Buick Dealers Must Spend $300,000 or More To Support EV Sales, Or Take Buyout

Buick doesn’t have an EV on North American lots yet, but it wants some big investments from dealers when it does happen.

GM’s all-electric future is fastly pressing forward, but it’s going to take a lot of investment from its dealers to support the transition. It seems like Buick is pulling a Ford here; it’s giving dealerships an ultimatum, either invest in EV infrastructure or take a buyout.

The investments run the gamut of typical necessary upgrades to dealerships to effectively service EVs. So, training for its technicians, new equipment to service the vehicles, charging stations, and other related amenities for servicing and customers alike. The investment isn’t cheap, it looks like it’ll cost $300,000 to $400,000 minimum.

GM has done an ultimatum like this before, with Cadillac. For dealerships that didn’t want to play ball, GM offered up to $500,000 in settlements and buybacks for Cadillac franchise owners. We aren’t sure how many Buick dealers have opted in or out, GM hasn’t made that information available to the public. But according to the Detroit Free Press, at least one dealership has taken the buyout.

Likewise, we still don’t have concrete examples of what Buick’s first fully-electric North America-bound EV will look like. Speculation says that it could be a mildly localized version of the recently-debuted Buick Electra E5 sold in China, riding on the GM Ultium platform. Buick says it will be an all-electric brand by 2030, with the first EV coming to market by 2024.

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