Buick Will Buy Out Dealers Who Don’t Want to Start Selling Electric Cars
- Buick has made it clear that its future lies in two directions. First, the brand will only sell EVs after 2030. Second, all Buicks will be SUVs.
- Dealers who aren’t aligned with that future will be given an off-ramp, Buick global vice president Duncan Aldred said this week.
- The first all-electric Buick, the Electra, should be revealed sometime in 2023 and will arrive in 2024 as a 2025 model. Its look is expected to be influenced by the Buick Wildcat concept shown above.
General Motors continues its push toward electrification, and it might take out a few Buick dealerships on its way.
Duncan Aldred, global vice president of Buick and GMC, revealed to the Wall Street Journal this week that all of the 1900-plus Buick dealerships in the U.S. will be given buyout offers to those who don’t want to be a part of the brand’s shift to selling only electric vehicles. Buick is requiring its dealers to invest in charging stations and other store upgrades as part of this change.
Not everyone necessarily wants to make [the electric] journey, depending on where they’re located or the level of expenditure that the transition will demand,” Aldred told the Journal. “So if they want to exit the Buick franchise, then we will give them monetary assistance to do so.” A Buick spokesperson told Car and Driver that there are “approximately 2000” U.S. Buick dealers but declined to speculate on how many are expected to take the buyout offer.
