2014 Buick Encore Base on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 1992 Buick Century Woodie station wagon

The Detroit station wagon with fake-wood exterior paneling had a good long postwar run, but minivans and — increasingly — sport utility vehicles were giving such wagons quite a beating in the showrooms by 1992. Buick was down to just two woodies by 1992; here's a discarded example of the front-wheel-drive Century, spotted in a Northern California self-service yard. Buick sold big rear-wheel-drive Roadmaster wagons with Simu-Wood™ siding through the 1996 model year, but the smaller Century was fairly plush. American car shoppers didn't insist on real-looking "wood" on their wagons, although Chrysler went much more three-dimensional with their plastic wood that did GM during this era. This one has the 3.3-liter Buick V6 engine, rated at 160 horsepower. This is not to be confused with the unrelated GM 60° V6, which was available in earlier and later Centuries. If only these seats could talk, they'd tell many tales of sibling battles and spilled fast food. Related Video:

Buick announces Ultium-based EV for the Chinese market

Buick will expand its presence in the EV segment by launching a five-seater crossover on the Chinese market before the end of 2022. The model will use the Ultium technology developed by parent company General Motors, and it will be closely followed by another electric car. Official details about the model remain few and far between; we don't even know what it will be called yet. The company published an image that shows an electric platform topped by the outline of a crossover, and it clarified power will come from a battery pack with cells "tailored for China." The battery-powered Buick will also be available with the Super Cruise technology found in other General Motors models. The outline shares more than a passing resemblance with the heavily-camouflaged test mule that our spies spotted testing earlier in 2022, but it's difficult to tell whether we're looking at the same car. Trademark filings suggest Buick has several electric cars in the pipeline. While the crossover won't be the first electric Buick — the Velite 6 MAV went on sale in China in 2019 — executives have high hopes for it. To that end, the company will open up to 58 Buick EV City showrooms and over 600 Buick NEV Zones across China. It's also working with "mainstream third-party charging operators" to make over 400,000 charging points available throughout China by the end of 2023. Buick will release additional details about its upcoming electric model before the end of 2022, and deliveries are scheduled to start in the first half of 2023 on the Chinese market. As of writing, it's too early to tell whether the EV will join the Envista on its trip across the Pacific or stay in China. Looking ahead, the brand announced plans to release a second electric car built around Ultium technology before the end of 2023.

GM's MPG overstatement could affect 2 million vehicles

Late last week, GM admitted that three of its large SUVs fuel economy window stickers did not match their actual efficiency ratings, and so the vehicles couldn't be sold. The stickers on the 2016 Chevy Traverse, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave said their ratings were one to two miles per gallon better than they should have been. Officially, the number of affected vehicles sits at about 60,000. But Consumer Reports makes a good point: what's up with all of the previous model year SUVs that are basically the same vehicle? To wit: the 2016 model year vehicles are not substantially different than the 2015 or the 2014, or even going all the way back to 2007. On the EPA's fuel economy website, all of these older models will "have better stated fuel economy numbers than the new vehicles in GM's dealerships," Consumer Reports noted. CR's best point, and the one that makes the 60,000 number potentially grow to 2 million if all of the vehicles built on this platform are affected, is that "[i]t seems unlikely that the company would change the powertrain on these carryover models so late in their model cycles in a way that would cause a dramatic, negative impact on fuel economy." GM says that earlier model year SUVs are not affected and the EPA did not respond to CR's question about the potential for more discrepancies. We've seen automakers reverse course before, so if GM has to come out with a mea culpa soon, don't be surprised. GM is rushing corrected stickers to dealers so that the SUVs can be sold again, but a fix for the already-sold vehicles could be trickier to solve. Related Video: Related Gallery 2013 GMC Acadia View 16 Photos News Source: Consumer Reports Government/Legal Green Buick Chevrolet GMC Fuel Efficiency mpg gmc acadia chevy traverse