Buick Requiring Dealers to Invest at Least $300K to Go EV
Buick has big EV plans, and its dealers will be paying a big cost if they want to stay with the brand.
Those who want to stay with the brand will have to invest between $300,000 and $400,000. That's an average, Buick says, and will vary for each dealership.
Buick has said it will have an all-EV lineup by 2030 and will not introduce internal-combustion engine vehicles after 2024.
Dealers that don't want to make the necessary investments in tooling, training, and equipment will be bought out by the brand, which has a hair over 1,960 stores in the U.S.
Buick did not share with AN how many stores have chosen to take the buyout.
[Image: Buick]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Buick - they Chinese love them so that is why we still have Buick rather than Pontiac which actually outsold Buick in the US before it was killed.
In retrospect, Pontiac was probably better to retain in the NA market it didn't have a totally horrible image with buyers under 50. In New Jersey at least, Buick dealers seem spaced out poorly, with some huge areas with no coverage (which can make the brand invisible) and others with way too much for a now lower-volume brand.
300-400k isn't a huge investment for a dealer but when GMC is combined with almost all of them and they probably outsell Buick 3-1 the proposition diminishes. The problem is can you differentiate an electric Buick enough from another electric GM car enough to justify dealerships and keeping the brand at all?
Project Pinnacle comes to BPG. I wonder if or when GM is going to fold its three distribution channels into one as Chrysler was forced to in 2009. Maybe it will only be two, with Chevrolet and whatever passes for Buick together and Cadillac merging with GMC (actually that makes the most sense to me).
if Buick had its own escalade cash cow then it might be worth such an investment. Since all it brings to the table is warmed over Chinese fodder, it's not