6 ms·

GM buys out nearly half of its Buick dealers, who opt to not sell EVs

45 points by CharlesW 3y ago

rhuru 3y ago
Common sense. EVs are amazing but they are not where close to being practical replacement for ICE engines. Governments should stop subdizing rich people's EVs and insteead help make more efficient and cheaper ICE engines.
- majormajor 3y ago
  > Governments should stop subdizing rich people's EVs and insteead help make more efficient and cheaper ICE engines. In the US the government has been helping (by a definition of "helping" that means "forcing the development of by tightening emissions and efficiency requirements") that development of more-efficient for decades. It's not an either-or for that vs EVs. And it's also not exactly popular either; not hard to find people bemoaning the loss of naturally-aspirated engines and higher displacement. The market has repeatedly also chosen "more powerful" over "cheaper" for decades now. Possibly some targeting of hybrid subsidies as well would help, but it seems like a lot of hybrids are already doing quite well in the market (e.g. Ford Maverick), so I'm not entirely sure why manufacturers aren't already moving in that direction more after being initially surprised by the demand. But I'm also very unconvinced that cheaper ICE engines or more hybrids are what Buick dealers want.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    I could be wrong, but I think the current "EV Tax incentive" applies to PHEVs and that it is actually easier for a manufacturer to take advantage of it with a pHEV than a full EV.
- emestifs 3y ago
  Gotta love the comment section, anyone can write anything they feel like, regardless of...well anything.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - AllegedAlec 3y ago
    As shown by your comment
- onethought 3y ago
  - Average miles driven per day: 67. - Average cost of a new vehicle: $48,000 - Fastest selling vehicle ever made: Tesla Model Y. Just some data points to consider.
  - TrueSlacker0 3y ago
    Damn I am such an outlier if those numbers are actually true. Avg miles drive per day:5 (1.5mile commute each way + some extra generous miles) Avg cost of a new vehicle: idk I've never bought a new vehicle. My last vehicle was a used repo and purchased in 2009. Still going strong. Fastest selling vehicle ever made: without some data point this seems like complete bs. Toyota, Ford, Honda, insert every major car company, makes more vehicles per year than Tesla could dream about.
    - Spastche 3y ago
      their data seems sketchy to me, I'm pretty sure 67 miles a day definitely isn't the average. and yea "fastest selling" seems like a bs metric to boost Tesla
      - onethought 3y ago
        Sorry that was a typo. It was 37. Fastest selling car, most units sold in a day/week/quarter/year… I don’t know how else to say it. My point was about EV popularity not trying to boost Tesla.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  You should visit Norway sometime.
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  I’ve replaced my diesel with an EV and it’s better in every way. Cheaper to run, less waiting since I charge at home, faster car, more spacious inside, better tech. Definitely a practical replacement for some. The fuel savings alone are around £1,200/year for me on 10k miles per year. Once the price of the cars come down this will be a big saving for a lot of people.
  - Geisterde 3y ago
    Well thats the rub innit. I loved the bmw i3, I love my tesla even more, but they are f'in expensive cars, my coworkers are coming to work in beaters that cost less than a fifth of what I spent on my model 3, my down payment was more than several of the cars in my parking lot.
  - pardoned_turkey 3y ago
    It's a bit weird because electricity delivered to your home is generally more expensive than fossil fuels. What currently makes EVs cheaper to operate is that at the pump, you pay hefty taxes that go toward road maintenance and related purposes. For now, this taxation disparity incentivizes driving EVs. In the long haul, this will probably go away. I'm surprised by the "more spacious" comment, however. In the same size class, EVs tend to be more cramped because of how much space is needed for batteries. Even for large cars, like the Cybertruck, the trade-offs are fairly evident. No spare tire, for example.
    - itsoktocry 3y ago
      >What currently makes EVs cheaper to operate is that at the pump, you pay hefty taxes that go toward road maintenance and related purposes. For now, this taxation disparity incentivizes driving EVs. In the long haul, this will probably go away. It will certainly go away, and with it one of the major non-environmental reasons to own an EV: fuel costs.
    - dangrossman 3y ago
      > For now, this taxation disparity incentivizes driving EVs. In the long haul, this will probably go away. 31 states already have an extra annual/registration fee for EVs to make up for the lost gas tax revenue. Often the annual fee on EVs is higher than the average amount of state gas tax paid by the average driver, but this still comes out to just $100-300 per year. This is like 25-50% of typical fuel savings of EV vs ICE vehicles even at today's very low gas prices.
- Racing0461 3y ago
  every year that 400k number gets whittle down. pretty soon someone making poverty level wages at 24k a year is going to be in the group that gets "taxed".
- timbit42 3y ago
  If by, "more efficient ... ICE engines", you mean, HEVs and PHEVs, I agree. They're not cheaper though. Until EVs have matured more and become less expensive than ICEVs, PHEVs are the best option and HEVs are the second best option. Also, the term, "ICE engines", is redundant.
ggm 3y ago
I've always felt the US car dealership model was very strange. Like some rational economists nightmare of choice management under immovable fundamentals of cost. The jokes about the cheapest price being without engine or doors..
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
_ea1k 3y ago
This is Buick. They sell ~100k/year in the US. This half is responsible for ~20k/year, or 2k/dealer. It is pretty easy to see why a dealer selling such low volumes might not want to make a big investment. Buick is a nearly dead brand, TBH. If GM had been smart (lol), they'd have kept Pontiac and sent away Buick years ago. They made the wrong choice.
- gyf304 3y ago
  The reason I think is that GM is multinational. And while Buick is not doing well in the US, it’s doing very well in China (80%+ of sales of the brand is in China).
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with having different brands regionally. I doubt it would hurt them in China to kill the US brand. IMO Pontiac would have been the perfect brand to evolve into the EV space.
    - nradov 3y ago
      During the 2009 bankruptcy government bailout the politicians involved forced GM to trim their portfolio to 4 brands worldwide. They had to pick between Pontiac and Buick. Since Buick had a strong reputation in the rapidly growing Chinese market it was an easy decision to save it and kill Pontiac. At that time the EV market barely existed.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Do you know why didn't sell off the Pontiac brand like Hummer?
        nradov 3y ago
        GM tried to sell the Hummer brand during the bankruptcy but ended up just discontinuing it. They recently relaunched Hummer to make EV trucks. Pontiac had no brand equity at the time due to many years of mismanagement and it was unknown outside North America. I can't imagine that any other company would have paid much for it.
dang 3y ago
Url changed from https://electrek.co/2023/12/20/half-of-us-buick-dealers-chose-buyouts-over-selling-evs-in-2023/ https://electrek.co/2023/12/20/half-of-us-buick-dealers-chos..., which points to this. (Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
daft_pink 3y ago
Love how GM is always trying to spin how less dealers is better for them. Manufacturers need volume and less dealerships clearly means less volume. I agree that Buick is a small brand and their success or failure probably means nothing for EVs at all, but the management consultants and PR people claiming losing dealers is a benefit are obviously wrong and the brand is continuing in decline.
- cdot2 3y ago
  Losing dealers can also mean lower overhead costs. If those dealers were costing more than they were making I see how it can be spun as (at least a temporary) benefit
  - daft_pink 3y ago
    You can spin almost anything. That doesn't make it true. Reality is that they are selling less vehicles since they reduce their dealer numbers several years ago.
Proven 3y ago
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45 points by CharlesW 3y ago

Common sense. EVs are amazing but they are not where close to being practical replacement for ICE engines. Governments should stop subdizing rich people's EVs and insteead help make more efficient and cheaper ICE engines.

majormajor 3y ago
> Governments should stop subdizing rich people's EVs and insteead help make more efficient and cheaper ICE engines. In the US the government has been helping (by a definition of "helping" that means "forcing the development of by tightening emissions and efficiency requirements") that development of more-efficient for decades. It's not an either-or for that vs EVs. And it's also not exactly popular either; not hard to find people bemoaning the loss of naturally-aspirated engines and higher displacement. The market has repeatedly also chosen "more powerful" over "cheaper" for decades now. Possibly some targeting of hybrid subsidies as well would help, but it seems like a lot of hybrids are already doing quite well in the market (e.g. Ford Maverick), so I'm not entirely sure why manufacturers aren't already moving in that direction more after being initially surprised by the demand. But I'm also very unconvinced that cheaper ICE engines or more hybrids are what Buick dealers want.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  I could be wrong, but I think the current "EV Tax incentive" applies to PHEVs and that it is actually easier for a manufacturer to take advantage of it with a pHEV than a full EV.
emestifs 3y ago
Gotta love the comment section, anyone can write anything they feel like, regardless of...well anything.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- AllegedAlec 3y ago
  As shown by your comment
onethought 3y ago
- Average miles driven per day: 67. - Average cost of a new vehicle: $48,000 - Fastest selling vehicle ever made: Tesla Model Y. Just some data points to consider.
- TrueSlacker0 3y ago
  Damn I am such an outlier if those numbers are actually true. Avg miles drive per day:5 (1.5mile commute each way + some extra generous miles) Avg cost of a new vehicle: idk I've never bought a new vehicle. My last vehicle was a used repo and purchased in 2009. Still going strong. Fastest selling vehicle ever made: without some data point this seems like complete bs. Toyota, Ford, Honda, insert every major car company, makes more vehicles per year than Tesla could dream about.
  - Spastche 3y ago
    their data seems sketchy to me, I'm pretty sure 67 miles a day definitely isn't the average. and yea "fastest selling" seems like a bs metric to boost Tesla
    - onethought 3y ago
      Sorry that was a typo. It was 37. Fastest selling car, most units sold in a day/week/quarter/year… I don’t know how else to say it. My point was about EV popularity not trying to boost Tesla.
jupp0r 3y ago
You should visit Norway sometime.
thebruce87m 3y ago
I’ve replaced my diesel with an EV and it’s better in every way. Cheaper to run, less waiting since I charge at home, faster car, more spacious inside, better tech. Definitely a practical replacement for some. The fuel savings alone are around £1,200/year for me on 10k miles per year. Once the price of the cars come down this will be a big saving for a lot of people.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  Well thats the rub innit. I loved the bmw i3, I love my tesla even more, but they are f'in expensive cars, my coworkers are coming to work in beaters that cost less than a fifth of what I spent on my model 3, my down payment was more than several of the cars in my parking lot.
- pardoned_turkey 3y ago
  It's a bit weird because electricity delivered to your home is generally more expensive than fossil fuels. What currently makes EVs cheaper to operate is that at the pump, you pay hefty taxes that go toward road maintenance and related purposes. For now, this taxation disparity incentivizes driving EVs. In the long haul, this will probably go away. I'm surprised by the "more spacious" comment, however. In the same size class, EVs tend to be more cramped because of how much space is needed for batteries. Even for large cars, like the Cybertruck, the trade-offs are fairly evident. No spare tire, for example.
  - itsoktocry 3y ago
    >What currently makes EVs cheaper to operate is that at the pump, you pay hefty taxes that go toward road maintenance and related purposes. For now, this taxation disparity incentivizes driving EVs. In the long haul, this will probably go away. It will certainly go away, and with it one of the major non-environmental reasons to own an EV: fuel costs.
  - dangrossman 3y ago
    > For now, this taxation disparity incentivizes driving EVs. In the long haul, this will probably go away. 31 states already have an extra annual/registration fee for EVs to make up for the lost gas tax revenue. Often the annual fee on EVs is higher than the average amount of state gas tax paid by the average driver, but this still comes out to just $100-300 per year. This is like 25-50% of typical fuel savings of EV vs ICE vehicles even at today's very low gas prices.
Racing0461 3y ago
every year that 400k number gets whittle down. pretty soon someone making poverty level wages at 24k a year is going to be in the group that gets "taxed".
timbit42 3y ago
If by, "more efficient ... ICE engines", you mean, HEVs and PHEVs, I agree. They're not cheaper though. Until EVs have matured more and become less expensive than ICEVs, PHEVs are the best option and HEVs are the second best option. Also, the term, "ICE engines", is redundant.

ggm 3y ago

I've always felt the US car dealership model was very strange. Like some rational economists nightmare of choice management under immovable fundamentals of cost. The jokes about the cheapest price being without engine or doors..

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

_ea1k 3y ago

This is Buick. They sell ~100k/year in the US. This half is responsible for ~20k/year, or 2k/dealer. It is pretty easy to see why a dealer selling such low volumes might not want to make a big investment. Buick is a nearly dead brand, TBH. If GM had been smart (lol), they'd have kept Pontiac and sent away Buick years ago. They made the wrong choice.

gyf304 3y ago
The reason I think is that GM is multinational. And while Buick is not doing well in the US, it’s doing very well in China (80%+ of sales of the brand is in China).
- _ea1k 3y ago
  Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with having different brands regionally. I doubt it would hurt them in China to kill the US brand. IMO Pontiac would have been the perfect brand to evolve into the EV space.
  - nradov 3y ago
    During the 2009 bankruptcy government bailout the politicians involved forced GM to trim their portfolio to 4 brands worldwide. They had to pick between Pontiac and Buick. Since Buick had a strong reputation in the rapidly growing Chinese market it was an easy decision to save it and kill Pontiac. At that time the EV market barely existed.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      Do you know why didn't sell off the Pontiac brand like Hummer?
      - nradov 3y ago
        GM tried to sell the Hummer brand during the bankruptcy but ended up just discontinuing it. They recently relaunched Hummer to make EV trucks. Pontiac had no brand equity at the time due to many years of mismanagement and it was unknown outside North America. I can't imagine that any other company would have paid much for it.

dang 3y ago

Url changed from https://electrek.co/2023/12/20/half-of-us-buick-dealers-chose-buyouts-over-selling-evs-in-2023/ https://electrek.co/2023/12/20/half-of-us-buick-dealers-chos..., which points to this. (Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

daft_pink 3y ago

Love how GM is always trying to spin how less dealers is better for them. Manufacturers need volume and less dealerships clearly means less volume. I agree that Buick is a small brand and their success or failure probably means nothing for EVs at all, but the management consultants and PR people claiming losing dealers is a benefit are obviously wrong and the brand is continuing in decline.

cdot2 3y ago
Losing dealers can also mean lower overhead costs. If those dealers were costing more than they were making I see how it can be spun as (at least a temporary) benefit
- daft_pink 3y ago
  You can spin almost anything. That doesn't make it true. Reality is that they are selling less vehicles since they reduce their dealer numbers several years ago.

Proven 3y ago

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