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2024 Buick Envista Avenir Interior Review: A real winner from Buick

The 2024 Buick Envista is the first Buick product I’ve driven in recent history thatÂ’s kept me thinking about it for much longer after handing the keys back. Much of that credit is due to Buick pricing it so low, but itÂ’s not like there arenÂ’t other cheap cars out there. The difference, of course, is that the Envista is both affordable and a really good car at the same time. You can read about how effective the tiny and frugal 1.2-liter turbo engine is in our First Drive, or get the full download about the various trims in our Buying Guide, but here IÂ’m going to focus on its impressive interior in its most exemplary form. My test Envista pictured throughout is the Avenir trim, which is the top-shelf, priciest model, and yet it still only starts at $29,695. That feels like a steal in todayÂ’s ever-expensive car market given its size and level of equipment. So, whatÂ’s the catch?  First impressions are wildly positive when I settle into the AvenirÂ’s comfortable, heated leather seats and run my hands along the soft leather of the heated flat-bottom steering wheel. Then I check out whatÂ’s in front of me and notice the dual-screen layout housed cleanly in a single slab in the dash. The 11-inch touchscreen infotainment system is barebones as it gets from a software and user interface perspective, but that simplicity is somewhat refreshing. You get wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, along with good enough hardware that everything runs fluidly and responds quickly to touches. The 8-inch digital instrument panel is verging on being too simplistic in favor of minimalism, though. Many of the typical gauges you might see in a cluster are instead tucked into a menu on the infotainment display, and customization of that cluster screen is similarly limited. ItÂ’s functional, but thereÂ’s room for improvement or at least customization. The Pebble Gray and black two-tone look of this Avenir model is rather dashing combined with the Cinnabar Metallic exterior paint, and “Avenir” being stitched into the headrests is an upper-class touch. Also appreciated is the soft dash in front of the passenger with pretty stitching and an intriguing crease-like pattern in the material. This carries through into the doors and the door armrests, which are also padded, something you donÂ’t get in the brutally hard doors of this carÂ’s platform mate, the Chevrolet Trax.

Bob Seger's Detroit Made music video is an homage to the Motor City

At this point, Bob Seger feels like the living embodiment of old-school rock 'n' roll. The Michigan native has been strumming out classic records like Night Moves for decades, and he just released a new single called Detroit Made. It sounds like a future staple of just about every classic car show within the next few years, and the video is dedicated to the Motor City, past and future.
Detroit Made is all about cruising in the city in a classic Buick Electra 225, perhaps better known as a "deuce and a quarter." It's straight-down-the-middle rock and could just as easily be from a decades-old Seger album as something new.
The video for the new single mixes shots of American classics cruising along Woodward Avenue with a contemporary look at the city. Sure, there are the well-known dilapidated buildings falling into rubble, but the people there aren't just letting the city die. Other parts show the attempts to clean things up and rebuild. Check out the video if you need a few minutes of old school rockin' in your life.

GM and Ford quarterly sales continue to slump in China

BEIJING — General Motors and Ford announced their quarterly sales in China fell, albeit at a slower pace sequentially, as the U.S. automakers were hit by a slowing economy amid the Sino-U.S. trade war. GM's vehicle sales in China for the quarter ended June 30 dropped 12.2%, while Ford's sales slumped by 21.7%. While GM also suffered from heightened competition in its key mid-priced SUV segment, Ford was hurt by the limited new models for customers to choose from. For the first quarter of this year, Ford's sales in China tumbled 35.8 percent while GM's skid 17.5 percent. Still, the numbers from GM, the second biggest international automaker in China by sales, and Ford portend more uncertainty for the industry which is trying to rebound from a downward spiral that led to its first annual sales decline last year in more than two decades. GM delivered 1.57 million vehicles in China in the January-June period this year, while Ford delivered 290,321 vehicles. China's factory activity shrank more than expected in June, highlighting the need for more economic stimulus amid higher U.S. tariffs and weaker domestic demand. Annual car sales in China fell last year for the first time since the 1990s, and they are expected to fall this year too. Sales tumbled 16.4% in May from the same month a year prior, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said. That marked the 11th consecutive month of decline and followed falls of 14.6% in April and 5.2% in March. U.S. car companies' share of total China passenger vehicles sales fell to 9.6% in the first five months of this year from 10.9% in the year-ago period, according to CAAM. Over the same period, German car makers' share has risen to 23.3% from 20.9% and Japanese auto makers' to 21.3% from 17.3%. CAAM is set to announce June sales next week, which industry analysts forecast will be negative.   New models In China, GM has a joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp, in which the Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac are made. It also has another venture, with SAIC and GuangxiAutomobile Group, in which they make no-frills minivans and have started to make higher-end cars. Sales of GM's affordable brand Baojun dropped 31.8% for the latest quarter. But luxury brand Cadillac's sales jumped 36.6%. GM sold 3.64 million units in China last year, down from 4.04 units in 2017. Ford makes cars in China through its joint venture with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co and Jiangling Motors Corp (JMC).