GM willing to acquire Buick dealerships in the U.S.

General Motors will offer buyouts to U.S. Buick dealers that do not want to make investments related to the Buick brand's all-electric transition, the head of Buick said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday.

All of Buick's roughly 2,000 dealers will be given a buyout opportunity, Global Buick boss Duncan Aldred said in the interview. This means giving up the franchise and not selling Buicks, but most dealers also sell other GM brands, the Journal noted, adding that Aldred will outline the plan at a virtual dealer meeting Friday.

"Depending on the location and the level of expense required to make the transition, not everyone necessarily wants to make that trip," Aldred said in an interview.

"So if they want to exit the Buick franchise, we will help them financially to do that."

Aldred did not say how many Buick dealers would be willing to accept a buyout; a similar program for Cadillac, launched in 2020 and completed last year, reduced the luxury brand's dealer network by about a third, to about 560 dealers. GM said at the time that the average buyout was about $200,000, but that the range was in the seven figures.

Many of the Cadillac dealers acquired were in rural areas where EV sales were expected to remain low, GM said at the time. Shifting to EV sales would also require dealers to invest in charging facilities and staff training, while also limiting potential revenue from routine maintenance, which EVs require less than internal combustion engine vehicles.

Both Buick and Cadillac plan to sell exclusively electric vehicles by 2030. Buick does not currently sell EVs in the U.S., but plans to launch its first EV in the U.S. market in 2024. All future Buick EVs will use the Electra name plus an alphanumeric suffix to indicate size and body style, and will share the Ultium battery pack and motor with other GM-branded EVs.