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GM Reveals 2023 Buick Envista Compact SUV, Features 1.5L Turbo and CVT

Founded in 1899, the Buick Auto-Vim and Power Company became a General Motors division in 1908. The Biggest of the Big Three in Detroit subsequently positioned this brand above Chevrolet, although not on the same level as Cadillac. Although it gave us a plethora of iconic models, the premium-oriented automobile division is currently specialized in SUVs.
2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China 14 photos
Photo: Buick
2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China2023 Buick Envista compact SUV for China
In the United States, the lineup ranges from the Encore GX to the Enclave. Pretty much everything is a badge-engineering sibling of Chevrolet, and worse still, some of these crossovers are manufactured in China. This, in turn, brings us to the 182,380 vehicles delivered by Buick in the U.S. in 2021, a drop in the ocean compared to the 815,900 delivered in the PRC.

Given the brand’s commercial success in America’s greatest foreign policy failure, does it come as a surprise that Buick caters to China more than it does to the United States? Not to be confused with the Avista concept, the Envista is a compact utility vehicle “tailored for the progressive young generation and modern families in China.” In other words, those people who currently refuse to pay housing loans to shady property developers protected by the Chinese Communist Party with… wait for it… taxpayers’ money.

Buick claims the Envista is “developed on GM’s new-generation compact SUV platform,” which is a bit curious given that no platform name has been given. The most likely platform is the Vehicle Set Strategy, although it’s hard to tell if we’re dealing with the VSS-F variant or the VSS-S variant.

Now available to order at dealers nationwide, the Envista is rocking a starting price of 150,000 yuan, which is $21,730 at current exchange rates. Due to its 4,638 millimeters (182.6 inches) in overall length and 2,700 millimeters (106.3 inches) in wheelbase, this fellow is pretty close to the Envision that comes from China by way of the SAIC-GM joint venture.

Gifted with two 10.25-inch displays for the instrument cluster and infotainment system, the Envista is exclusively offered with a 1.5-liter turbo that puts out 181 horsepower. The only transmission available is a chain-driven continuously variable tranny, which helps the compact-sized utility vehicle hit 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) in 7.9 seconds.

Will it come stateside? Only time will tell. On the other hand, Buick’s future products will take inspiration from it based on this line from the attached release: “the Envista embodies Buick’s new global design language.”
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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