Electric Vehicles
Buick PHEV Quickly Vanishes
Just two weeks after announcing plans for a Buick plug-in hybrid, General Motors abruptly killed the project.
“The Buick crossover we showed received consistent feedback from large parts of all the audiences that it didn’t fit the premium characteristics that customers have come to expect from Buick,” Tom Stephens, GM vice chairman, wrote Aug. 19 on a company blog.
That included critics on Twitter who dubbed the SUV the “Vuick,” a reference to the Saturn Vue, which was supposed to be GM’s first plug-in. But GM is selling off Saturn, and detractors complained the Buick looked like a repackaged Vue, rather than a new vehicle.
Noting that the automaker was “struck by the consistency of the criticism,” Stephens said its response was “a good example of the new General Motors…acting quickly, and boldly, and listening to feedback from customers, employees, dealers, media and just about anyone else with an option.” GM emerged from bankruptcy in July.
When it announced plans for the Buick PHEV on Aug. 6, GM said it would arrive in 2011, using a modified version of the automaker’s two-mode hybrid system with advanced lithiumion battery cells that could be fully charged in four to five hours.
In his blog entry, Stephens wrote that the PHEV technology “would be applied to another vehicle, at no delay, that we’ll discuss in the very near future.”