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GM seeks to exempt Buick Envision from U.S. auto tariffs

General Motors is seeking an exemption to a 25 percent U.S. tariff on its Chinese-made Buick Envision sport utility, the automaker said on Thursday, in a move to prevent the key model in the brand's U.S. lineup from becoming a victim of the U.S.-China trade war. The midsize SUV, priced starting at about $35,000, has become a target for critics of Chinese-made goods, including leaders of the United Auto Workers union and members in key political swing states such as Michigan and Ohio. The Envision, assembled only in China, last year accounted for about 19 percent of Buick brand sales in the United States. GM said in a statement that it filed the request on July 30 with the U.S. Trade Representative. An official notice was posted on Thursday on the regulations.gov website, which is tracking requests for exclusions from the so-called Section 301 tariff on certain imported goods from China. GM, the largest U.S. automaker, argued in its request that Envision sales in China and the United States would generate funds "to invest in our U.S. manufacturing facilities and to develop the next generation of automotive technology in the United States." GM said the "vast majority" of Envisions, about 200,000 a year, are sold in China. About 41,000 were sold last year in the United States. Because of the lower U.S. sales volume, "assembly in our home market is not an option" for the Envision, which competes with such midsize crossover vehicles as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Cadillac XT5. GM has taken other steps to soften the blow of tariffs, which hit just as the automaker had lowered the price of the Envision to make it more competitive. Ahead of the July 6 start for higher import tariffs, GM shipped in a six-month supply of Envisions at the much lower 2.5 percent tariff rate. Envision sales from April through June plunged to just 7,000 vehicles, while inventories climbed to more than 13,000 vehicles at the end of June. At the current sales rate, the Envision supply should be enough to keep many dealers stocked through the end of the year. GM had lowered prices by as much as $2,500 on the 2019 models, which it started shipping in late April. That means Buick's 2,000 U.S. dealers should have lower-priced Envisions to sell well into the fall. "The previous price point was too high" on the 2018 Envision, said Casey Clark, sales manager at Serra Buick GMC Cadillac in Washington, Michigan, in an interview.

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.

GM investing $167m in Spring Hill for new midsize vehicles

General Motors has announced a large investment in its Spring Hill, Tennessee facility. The former home of Saturn production will be getting a $167 million addition to a previously announced $183 million, to cover a pair of new midsize vehicles. The investment is expected to create 1,800 jobs at the factory.
That $350 million is being divvied up for a pair of programs at Spring Hill. The first will take the bulk of the money ($223 million) and create 1,000 of the 1,800 jobs, while the other will take the remaining $127 million and generate the leftover 800 positions. But GM says the investment will cover "midsize vehicle programs." So what could they be?
The leading candidate in our minds is a new crossover for Buick, called the Anthem, that will slot between the Encore and Enclave, but will be slightly smaller than the Equinox and Terrain. As we've explained, the new model will likely be the first product to sport GM's new D2UX platform, which will eventually replace both the Delta and Theta platforms. Spring Hill is already building the Equinox, so there could be some credence to this theory.