2014 Buick Enclave Leather on 2040-cars

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2024 Buick Encore GX First Drive: Fresh from cosmetic surgery

About a year ago, Buick showed us its stunning Wildcat EV concept. While that sporty coupe might never see the end of a production line, it signaled a new direction for the brand’s design. For 2024, Buick gave its most popular model in North America, the Encore GX small SUV, a fairly substantial visual refresh. While it doesnÂ’t get the WildcatÂ’s electric powertrain, the refreshed ute is the first in the lineup to borrow its design cues. It also finally gets the Avenir trim, the epitome of style and luxury previously applied to other Buick models, along with some tech upgrades. So while weÂ’re still not able to get behind the wheel of an electric Buick, the Â’24 Encore GX Avenir AWD landing in our driveway gave us the chance to see what a nip and a tuck can do to elevate this baby Buick crossover. This new face is easy on the eyes, looking more modern and athletic than the previous version. Gone is the somewhat frumpy and bulbous old fascia. Now, we get a sharp nose emblazoned with an all-new logo — the encore GX is the first production car to sport this fresh take on the Buick shields. Below that is the new grille in all its unbroken mesh glory, surrounded by shiny chrome in this Avenir trim. A pair of swoopy winged LED headlights reside just below the elegantly creased hood. From the side, the Avenir gets big, 19-inch aluminum wheels in a Pearl Nickel finish, with that new logo in the center. It also gets body-color fenders as opposed to the black on some of the other trims. In back, we see the new logo repeated prominently again, with the LED taillights looking almost as if theyÂ’re pointing it out. Below that is the brand name spelled out large. At the bottom is what looks like a black diffuser, but we canÂ’t imagine it does much but make the car look sporty. Inside, the big news is the new dual-display “virtual cockpit”, with two screens under a single sheet of glass. On the right side is the 11-inch infotainment touchscreen, on the left is an 8-inch digital instrument cluster. We like the layout of the infotainment home screen, which is easy to use and configurable. Certain information in the infotainment can be sent to the driverÂ’s display — if you want to keep close tabs on your battery voltage, for instance. Prefer the familiarity of your phone? Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard across trim levels. Praise be.

Weekly Recap: Volkswagen moves forward under Muller

Most stunning was the speed of it all. On the morning of September 18, Volkswagen AG stood atop the automotive world. It was profitable and sold more cars than Toyota and General Motors, its two main rivals for global supremacy. By nightfall, the company would be embroiled in scandal. Revelations the German auto giant cheated on diesel emissions testing in the United States reverberated from Washington to Wolfsburg, Germany. What started out as a problem with 482,000 VWs and Audis in the US exploded into an international scandal. Millions of vehicles have the rigged software, meaning VW broke environmental rules as its cars spewed pollutants all over the world. The fallout began immediately. Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn – one of the most respected and capable executives in the business – apologized on Sunday and Tuesday. On Wednesday he resigned. As the week progressed, the company's stock took a beating and credit agencies threatened to drop their ratings. VW dealers and owners said they felt betrayed. The automaker hired a law firm that defended BP after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The EPA is already extending its testing procedures to look for "defeat devices" like the ones used by Volkswagen. On Friday the company announced a major restructuring. Matthias Muller, Porsche's chief for the last five years, took over as CEO of Volkswagen and is charged with picking up the pieces of a shattered company facing regulatory action and lawsuits. With GM, Toyota, and Takata scandals still fresh, Volkswagen will likely experience unprecedented levels of scrutiny. Additionally, VW's markets in the United States, Canada, and Mexico will be combined into a North American region under the leadership of former Skoda boss Winfried Vahland, though US chief executive Michael Horn will stay on. The company is also realigning its brands by specialty and streamlining its board. Firings, government action, restructurings, and international outrage – things that usually build up over months or years – all occurred in about a week. With dizzying speed, Volkswagen's future has changed dramatically. It all happened, it's still happening, so fast. OTHER NEWS & NOTES 2016 Buick Cascada to start at $33,990 Buick hasn't made a convertible in 25 years. That's a whole person who can drink plus a kindergartner. So it's been awhile. Enter the 2016 Buick Cascada. It has top-shelf Opel engineering, slinky design, and it's reasonably priced.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.