GM to continue to build Buick and Cadillac sedans in China

The 2019 Cadillac CT6.
Cadillac

• On Monday, General Motors announced that it would close
  three assembly plants in 2019 and discontinue six passenger
  cars made at the plants. 
• The six discontinued models are mostly slow-selling
  sedans from Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Buick.
• However, GM has confirmed that three of the six models
  will continue to be built in China. 

Even as the China-US trade war heats up, Chinese demand for
American cars remains strong. And that includes good
old-fashioned American sedans.

But even as General Motors announced the discontinuation of six
sedans in the US market, three of the models will live on in
China.

General Motors confirmed to Business Insider on Tuesday that the
Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, and Cadillac XTS
will continue to be produced at its factory in Shanghai, China.

“China production is not affected by these actions,” a GM
spokesperson said in an email. “Those products will remain in
production in China.”

Read more: ‘Tariffs are coming’: GM’s massive
layoffs could spur Trump to hit imported cars and trucks with
tariffs, a potentially devastating move
.

China is actually GM’s single largest market. Over the first
three quarters of 2018, the Detroit-based automaker sold 2.57
million cars in North America. Over the same period, the company
sold 2.68 million cars in China alone. 

On Monday, General Motors announced that it would close three
assembly plants in 2019 and discontinue six slow-selling
passenger cars made at the plants. 

GM’s bold strategic shift is a preemptive measure to protect the
company by aligning its production capacity with consumer demand
in anticipation for a sales slowdown that’s expected to take
place in the near future.

The soon-to-be-shuttered plants include Oshawa Assembly in
Canada, Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly in Michigan, and Lordstown
Assembly in Ohio. 

As a result, the Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet Volt, Chevrolet
Cruze, Chevrolet Impala, Cadillac CT6, and Cadillac XTS sedans
will all be discontinued in the US by the end of
2019.