4dr Sdn Convenience Group Low Miles Sedan Automatic Gasoline 2.4l Dohc White Dia on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Buick Velite 6 to come in PHEV, electric versions for China

In addition to the all-electric Enspire crossover concept revealed this week ahead of the Beijing Auto Show, Buick is adding a new production variant to its Velite series of electrified vehicles for China. It's called the Velite 6, a plug-in hybrid that will launch this year in Buick's largest market. A full-electric version, shown in the lead photo above at right, is coming later. Buick already sells a vehicle called a Velite 5 in China, which is essentially a rebadged Chevrolet Volt, only with a higher electric-only driving range. This one is based on the Velite concept PHEV introduced in late 2016 at Auto Guangzhou. The PHEV and battery-electric versions look nearly identical, with a wide stance, plenty of creases and a hatchback design that bears some similarities to the longer 2018 Regal TourX wagon. The Velite 6 uses two AC permanent-magnet synchronous motors, a lithium-ion battery and a 1.5-liter four-cylinder combustion engine. Buick says combined gas-electric driving range is 435 miles, which is 15 miles greater than the Volt. Buick will assemble what it calls the "new-generation" ternary battery pack at its new SAIC-GM Power Battery Development Center in Shanghai. The company says the Velite 6 electric vehicle "will adopt a new-generation pure electric drive system to offer customers a smooth, quiet and natural driving experience." Both models get the cloud-based Buick eConnect technology, which allows over-the-air software updates, real-time integration with China's WeChat social media network, and other digital perks. Owners will also be able to use their smartphone as the vehicle's key, and they can also authorize others to use the car through their phones. China has long been Buick's largest market, with more than 1.18 million vehicles sold in 2017 compared to just 219,231 in the U.S., and the country has established aggressive mandates for production of electric vehicles. GM has plans to add 20 new electric and fuel-cell vehicles globally by 2023. Related Video:

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.

Buyers resent low inventories, prices over MSRP, study says

Vehicle inventory low, vehicle transaction prices high, customers fretting … welcome, J.D. Power, to the era of supply and demand. In a recently published survey from one of the auto industryÂ’s top analytical firms, findings show that customers' satisfaction with vehicle purchases in the United States this year has dipped for the first time in 10 years. The 2022 U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) Study found that overall sales satisfaction has dropped to 786 (on a 1,000-point scale) from 789 in 2021. In that year, higher than expected trade-in values softened the effect of new vehicle price increases. But in 2022, on top of trade-in prices shrinking, many dealers elected to charge more than the ManufacturerÂ’s Suggested Retail Price, a factor that did not sit well with buyers. “When dealers charge more than MSRP, particularly with long-term loyal customers, they risk a potential long-term negative effect on customer advocacy and service business," said Chris Sutton, vice president of automotive retail at J.D. Power. Satisfaction among buyers who paid more than sticker price is 757, while satisfaction among those who paid the sticker price or less is 850, the Power report said. The lack of dealership inventory was also a customer irritant, J.D. Power found, a point that automakers and their dealers may want to consider. Many have maintained, or considered maintaining, a smaller inventory in the wake of the pandemic, keeping costs down and driving more customers toward factory orders. Regarding those consumers shopping for electric vehicles, the survey said that more than a third of them “failed to get instruction on EV charging before they left the dealership, which notably affects satisfaction.” Said Sutton, “Salespeople donÂ’t need to show gas-powered vehicle buyers how to fill their tank, but they do need to show EV buyers how to charge their vehicle.” There are positives to the Power conclusions, however, especially for Alfa Romeo dealers. The Italian brand ranked highest in customer satisfaction among premium brands with a score of 833, with Porsche a very close second (831) and Lexus (819) third. Alfa is on something of a roll these days, with its compact Tonale crossover due for release in the spring, and a new sports car in the works. Meanwhile, in PowerÂ’s “mainstream brand”” segment, Buick ranked first with a score of 825, followed by Dodge (816) and Subaru (804), all performing higher than the industry average.