How Buick’s EV Plan Succeeded Without Ever Selling A Single Electric Car

You know what car brand’s having a great time right now? Buick. Once the stereotypical fixed-income ride, the brand has bounced back from an era of low sales with a strong lineup and some bold decisions. While the marque previously committed to going all-electric by 2030, the cull of dealers that came with the EV announcement may have contributed to greater success well before the brand goes electrified for the American market.

The Lucid Gravity was on an extremely slow roll for the first six months of the year, and Shelby has a new Mustang with an absolutely eye-watering price tag.

Welcome back to The Morning Dump, where we crack open the car news stories you’ll want to know about, extract the juices, and blend it all into one protein-rich smoothie. Matt’s at Monterey Car Week, so I’ve been handed the reins today. Let’s get cracking.

Buick Is Absolutely Crushing It

Sometimes, certain decisions have more upside than they first appeared to offer. For instance, high-sulfur fuel may be cheap, but it also turns out that the former use of it on shipping routes in the North Atlantic may have been an accidental case of climate engineering, with emissions clouds so dense, they may have actually helped keep the ocean cool. That’s dirty technology, though, but sometimes an equal secondary upside comes from clean technology, or even just the announcement of it. Buick’s plan to go all-electric by 2030 seems to already be paying off well before electric Buicks have even been unveiled for America.

Flash back to 2022, and Buick looked like a dead brand walking. Market share had shrunk to below one percent, and it was clear that something drastic had to be done. Buick announced that it was going all-electric by 2030, and offered to buy out dealer franchises that didn’t want to spend the money to sell EVs. The result? Buick nearly halved its dealer network, but that was all good, according to then Vice President of Global Buick-GMC, Duncan Aldred. As Automotive News reported:

“I’m really pleased with where we are,” Aldred told Automotive News. “The network, where we are now, is a good size. It’s with dealers who are focused on the business, who’ve shown that they can recover the volume that the dealers who transitioned away were doing.”

Cut to the present, and everything’s turned out beautifully for Buick despite the brand still not offering any electric cars in America. As Car Dealership Guy points out, thanks to a revitalized product portfolio including the value-rich Envista, the revamped Encore GX, and the midsized Envision, sales are up big time. This year, Buick led the mainstream pack when it came to gains, posting a first-half sales volume increase of 29 percent. In the second quarter, the brand outsold Cadillac by 20,000 units, and is now one of GM’s big success stories. So what’s happening? Well, as Car Dealership Guy reports, Buick’s demographics are shifting younger.

JC Prats from Starling Buick GMC Stuart (the #2 Buick GMC dealer in Florida) watched his monthly Buick sales explode from 7-8 units to 35+ by capitalizing on the demographic drawn to these redesigned vehicles.

“The main buyer for the Envista are ladies between 25 and 40,” he told me. And as a response, JC started spending more heavily with TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram ads to reach these buyers where they are.

Younger buyers are exactly what Buick needed, as the brand’s been looking to shake off a bit of a Boca Raton image for the past few decades. Plus, in a way, Buick’s all-EV announcement paid off already. Lots of dealers don’t want to sell electric vehicles, but the ones that would put in the effort to do so are also likely the ones pulling their weight when it comes to selling combustion models.

There’s a hilarious irony here that Buick’s threat of electrification cleared out its dealer network and the dealers who agreed to make the investment benefited, even though none of them have had to sell a single EV for the brand.

While Buick is uniquely exposed to tariffs, at least among GM brands, with the Envista, Encore GX, and Envision all coming in from overseas, the brand’s built some strong momentum with nice, reasonably priced offerings. Although that momentum might meet a headwind as tariff costs get passed onto consumers, it likely isn’t insurmountable.

The Lucid Gravity Is On A Slow Roll

The Lucid Gravity is an interesting electric SUV, a highly efficient cutting-edge powerhouse that looks far more like a minivan than an off-roader. Indeed, while we were impressed by the machine, our main concern was how consumers would take to it. While it’s still to early to say, early registration figures are looking rough. As Automotive News reports:

The Gravity managed just nine U.S. registrations by June 30, S&P Global Mobility data showed. The Lucid Air sedan had 4,780 registrations during the first half of the year, up 52 percent year-over-year.

Nine? Nine. Huh. S&P Mobility pores over vehicle registration data to crunch just how many of each model are running around on America’s roads, and the firm’s analytics are used by many facets of the industry, so this single-digit figure likely isn’t a typo on the company’s part. However, between sold units and continued production ramp, Lucid claims the number today isn’t in the single-digits. As Automotive News reports:

“While we don’t provide the actual mix of our vehicles delivered, Gravity is significantly more than nine, and the real number is well into the three-digit range,” Lucid said in an email to Automotive News. Lucid didn’t dispute the registration data, but said it didn’t represent current sales numbers.

That’s better, but still not great. Sales being “well into the three-digit range” means that over the past six months, Lucid Gravity sales still haven’t broken out of the hundreds. Considering crossovers are essentially licences to print money, what’s going on here? It turns out the bulk of it is simply due to how making cars is hard. On an earnings call earlier in August, interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said, “I feel that it is important to acknowledge that we are not where we want to be with Lucid Gravity production relative to our target at this point in the year.” Indeed, between the magnet spat with China, and the turbulent conditions of global trade, the first half of 2025 hasn’t been ideal for manufacturing. On the bright side, it sounds like things have already started to turn a corner.

“We’re definitely in the process right now of ramping up Gravity in the second half,” Winterhoff said in response to an analyst question on July sales, which he didn’t disclose. “The Gravity will actually be the majority of our deliveries.”

It’s a positive outlook, and one that could yield significant success for Lucid. After all, the crossover utility vehicle has displaced the sedan as the default form factor of car in North America, and so long as consumers aren’t weirded out by the looks of the Gravity, it could be the sales savior Lucid needs.

Snake Bitten

The current-generation Mustang has seen a series of new names appear on the scene, from Dark Horse to GTD. It’s a new chapter to the pony car legend, but what’s happening with the Shelby nameplate? Well, while Ford hasn’t been using it in-house for the past few years, that hasn’t stopped Shelby American from building its own hot S650 Mustangs. In fact, it just unveiled its highest-Scoville one yet, the extra-wide Super Snake R.

To create the Super Snake R, Shelby American started with a Mustang Dark Horse and supercharged it to the tune of 850 horsepower. That’s some serious firepower, but since power is nothing without control, the package comes with some notable chassis upgrades. All four corners now feature adjustable coilovers with caster-camber plates, spherical bearings replace rubber bushings, a stiffening brace ties the rear damper towers together while acting as a harness bar, and beefed-up anti-roll bars round out the suspension package. At the same time, the wheel and tire package grows even more aggressive with 11-inch-wide rollers up front and 13-inch-wide wheels out back, all made of magnesium. Add in two-piece brake discs, stronger CV axles, a short shifter and a one-piece driveshaft on manual models, and a beefier radiator, and the Super Snake R seems to walk the walk.

You definitely won’t lose it in a parking lot, either. The Super Snake R is substantially wider than a standard Mustang, almost every panel ahead of the firewall is either carbon fiber or aluminum, and you get a function splitter and wing combination, along with a sizeable rear diffuser. Sure, it’s not a GTD, but it’s a pretty comprehensive upgrade package. The only big hang-up? Pricing. The 2026 Shelby American Super Snake R starts at $224,995, more than a 1,250-horsepower Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X. The result is a tough sell, although one that’s sure to make a handful of diehard Shelby fans happy.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

This morning, I’m digging into nostalgia. It’s “All That I’ve Got” by The Used.

The Big Question:

Ever rode a mechanical bull? If not, what’s the closest car to the experience?

Top graphic image: Buick