General Motors may be making some significant changes to its SUV lineup, with rumours that the Buick Encore and its sibling Chevrolet Trax won’t be back after they finish out the 2022 model year.
Both are the smallest and least-expensive in their respective sport-ute lineups, with the 2022 Trax starting at just over $22,000 in Canada; and the Encore around $25,000.
The news comes from website GM Authority, which said it exclusively heard about it from its sources. Car & Driver followed up with a Buick representative who would not confirm that the Encore is being axed, but said that Buick “will continue to offer four distinct SUVs.”
Mind you, right now that’s Buick’s entire line. Along with the Encore, there’s also the slightly larger Encore GX; the Envision; and the Enclave. The Envision and Enclave are available in upper-line “Avenir” trim – think of it like a Denali line for Buick – but that doesn’t seem enough to be “distinct.”
So how does that spin? We don’t think the rumour is bogus, given that the Encore’s sales numbers have been steadily dropping in the U.S. It’s also been slimmed down to a single trim line, including in Canada — it comes only as the Preferred trim, in front- or all-wheel-drive.
Instead, we’re speculating that since GM plans to offer electric vehicles across all its brands, we may soon be seeing a new Buick with a cord attached.
The Encore is built at GM’s Bupyreong facility in South Korea, while the Trax is made in South Korea and Mexico. Canadians bought 1,902 copies of the Encore in 2021, making it the slowest-selling of Buick’s four SUVs and well behind the 6,959 examples sold of the Encore GX. But oddly, that was a complete reversal of 2020, when the Encore sold 6,480 units — it was the highest-selling Buick that year, topping 5,214 copies of the Encore GX.
The Trax moved 2,395 units in 2021, which wasn’t even close to the 7,641 Trailblazers that Canadians bought last year. It makes sense for an automaker to drop its slow-selling models, but as gas prices rise and consumers look for smaller, more fuel-efficient choices, it seems there are fewer of them available to choose.
Keyword: GM might kill off the Buick Encore and Chevrolet Trax