicle.

There was an article in Consumer Reports recently that asked “What does it mean to be made in America” and there was a section specifically aimed at domestic auto producers.

The GMC Acadia was listed in the top three as having the MOST American sourced parts in it’s carline…at 75%.

SO this beggars the question: Does it really mean anything to be built in America anymore? Toyota and pretty much all the foreign automakers have factories on our soil, just like we do them, employing each country’s laborers in turn.

A lot of buyers I encounter on the lot say it isn’t where it’s built but where the money goes. Really, does that even mater anymore?

You can now for the very first time ever buy a Ford Mustang in Europe that is exactly the way it’s built here (minus wrong side driving).

If cars have become such a global commodity like everything else, then whats the real difference with mass produced cars?

Article on Buick Envision: How Will Americans React to General Motors’ Chinese-Made Buick SUV? | The Motley Fool

2

Also as a caveat that might matter: Buick is GM’s #2 selling brand right now.

“Hot shit!” you might say, except when you realize that it’s only sold in TWO markets, China and North America. There’s a reason Buick hung on while the seemingly popular Pontiac and Oldsmobile divisions bit the dust.

The division in sales is 80% China and 20% North America, and this is with all the awesome “I don’t see the Buick” advertising we see on USA television in order to rebrand the product to a younger demographic.

Buick has done a great job of that and I applaud them. And I never thought I’d own one, but I do! It’s a 2015 Buick Regal, which is nothing more than a rebranded Opel Insignia with a Buick shield slapped on it’s flanks. Great car, great European feel, clamors the American press…because it’s based on a GM European platform! LOL.

3

A list of “who owns who”. I was surprised by Tata owning Jaguar and Land Rover!

Link to Consumer Reports article

4

Since the OP is asking for opinions, let’s move this to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

5

It was hit on earlier in the thread, but to the Chinese, Buick is basically a Cadillac.

I bet the crazies will get all “I don’t want no Chinese car hurdy durr”, but from the Chinese POV they probably build those as if they were the highest end of the high

6

except it’s built in South Korea, with whom we fought alongside in that war. Which- though technically was against North Korea, was really just a proxy war with the Soviet Union.

7

Don’t forget Fiat, who owns Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, and Dodge

8

Interesting, in that the original GM Acadia was built and marketed only in Canada (ca. 1960) as (IIRC) a line approximately equivalent to Pontaic-light. GM’s market equivalent to Ford’s Meteor, a Canadian version between Ford and Mercury.

9

FoieGrasIsEvil, please don’t just copy-and-paste large chunks of an article here, and please give credit when you are copying portions of such material. I’ve edited your post above to reflect that.

Thanks.

10

The economic questions you ask are interesting. Cars are just one example of what you’re talking about.

From the POV of a laborer, what matters is how many man-hours are in his country versus that furrin place.

For a smarter laborer what matters is how many dollars of hourly labor are in his country versus that furrin place.

For an economist what (probably) matters is how much economic value-add are in his country versus that furrin place.

For a government tax policy person what matters is how much taxable income are in his country versus that furrin place.

For a company executive what matters is how much promotion and pay raise potential are in his country versus that furrin place.

For an investor (large or small) what matters is whether stock is available to buy in his country versus that furrin place. And how well that stock is doing.

For a “patriot” what matters is whether he/she associates the name of the company with his country versus that furrin place.

Bottom line:
The question does make sense to ask. But it’s important to recognize there are different answers for different audiences.

11

Yeah, but judging by his constant racially charged diatribes towards Koreans I don’t think he was drawing much of a distinction.

It is interesting. And now, as in the example of the Mustang, AFAICT with a global car like that they are identical in every way, have the same name, etc (with the exception of right hand drive) so one you would buy in England would be identical to one purchased in the states. And I am seeing evidence that now the Mustang is the best selling Ford in Britain too.

12

Did I do that and you changed it? I can’t remember how I wrote it, I know the rule. If I posted it as it reads now in the OP I don’t see where I did that. OTOH if you altered it to reflect how it reads now and I did do that, apologies.

Edit: Ah, I see it now in my third post. Sorry!

13

So it looks to me that Buick made a CR-V. Probably end up as another invisible Buick. Speaking of which, why did they ever go with an advertisement that touted the plainness of their vehicles?

14

I worked with GM (including Buick) for 8 years in China. GM in China started as “GM” only via it’s Shanghai GM joint venture. It was wildly successful and volume doubled year over year for something like 5 straight years. I was surprised when both Buick and Cadillac brands were brought in, but it was explained this was a political decision by factions at HQ and not driven by needing additional brands in China.

I would be really surprised if the made in China and imported Envision total sticker price would be cheaper than if it was produced in the US (or NAFTA). The components are majority sourced in China anyway, and it really doesn’t matter where the final assembly is.

My guess is that the drivers are

  1. time to market in the US (existing production in China and no need to tool up a new factory in the US)
  2. Volumes probably don’t justify the cost of a second factory in the US.

The biggest winner will be the Shanghai Automotive Investment Corporation (SAIC). China was able to get away with limiting foreign automakers to maximum 50% ownership of joint ventures. So all the big automotive guys went to china hunting for partners, and the local chinese manufacturing partners all got married with multiple joint ventures. SAIC is the parent company for Shanghai GM and for Shanghai VW and with Ivecco and Audi, as well as having bought the Rover rights to china and produce that themselves.

Who gets the $$ is actually pretty interesting. There are royalty deals, requirements to buy certan parts from the home country, joint venture requirements, etc. It is really hard for an outsider to say, and GM surely isn’t going to spill the beans publicly.

15

The only GM brand I see here is Buick, and they’re nice cars. SAIC probably has some platform-engineered local brands (like my company has with Changan and Jingli), but I wouldn’t recognize and of them. Maybe I see something called a “Chevy” every once in a while.

Strangely, I see a lot more Lincolns than Cadillacs, and (currently) most Lincolns are grey-market imports.

As for exporting, Americans are just fussy. Get prepared for made-in-India and made-in-Thailand, at least from my company (Rick and China Guy both know my company). China’s just too damned expensive to manufacture in while meeting our global standards (no, we don’t “dumb down” because we’re in China).

16

I don’t care where it’s built. I could never walk into a Buick dealership with a straight face, much less buy one. GM has done a superb job of rebuilding the Cadillac brand, but that required actually building interesting-looking (and interesting to drive!) cars. I just don’t see them pulling off the same trick with Buick; the name is just too shitty.* They should have kept the Pontiac brand alive instead; they could just stick Buick badges on Chinese-market vehicles if that was important to them.

*And this is coming from somebody who owned two Hyundais when they still had a strong whiff of “couldn’t he afford a Japanese car?” about them.

ETA: Balthisar, you’ve mentioned your company’s name plenty of times before (and we could just google Changan).

17

Agree that GM has done a nice job reinvigorating Cadillac. I don’t follow the industry enough to know how well that’s translated into sales, but I do know I see a lot of them being driven by non-elderly people. So it appears to be working.

OTOH, I’ll be damned if I can tell any difference between the market segmenting for Buick & Pontiac. At least before Pontiac got the axe.

They both make me think of lardass sedans driven by my stuffy aunt whose husband was a bank branch manager. In the 1960s. IMO neither brand has moved forward since then. Setting aside small exceptions that didn’t fit the brands’ molds like the Buick Fiero and Pontiac Firebird.

I may just be showing my GM brand-ignorance here, but that’s how I think of them even today. My parents were Oldsmobile & later Caddie folks, so its not like GM was unknown in our household.

So yes, Buick is a total meh. Written in very small letters in a dull generic font. But at least for me Pontiac is the same.

18

It’s all coming back to me now. Anybody here old enough to remember “I’d never buy any Japanese junk”? My first Datsun was a 1970.

19

Ahhh yes, the mighty B-210. Something almost as nasty as the Pinto it unceremoniously catapulted onto the ash heap of history.

I never had one but I knew people who did. Vile vehicle.

20

Nope. 510. One of the best cars I’ve ever owned.