As it starts to ramp up its line-up of battery-electric vehicles, General Motors is beginning to pare back its conventional gas-powered offerings.
During the last several years, most of GM’s passenger cars have disappeared from the U.S. market, reflecting the shift away from sedans and coupes. Now, it seems, two SUV models will also be abandoned.
In the case of the Buick Encore and Chevrolet Trax, however, that might not come as a surprise considering the sharp decline in demand for the two models over the past year.
Both are headed for the chopping block, according to the GMAuthority website, though GM officials had no comment on future product plans.
Sales take a tumble
Sales of the Encore tumbled 52% in 2021 compared with the year before, to a meager 20,072. The Trax suffered an even steeper 60% decline, to 42,590.
The business case for the two models gets even more questionable considering they must be imported for the U.S. market. The Encore comes from GM’s Bupyeong plant in South Korea. The Trax is produced in both South Korea and Mexico and shipping costs can eat up much of the savings on lower labor costs for such small models.
Curiously, GM is expected to continue producing the Encore GX which is actually a completely different model from the Encore. The GX, if the report proves accurate, will become the Buick brand’s base model starting in the 2023 model year.
Off-track
Dropping the Trax would follow GM’s announcement that it will abandon the even smaller Chevy Sonic, which has been the bowtie brand’s base offering. If so, the Trailblazer would become its lowest-priced model at a starting price of $21,800. That would be a relatively high entry point for what has long been GM’s mainstream brand. By comparison, Kia starts out at $16,250 for its little Rio model.
In the case of the Trax, several factors seem to have knocked it off track. The little crossover has been around since 2013 globally, debuting here in the U.S. two years later. It’s had relatively little in the way of updates throughout the years and the arrival of the Trailblazer gave potential buyers a newer, more well-equipped alternative.
It appears that when Trax goes away during the third quarter of this year that would free up space at the South Korean plant for expanding production of the Trailblazer.
As for the Encore, it’s now in its 10th year and has likewise undergone relatively modest updates during the past decade. The Encore GX has cut into its sales by offering a more modern design and slightly bigger interior space. We’ll have to wait to see if the GMAuthority report is accurate, the site basing its post on information from two unnamed sources — though it generally proves reliable when it comes to GM news.
