2007 Buick Rendezvous Cxl 3rd Row Sunroof Leather Heated Seats No Reserve on 2040-cars

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Hyundai, Buick dealer apologize in wake of Chinese baby social media incident

A very strange story out of China today, as Hyundai and a Chinese Buick dealer were forced to face allegations of using allusions to an infamous child murder on a social media site as a way of promoting the safety features of their respective vehicles.
The original sad tale goes something like this: On March 4, a man reported to police that he had left his infant child in a running Toyota RAV4 while he ran into a supermarket briefly. When he came back out, the vehicle and the child were gone. Later in the week a suspect turned himself in to the police; confessing to them that he had stolen a sport-utility vehicle, strangled the infant that was in it, and then buried the child in the snow.
As you might imagine, the gristly incident was covered massively in the Chinese media. (There was huge public outcry as well, as evidenced by the vigil scene, above.) "Changchun baby abduction" was very quickly amongst the highest ranking search teams of the China's Weibo social media site - an equivalent of Twitter in the English-speaking world.

Even if GM does close all 5 of those plants, it'll still have too many

DETROIT — General Motors' monumental announcement on Monday that it will close three car assembly plants and two powertrain plants in North America and slash its workforce will only partially close the gap between capacity and demand for the automaker's sedans, according to a Reuters analysis of industry production and capacity data. Sales of traditional passenger cars in North America have been declining for the past six years and are still withering. After GM ends production next year at factories in Michigan, Ohio and Ontario, it will still have four U.S. passenger-car plants — all operating at less than 50 percent of rated capacity, according to figures supplied by LMC Automotive. In comparison, Detroit-based rivals Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will have one car plant each in North America after 2019. The Detroit Three are facing rapidly dwindling demand for traditional passenger cars from U.S. consumers, many of whom have shifted to crossovers and trucks. Passenger cars accounted for 48 percent of retail light-vehicle sales in the United States in 2014, according to market researchers at J.D. Power and Associates. This year, sedans will account for less than a third of light vehicle sales. That shift in turn has left most North American car plants operating far below their rated capacities, while many SUV and truck plants are running on overtime. The collapse in passenger-car demand is a challenge for nearly all automakers in the United States, including Japan's Toyota and Honda, which have the top-selling models in the compact and midsize car segments. Toyota executives said last month they are evaluating the company's U.S. model lineup. But Toyota also plans to build compact Corolla sedans at a new $1.6 billion factory it is building in Alabama with partner Mazda. The obstacles facing GM in its plans to close more auto factories became apparent on Tuesday as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to block payment of government electric vehicle subsidies to GM. While it is not certain that Trump unilaterally has the power to do that, he made it clear he intends to use his office to pressure the company to keep open a small car plant in Ohio that GM says will stop building vehicles in March.

We want this Buick Regal wagon rumor to be true

The car we know in the US as the Buick Regal is sold as a Vauxhall/ Opel Insignia in Europe, where it's offered in four-door sedan, five-door liftback, and wagon body styles. Call it a case of wanting what we can't have, but we like the last two body styles a lot. Based on a report from a Buick/ GMC dealer meeting in Austin, one of them could be coming to the US soon. According to a poster identified as 97GreenRS on the forums at GM Inside News, GM showed dealers the 2018 Buick Enclave, Regal, and Regal GS, as well as the 2018 GMC Terrain, and then confirmed it would offer the Regal wagon here in the US. While that wouldn't normally be all that much to go on, we know Buick has been toying with the idea of a wagon for some time. A Regal-badged wagon was spotted way back in 2011. More recently, we reported on a trademark filing for "Tourx" and "Regal Tourx," which suggest a long roof (Tour) and all-wheel drive (x). If the Regal wagon arrives alongside the base sedan and GS as a 2018 model, we'd expect a debut within the next 15 or so months. That would place it right at the beginning of the 2017 auto show season, which starts next September in Frankfurt, Germany. With that in mind, it seems possible the new Regal would debut first as an Opel Insignia before appearing at a US show like Los Angeles or Detroit, although there's a lot of speculation going on there. We just want to see "Buick" and "wagon" in the same sentence again. Related Video: