Employees work on Buick Envision SUVs at General Motors’ Dong Yue assembly plant, officially known as SAIC-GM Dong Yue Motors Co., Ltd., in Yantai, Shandong Province, China, Nov. 17, 2022.
Tang Ke | Visual China Group | Getty Images
DETROIT — General Motors plans to move production of a Buick compact SUV from China to the U.S. for domestic sales, the company confirmed Thursday.
GM said the next-generation vehicle is expected to be built at the automaker’s Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas, beginning in 2028. The next-generation Buick compact SUV that will be built in the U.S. will be sold domestically, meaning production of the vehicle in China may continue as well for sales elsewhere.
The move comes as President Donald Trump has been pressuring companies to onshore production and as the relationship between the U.S. and China grows increasingly contentious, including with tariffs on vehicles.
The Detroit automaker has produced the compact Buick Envision SUV in China for the U.S. since 2017. However, the company declined to confirm the name for the next generation of the vehicle that it will be moving stateside.
“General Motors will onshore production of the next-generation Buick compact SUV to Fairfax Assembly in Kansas City, beginning in 2028. This decision further strengthens GM’s domestic manufacturing footprint and supports U.S. jobs, building on $5.5 billion in new investments announced across our U.S. manufacturing sites in the last year,” GM said in an emailed statement.
The compact Buick is expected to join production of the gas-powered Chevrolet Equinox at the Kansas factory following limited production of the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt. Equinox production will start in 2027, GM said.
U.S. sales of the Envision have topped 40,000 for the past three years, representing roughly a quarter of Buick’s sales during that time period.
GM’s decision to produce the compact Buick SUV in the U.S. was first reported by Reuters.
