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Newly Buick Excelle, to establish an entry-level family car image

From:Internet Info Agency 2018-08-24 15:37:16

Yep, the Buick Excelle is back. But this Excelle is not the one that we are familiar with. Maybe the name is the only common place of those two. The former Excelle was a model of cost-effective compact family sedan. However, after the Excelle GT/XT became the hallmark of the compact sedan of Buick, the Buick seems lack one entry-level compact sedan. That’s why the entry-level is named after Excelle.

Over the past 13 years, the cumulative sales of Excelle have reached 2.68 million vehicles. The Excelle, which is a memory in Chinese people’s mind, witnessed cars become a daily necessity of our life. The time when stop production notice of Excelle released in 2016, we all felt sad. Buick was introduced to China in 2008. In retrospect, the Excelle had two upgrading and facelifts in 2013, and gradually become the Chinese A-class car sales champion. Regardless of whether the cause of stopping production is market positioning error or the change of brand planning, the result is that Buick Excelle has been discontinued.

However, the newly Excelle is still very eye-catching. Based on Buick's latest exterior family design, the Excelle is obviously younger and more fashionable than the older generation. The change in the powertrain are more often being discussed. Over the past decade or so, the engine swept volume has become smaller, the number of cylinders has become less, and the three-cylinder engine has even become mainstream. The newly Excelle will adopt 1.3L three-cylinder naturally aspirated engine and the CVT gearbox for the first time.

Performance: Nonobvious vibration and sufficient for daily transport.

Excelle New Old
Swept Volume (Litre) 1.3 1.5
Gas Inlet Naturally Naturally
Max Power (kW) 79 83
Max Torque (Nm) 133 141

Driving newly Excelle is comfortable as the first part of the throttle is responsive. This adjustment is a very popular in urban vehicles.

Buick's current three-cylinder turbocharged engine is good in its suppression of the interior vibration. Passengers won’t feel any difference between the three-cylinder engine and the four-cylinder one. Some people argued that why the old Excelle equipped with a 1.5L four-cylinder engine while the new Excelle adopts a three-cylinder one? However, the performance of this three-cylinder engine is good both in its interior vibration suppression and the exterior noise volume control. In terms of dynamic parameters, the maximum power difference is 4 kW, and the maximum torque difference is only 8 Nm. It is really difficult to feel the subtle difference in power.

With a low torque, the mid and late acceleration of new Excelle is sluggish. Especially when overtaking, drivers have to step on the accelerator in advance.

This 1.3L engine performs well in low-torque period, and there is no power shortage when starting and accelerating. When the speed exceeds 80km/h, the acceleration is much harder, and the shift of the gearbox is not obvious. If you need to overtake on the high-speed road, maybe you should leave more time and push harder the throttle for more power.

The car also has a Sport mode. Although, at this mode, the engine speed will rise to 2000 rpm, the acceleration is still limited.

The engine also offers a SPORT mode in which the engine speed will remain a high level and easier to obtain power. However, due to the limitation of swept volume, acceleration in the latter stage is not that decent.

The CVT gearbox that matches the engine is the first time to appear on the Buick, ensuring smooth shifts and minimum fuel consumption.

Equipped with the CVT gearbox is mainly for reducing fuel consumption. Regarding the actual driving, the gearbox and the engine work smoothly, and the shift is not obvious.

The new car provides drivers a sense of integration. First of all, the steering wheel has an average returning force, and the direction change is accurate. Driving-friendly is the impression that the newly Excelle left me.

Newly Excelle also good in sound insulation, providing passengers a quiet space. It is not an exaggeration to say that, when windows are closed, passengers sitting in the car even cannot hear the shouting outside. It is also easy to talk with for the front and rear passengers when driving in the high-speed road. Perhaps the only noise is from the engine at high speed. Another little defect I need to point out is that passengers may hear the sound of the airflow generated in the rear wheel arch when sitting in the rear seats. Maybe it is just an exception.

The new generation of Excelle has changed the rear overhang form into a semi-independent torsion beam. The thickness of the chassis is not as good as that of the former version. The main difference is that when driving on bumpy roads, there will be unnecessary bounce in the rear suspension. Moreover, the reduction in the weight of the car body also makes the body not very stable.

Acceleration and Braking Test

From 0 to 100 km/h, the newly Excelle only takes 13.01s, which is moderate in 1.3L engine. The acceleration curve is very smooth, which means the car body is stable when accelerating.

For an engine speed limitation, the maximum speed of the CVT engine can only reach 2000 rpm when starting. Therefore, the power output of the engine during fully acceleration cannot reach the peak instantaneously. The G-force reaches 0.5 g at the start and keep it at about 0.2 g. The whole process is very smooth.

From 100km/h to 0, the braking distance of newly Excelle is 39.91m.

Consecutive Braking Test

 (below 40m: Great         40-44m: Moderate      above 44m: Bad)

Test 1: 39.91m

Test 2: 40.48m

Test 3: 40.68m

Test 4: 43.76m

Test 5: 43.65m

Test 6: 41.31m

The entire braking process is stable, and the steady g-force keeps at around -1 to -1.2 g. When braking, the body posture leans forward because of inertia, but no obvious feeling for passengers. Moreover, 39.91 meters of braking distance is also a moderately high level.

Slalom Test

With an acceptable leaning angle and accurate direction change, newly Excelle performs acute in the test. In addition, leaning of car body is not obvious from the rear view.

Noise Test

As I mentioned above, the newly Excelle does a great job in sound insulation. In the test, we first kept the car idling, then turned off the air conditioning and kept three passengers evenly breathed. Then, the measured noise level in the car is 43dB. The decibel corresponding to the speed of 60km/h, 80km/h, and 100km/h are 63.5dB, 65.3dB and 69.4dB respectively.

Highlights

1. Fashion Exterior

The exterior design of newly Excelle is totally different from the old generation. The mellower and younger design makes this car become a “handsome " instead of "old man". In particular, the front end the car adopts Buick's latest generation family design with the flying wing-shape grille making the front view more powerful.

2. Center console

The 7-inch high-tech touch screen at the center console will equip with Buick eConnect system, making phone connection and OAT online updating available.

The whole version of the new car will adopt OnStar All-time Online Assistant, providing users with 22 services in 7 categories, including emergency aid and rescue, car check, in-car 4G Wi-Fi.

3. Configuration

This newly Excelle test car is priced at 99,900 yuan RMB. Take the 2018 15N CVT automatic luxury version as an example, we can figure out what kind of configuration we can get at the price of 100,000 yuan RMB. In the interior, the multi-functional steering wheel and the color LCD dashboard are the standard configuration in 2018. The highlights are the one-key start-stop bottom which is not available in many models of the same class.

The rear wheel hub design is similar with Santana in the same class, and the performance of braking is great.

The rear lamps are all halogen lamps, and brake lamps have light strips.

The dashboard adopts Buick’s traditional design, making the information easier to read.

One-key start and keyless start-stop system is another highlight in luxury models. And they are convenient for daily operation.

One USB port and a 12V power input.

Manually adjusted leather seats are in luxurious brown color. And the middle part adopts suede leather which provides passengers with a comfortable feeling.

One electric moonroof improves the brightness in the car.

4. Interior-space

Front-row head-room Rear-row head-room
940mm-980mm 930mm
Front-row leg-room Rear-row leg-room
880mm-1140mm 980mm-1280mm

Trunk Size

Max Width (mm) 1310
Max Depth (mm) 1020
Height (mm) 580

Summary

The return of the newly Excelle is good for the Buick with its product lineup becoming more comprehensive and more competitive. For Excelle, reputation in the previous 13 years has made it more competitive than the competing products at the same level. But, at the same time, the competition in this level is also fierce, a good reputation may not promise a good sale. Consumers have become more aware of their need and paid more attention to quality and ease of usage instead of pursuing configuration blindly. The spacious seating space and high-level configuration of the newly Excelle are willing to grasp customers who want to buy a joint venture brand car that is good in these aspects. The market positioning is quite accurate.

Editor:Huang Xuan