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Biden's tariffs likely won't impact Americans already driving Chinese-built cars

A 2024 Buick Envision Sport TouringGM-DESIGN Chinese car brands are missing from the US market, but Chinese-made cars are still sold in the US.  Americans bought more than 104,000 Chinese-made cars in 2023 and nearly 28,000 in Q1 2024. Buick, Lincoln, Polestar, and Volvo all sell cars in the US that are made in China.  Of the more than 15 million cars sold in the US last year, none wore the badge of a Chinese car brand. Chinese EV heavy hitters like BYD and SAIC are conspicuously missing from US showrooms. With the government's existing 27.5% tariffs on Chinese-made cars and Tuesday's new 100% tariffs on Chinese-made EVs imported to the US, the situation isn't likely to change anytime soon. What some people might not realize, however, is that tens of thousands of cars manufactured in China are sold in the US every year. Volvo's S60L sedan was one of the first Chinese-made cars to be sold in the US starting in 2016, followed by Buick's Envision SUV and Cadillac's CT6 Hybrid. According to Automotive News data, US consumers purchased more than 104,000 Chinese-made vehicles in 2023, up 45% from 2022. Americans bought another 28,000 Chinese-made cars during the first quarter of 2024. Currently, Buick, Lincoln, Polestar, and Volvo sell Chinese-made vehicles in the US. Of those, the only Chinese-made EVs come from Polestar, a brand co-owned by Volvo and its parent company, Geely Automotive. The EV brand imported just 2,217 cars in the first three months of 2024. It is unclear how the new tariffs will affect Polestar's future production plans. The company eventually plans to move some of its car production to South Carolina in 2024. In a statement to Business Insider, a Polestar spokesperson said the company is evaluating the Biden Administration's announcement. Here's a closer look at the Chinese-made cars on sale in the US. Buick Envision A 2024 Buick Envision AvenirGM When it launched in 2016, the Buick Envision compact SUV was one of the first Chinese-made vehicles sold in the US. The second generation Envision, which arrived in 2021, continues to be made in China at one of the plants GM operates in a joint venture with SAIC. The Envision was Buick's second-best-selling model in 2023, with more than 44,000 vehicles sold. Last year, Buick sold 167,000 vehicles across its entire lineup in the US, an impressive 61% increase over the previous year. However, this number pales in comparison to Buick's sales in China, which totaled 517,000 units last year.

Junkyard Gem: 1978 Buick Skylark Sedan

Around the time that OPEC shut off the oil taps, The General realized that it was time to sell more small cars from GM divisions not previously known for such machines. The logical candidate for this project was the Chevrolet Nova, a rear-wheel-drive compact that shared much of its chassis design with the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. The Nova-based Pontiac Ventura came out in the 1971 model year, and the Buick and Oldsmobile Divisions began producing their own badge-engineered Nova siblings for 1973 (Cadillac was late to the party, but eventually created the Nova-based Seville for 1976). At first, the Buickized Nova got Apollo badges, but the better-known Skylark name was applied to these cars for the 1975 through 1979 model years. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of those Nova-based Skylarks, found in a Denver self-serve yard. From the 1964 through 1972 model years, the Skylark lived on the A-Body chassis and was sibling to the Chevrolet Chevelle/Malibu, Pontiac LeMans/Tempest/GTO, and Oldsmobile Cutlass/442. After the 1975-1979 rear-wheel-drive X-Body phase, the Skylark name then went onto the unrelated front-wheel-dive X-Body chassis developed for the Chevrolet Citation. It's a Nova, sure, but Buick made sure that it had a bit more swank than its Chevy counterpart. Checked seat fabric with big square buttons! The base engine in the '78 Skylark was the 3.8-liter Buick V6, rated at 110 horsepower. GM had invested in a new crankshaft design for this engine the year before, so it no longer had the "odd-fire" cut-down V8 crankshaft that shook the fillings out of so many drivers' teeth in earlier years. An assortment of low-compression V8s from Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Buick were available as optional equipment as well, eventually leading to the "Chevymobile" lawsuits of a few years later. The base transmission in this car was a three-speed manual (I'm not sure if you could still get a three-on-the-tree column-shift manual Skylark in 1978, but a three-on-the-floor manual was available for sure). The very last three-on-the-tree car Americans could buy was the '79 Nova and its Olds Omega/Pontiac Phoenix siblings, while the final three-on-the-floor cars were the '81 Malibu and siblings. This car has the optional three-speed automatic.

GM recalls 51k Enclave, Traverse, Acadia crossovers over fuel gauge inaccuracy

With all eyes fixed on General Motors in the wake of the ignition recall debacle, the auto giant has been carefully calling in a wide array of vehicles to fix anything and everything that could prove problematic. Just the other day it issued two separate recalls - one concerning the Cadillac SRX and another its heavy-duty pickups - and now it is issuing another.
This time the vehicles in question are the Buick Enclave, Chevy Traverse and GMC Acadia, three fullsize crossovers based on GM's Lambda platform. In an estimated 51,640 units manufactured between March 26 and August 15, 2013, the engine control module has been found to incorrectly display the level of fuel in the tank.
As a result, owners are being notified to bring their vehicles in to their local dealers to have the ECU reflashed to fix the problem. View the full details in the announcement below from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.