Buick was on a roll as the affordable Envista was bringing new customers into showrooms, while the redesigned Enclave proved popular. Then, seemingly overnight, the brand decided to roll over and play dead.

The automaker hasn’t issued a proper press release in nearly two years and many people associated with their marketing efforts fled for greener pastures at Stellantis. If that wasn’t bad enough, GM basically abandoned Buick’s electrification plans in the United States.

More: Buick Delays Plan To Launch First EV In America

Thanks to these and other issues, sales are tanking – hard. In the first quarter, deliveries plunged 32.6% to a mere 41,654 units. The big loser was the Chinese-built Envision, which received a $3,000 price hike for 2026 as the model is getting hammered by tariffs.

The decline doesn’t appear to be an availability issue as dealers have more than 9,000 Envisions in stock. That’s roughly six months of supply, suggesting demand is lacking.

If losers love company, Buick had a lot to celebrate as the Encore GX was off by 36%, while the Envista was down 9.7%. Even the Enclave struggled as sales dropped 3.3%.

Cadillac’s Big Bet On EVs Is Having Mixed Results

When the electric vehicle tax credit was eliminated last year, sales plummeted. That continues and has put Cadillac in a tough spot as they have an EV-laden lineup.

Lyriq sales fell 21.6%, while the Escalade IQ dropped 26.8%. However, the Optiq soared 65.9% thanks to significant powertrain updates as well as the addition of the Optiq-V. The three-row Vistiq also seems to be doing okay as the company moved 1,902 units in the first quarter.

On the gas side of the equation, the outgoing CT4 saw sales surge 27.4%, but that only equates to an additional 333 vehicles. Elsewhere in the lineup, the CT5 was down 13.3% while the Escalade was off 28.5%. The XT4, XT5, and XT6 are all dead or almost dead, so we’ll skip them like buyers did.

Given all of this, it’s hardly surprising that overall Cadillac sales dropped 25.5%.

Chevrolet Had A Rough Quarter

Over in bowtie land, it’s an EV bloodbath. The Blazer EV plummeted 82.6% to a mere 1,077 units. The Equinox EV was off 7.2%, while the Silverado EV fell 41%.

Even the resurrected Bolt seems like a failure as the company only moved 791 units. That’s less than 270 per month and it seems like the model’s death and rebirth was a giant waste of time, effort, and resources.

The only bright spot was the deceased Brightdrop vans, which saw sales soar 81%. However, this was likely driven by a fire sale with six figure discounts.

Putting EVs aside, overall sales fell 8.1% as numerous models struggled including the Blazer (-26.3%), Colorado (-16.5%), Corvette (-8.2%), Equinox (-13.5%), Trailblazer (-6.3%), Tahoe (-10.0%), and Suburban (-14.0%). Traverse sales climbed 33.6% and the Silverado 1500 was up 7.9%, but they couldn’t offset the overall decline.

GMC Did Okay

GMC had the best performance as sales were only down 0.2%. The Acadia tied last year’s result as the company once again sold 13,257 crossovers. The Colorado was up 21.2%, while the Terrain soared 35.2%. Even the Sierra EV saw a slight 3.1% improvement, but that only equates to an additional 39 pickups as sales were terrible to begin with.

Speaking of EVs, the Hummer lineup plunged 52.5% despite a handful of updates for the 2026 model year. Sierra 1500, 2500, and 3500 sales also fell as did those for the Yukon.

A Bad Quarter Overall

Zooming out even further, GM’s total sales fell 9.7% to 626,429 units. The automaker tried to put a positive spin on things as they said “momentum in March helped results partially recover from a slower January and February, when winter storms impacted the market.” GM added they’re leading in U.S. sales and gained an additional 50,000 Super Cruise subscribers.

2026 GM Q1 Sales

General Motors’ joint venture in China is attempting to turn things around before the partnership with China’s SAIC expires. The aim of the game is electrification. Go green, be quick, and build trust again before it is too late.

At a dealer meeting in early March, SAIC-GM President Lu Xiao announced a three-year plan, which is based around new Buick and Cadillac EVs, improved in-car technology, and increased exports.

But the plans are still leaving some in the industry skeptical. Despite Xiao’s assurances that the joint venture is focused on the future, there’s no clear sign yet that a renewal is actually in motion, even with the agreement set to expire in June 2027.

Contrast that with the venture between Volkswagen and SAIC, which was extended six years early, and you can see why some GM-SAIC dealers may be concerned, reports AutoNews.

Buick And Cadillac Spearhead The Plan

The backdrop is tough. While sales last year were promising, they’re still down since a high of 2 million cars in 2017 to only 562,000 in 2025, a 75 percent decrease. The joint venture has just come back to the black, as GM recorded restructuring costs amounting to $2.7 billion in order to reduce capacity and rebrand operations.

Read: GM’s Comeback Story Isn’t Happening In America

SAIC-GM will use over 10 billion yuan (about $1.4 billion at current rates) to revise existing Buick models and come up with the new generation of its products. The strength that Buick has in the multipurpose vehicle market is a home run, and the company desires to maintain what it has and advance further in the direction of electrification.

Momentum is already gaining speed. The Buick Electra L7, an all-electric and range-extender crossover, is arriving in the next few months. An all-electric version of the Encasa MPV was recently introduced and a plug-in hybrid version will be introduced later this year with a quicker charger and an increased engine size.

Cadillac is trending along at the same speed. The completely electric Cadillac Vistiq SUV, which will feature lidar and an advanced driver-assistance system co-developed with Momenta, will debut in late April. At the same time, models such as the Buick LaCrosse, the Envision, and the Cadillac XT5, which were traditionally ICE nameplates, will be getting electrification.

Cars That Charge Faster, Smarter Software, Sharper Focus

One of the reasons why GM’s, and other foreign carmakers’, products have been falling out of favor with Chinese consumers is the lack of up-to date tech that is often commonplace in domestic offerings. GM and SAIC’s action plan hopes to address that on a number of fronts.

The Xiaoyao platform will be able to support next-generation battery systems with 1,000V fast charging, driving ranges of up to 1,000 kilometers, and power outputs up to 850 kilowatts. The future holds advances in active suspension, steer-by-wire, and rear-wheel steering, all controlled under GM-SAIC’s proprietary software.

Inside the cabin, change is just as important. All Buick Electra models and the Cadillac XT5 will adopt new smart cockpit systems this year, boosting smartphone connectivity as well as improving digital interfaces.

A further upgrade in the future will take technology from ByteDance (the name behind TikTok) and refine the user experience. On the driver’s assistance front, such Level 2 systems hit the road this year, with Level 3 slated for 2027.

Exports are another lever, albeit a complicated one. SAIC-GM has exported vehicles overseas since 2001 as well as to the US and Mexico. But new tariffs have wreaked havoc on that business. Exports plunged 40 percent in 2025 to about 50,500 vehicles, most of them because of higher U.S. duties, and Mexico has also increased its tariffs on China-built light vehicles.

America, you won’t believe the $70,000 Buick you’re missing out on. While the brand’s U.S. lineup has been trimmed down to a handful of boring crossovers, China is getting a futuristic, all-electric luxury minivan with ultra-fast charging, reclining lounge seats, and enough screens to make a business jet jealous.

This is the new Encasa EV, Buick’s latest flagship MPV for the Chinese market, and almost certainly the most advanced vehicle wearing the tri-shield badge today.

The Encasa already existed as a plug-in hybrid, which we showed you back in December, so this new EV version just gives Chinese customers more choice. It rides on GM’s latest dedicated EV architecture and uses a 96-kWh battery paired with a 900-volt electrical system. For comparison, the Hummer EV has two 400-volt batteries that can switch to 800 volts during charging.

Buick claims the setup can deliver up to 373 miles (601 km) of range on the CLTC cycle and support peak charging speeds of 640 kW, allowing the battery to jump from 10 to 80 percent in about 11.5 minutes under ideal conditions. To put that into perspective, that’s faster charging than almost anything sold in North America, let alone a minivan.

More: Buick’s New Electra E7 Looks More Toyota Than Buick

Performance isn’t exactly slow either. Chinese-market specs list a dual-motor all-wheel-drive system producing 646 hp (482 kW) and 406 lb-ft (550 Nm) of peak torque , good for a 0–62 mph (0-100 km/h) time of about 5.1 seconds. The exterior follows Buick’s latest “Land Jet” design language, with a slippery 0.258 Cd drag coefficient, matte gray paint option, and a long, low MPV shape that prioritizes interior space over SUV styling trends.

A Living Room On Wheels

Inside, the Encasa EV goes all-in on the luxury MPV formula that Chinese buyers love. The three-row cabin uses a 2+2+3 layout with reclining second-row seats, multiple display screens, and a massive augmented-reality head-up display reportedly measuring up to 50 inches.

Passengers also get features rarely seen in U.S. Buicks, including air suspension with ride-height adjustment, a built-in refrigerator, rear entertainment screens, and an advanced driver-assistance system based on Momenta’s reinforcement-learning software.

The Encasa EV starts at 489,900 yuan (about $68,000), putting it right in the middle of China’s rapidly growing premium electric MPV segment. Buick once built its reputation on big, comfortable family haulers, but today the brand sells no minivan at all in the U.S., let alone a 900-volt electric one. In China, though, the formula clearly still works.