Last week we brought you a taste of the facelifted 2019 Buick Envision, already on sale in its Chinese homeland. General Motors has now graced us with details on the U.S.-bound model, which should appear this spring wearing the same trims you’re become used to.

While there’s a new transmission and tech content to go with the updated front- and rear-end styling, one feature of the new model stands out: its price. To lure new buyers to the brand (and tempt Encore owners to move up the ladder), Buick is offering the Envision with a new pricing scheme.

“All trim levels have been adjusted toward the heart of the premium compact SUV market,” the automaker said today.

Just how much has a Buick Envision slipped in price in the two years since its introduction? A cool nine grand. (Read More…)

When the Picture Time post for the Villager Nautica went up on these pages last year, the idea for this particular edition of Buy/Drive/Burn was already on my mind. In fact, in the big list of trios I keep for this series, this one has always been at the top of the list.

The year is 1994, and you’ve got a luxury minivan to set alight.

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Amid frantic restructuring designed to keep General Motors’ money-losing Korean operations afloat, the automaker has proposed a $2.8 billion investment, a new report claims.

According to Reuters, a South Korean government official said GM would invest the funds over the span of 10 years, though not all of that money would come from the automaker’s coffers. (Read More…)

The home of America’s smallest General Motors vehicles is bleeding sales and cash, forcing the automaker into harsh measures in an attempt to save its South Korean operation. Many fear last week’s plant closure announcement is just the beginning of an eventual exodus from the Korean market. There’s three remaining assembly plants, each sitting on shaky financial ground.

Today brings encouraging news, however. Two reports paint a picture of GM in triage mode, doing everything in its power to stem the bleeding — of both money and customers. (Read More…)

South Korean President Moon Jae-in says General Motors’ decision to shut down its Gunsan plant will negatively impact the region. He’s hoping his administration can work some impressive mojo to boost economic activity in the area, but admitted that GM’s quick exodus could make that tricky. There are also concerns that the automaker may soon decide to close down its remaining three plants within the country, leaving 16,000 South Koreans without employment.

“Especially, the decline in employment [at GM] and subcontractors will be difficult to bear for Gunsan City and North Jeolla province,” Moon said in a statement released by his office.

However, things haven’t been going well for GM in the region. The company said it shuttered the plant after it became increasingly underutilized — running at about 20 percent of its total capacity over the last three years. Meanwhile, GM President Dan Ammann claims Korean labor costs have increased by over than 50 percent since 2010. Worker productivity is also abysmal. It takes roughly three hours longer to build a single car in GM’s Korean facilities than it does in the U.S., and Korean strikes are becoming commonplace. (Read More…)

Despite the fandom surrounding all things Elon Musk, there are still some electric car shoppers who’d rather drive than wait. It also seems that, when weighing a prospective Tesla Model 3 purchase, some consumers are willing to let price sway them to another car with a similar driving range.

None of this should come as a shock to those not immersed in blogs and forums devoted to championing Tesla as the sole agent of change in the automotive sphere, and the only “pure” solution to Earth’s problems. To some true believers, however, these shoppers could be seen as traitors to the cause.

That’s their problem. For General Motors, Tesla’s loss of customers is the legacy automaker’s gain.

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We did it! Thanks to the modern obsession with larger vehicles and opulence, domestic luxury brands are taking off like a rocket. It’s going so well, in fact, that American automakers are starting to steal market share from high-end import manufacturers. Of course, this is only applicable to SUV and crossover sales.

As you know, sedan sales are losing ground to their high-riding counterparts. While this hasn’t resulted in the obliteration of the passenger car market, despite claims to the contrary, those vehicles are being massacred by wayward consumers. Sedans are becoming passé and this has allowed sport utility and crossover vehicles to amass a significant portion of the pie.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the luxury market. The rapid growth of the luxury truck segment has substantially increased the United States’ share of domestic models sold with an average transaction price of $60,000 or more. Apparently, the inarguably phenomenal Mercedes-Benz S-Class doesn’t have jack squat on the GMC Yukon Denali.

Suck it, cars.  (Read More…)

In my QOTD post two weeks ago, I asked you to share the story of the most unreliable vehicle you’d ever owned. Most of you were quick to point out that I should’ve turned that into several different Questions of the Day, so you could specify different types of unreliable vehicles. The sheer number of comments (over 240 of them) showed me that the B&B love to share a bad story.

I see no reason not to return to form this week, and ask you about your worst childhood automotive memory. Mine involved a GMC Safari — in a situation which was nowhere near as decadent as above.

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General Motors has announced plans to close one of its four South Korean assembly plants in an effort to stem a tsunami of red ink.

As it attempts to stabilize (or cut) unprofitable overseas operations — an effort that led to the sale of its European Opel and Vauxhall brands last year — GM will close its Gunsan, South Korea plant by the end of May. That facility, which employs 2,000 workers, builds the Chevrolet Cruze sedan and Orlando MPV, a boxy, three-row vehicle that almost made it to American soil. (Read More…)

The last of four people initially charged in the UAW-Fiat Chrysler corruption scandal pleaded guilty on Tuesday to one of five charges against her. That makes the entire quartet culpable, at least to some degree, to the financial misconduct that occured between the automaker and workers’ union.

However, the case is far from closed. While Monica Morgan, the widow of former UAW vice president General Holiefield, copped to one count of subscribing a false tax return, her plea bargain ignores the other charges against her. The prosecution’s leniency may indicate a hope that she might assist with the ongoing union corruption probe, even though the deal doesn’t require her to cooperate with investigators. Of course, the prosecution already has former FCA labor relations chief Alphons Iacobelli for that task  (Read More…)

After the industry’s first annual sales decline of the post-recession era in 2017, the small uptick in year-over-year U.S. auto sales in January 2018 shouldn’t be seen as a trend, analysts warn. This year will apparently bring more worry for automakers as buyers plan fewer trips to the dealership.

For the domestic brands, January brought a mixed sales bag. Two members of the Detroit Three posted significant sales declines, while the third squeaking by on the strength of light truck sales. Clearly, having a lineup full of pickups, SUVs, and crossovers helps a company’s bottom line, but it’s no guarantee of ever-higher volume in today’s market. (Read More…)

We’ve shown you the spy photos already, but your first glimpse of the real thing is now less than a month away. The wraps come off the next-generation GMC Sierra in Detroit on March 1st, Automotive News has learned, providing us with yet another new truck in a year that, so far, has brought little else.

Both the 2019 Sierra and luxo-barge Sierra Denali will appear in the Motor City next month, complimenting the next-gen Chevrolet Silverado that debuted last month. While the GMC is expected to gain the full complement of powertrain hand-me-downs, its styling will head in a different direction. (Read More…)

Here at TTAC, we sometimes offer up a story published by a sister publication after deciding it’s something worthy of your time. This piece, published by GMInsideNews, fits that bill. While the soulless autonomous future scares many of us, General Motors is working on a way to stop those driverless cars from plowing over each and every one of us. Read on.

General Motors continues to pour money and time into perfecting vehicle autonomy.

One of the integral themes of an autonomous driving future is communication. Vehicles will be required to rapidly and constantly talk to one another, relaying position, speed, and intent, with the same demands applying to our roadways and intersections — which will be expected to relay weather, traffic, and safety information in real time as vehicles approach.

Pedestrians, however, pose a unique problem. In busy cities, pedestrians and drivers routinely communicate nonverbally by making eye contact or gesticulating, but an autonomous vehicle doesn’t have that privilege. Its machine code is dependant on a series of binary questions it must ask itself in order to determine if the person is a threat, which — if affirmative — currently results in the car coming to a halt, which on occasion has caused a rear-end collision, or two.

Well, GM is working on a system in which autonomous vehicles will be capable of better understanding the motions of pedestrians by communicating with their Internet-connected devices, be it smart-phones, wearables, or perhaps even future advancements made towards transhumanism. (Read More…)

The multimillion-dollar corruption scandal involving the United Automobile Workers and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is starting to cross the line from hubbub to full-on fiasco. Earlier this week, three FCA employees filed a federal lawsuit against the automaker and the UAW seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages over allegations that union officials colluded with company executives to influence collective bargaining.

Meanwhile, a recently released plea deal with former FCA labor relations head Alphons Iacobelli implicated former UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell — the man tasked with overseeing the most recent round of contract negotiations with FCA. Iacobelli claims he and other FCA employees transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal payments to tax-exempt organizations controlled by UAW officials, including Jewell’s Making Our Children Smile Foundation. (Read More…)

In 2017, the average U.S. Cadillac buyer walked out of the dealership after signing over $54,488 for a new vehicle. That’s almost $6,000 more than the average sticker in the luxury field, placing Cadillac among the upper echelon of premium cars.

However, the brand’s skyrocketing average transaction price — up 25 percent over the past five years — comes as the brand weathers a sales downturn in the U.S. market. That lofty 2017 figure has plenty to do with the models customers aren’t buying. (Read More…)