Buick Envision

Buick Envision
It does have a couple of special features which might have a chance for future use, such as the two-layer traditional Buick waterfall grille, which regulates air intake to meet the demand of the power system and achieve optimized aerodynamic performance, or the porcelain-like daytime LED lamps house five “Chinese pillar-like” LED bulbs. The same sort of design is repeated at the back. The concept also features 22-inch doubled-layered aluminum alloy wheels with silicon sports tires.

This being a family crossover the car is pretty spacious inside and some unique features that to be honest are too fancy to have a chance for production. For example traditional rearview mirrors have been replaced by three micro-cameras to catch and relay images of the road to the dashboard. When the car is moving, speed, fuel consumption and navigation details are projected onto the windshield in 3-D so that the driver does not have to take his or her eyes off the road. has some more convenient features too, such as Bluetooth DUN Intelligent Internet system allows users to connect to the Web with their cell phones.

As for the technicalities, it’s powered by a 2.0-liter SIDI intelligent direct injection turbocharged engine coupled with two electric motors, linked to a dual automatic/manual eight-speed transmission with AWD. One cool feature of it is solar energy roof to provide additional charge for the battery pack.

Other technology elements include an electromagnetic suspension (as pioneered by Cadillac), a "next-generation" intelligent Bluetooth system that links mobile phones to the Web, a heads-up information display projected onto the windshield, and an OLED touch-screen interface.

There's also a solar panel on the roof, though the press release goes a little overboard when it says, "additional energy for the battery is produced by the solar roof."

The twists and turns of that powertrain's fate would take more space than we have here (they were originally intended to debut in a 2010 Saturn Vue Plug-In Hybrid). We suspect GM engineers have been quietly refining the technology in the background even though several products meant to house it have been stillborn.

The Envision uses a 2.0-liter direct-injected and turbocharged four-cylinder engine, though no output figures were provided. Neither was there an electric range, a capacity for the lithium-ion battery pack, or any other actual numbers for this concept.

It was specified as all-wheel-drive (it's a crossover, after all), and the only detail of the hybrid system was a reference to a pair of electric motor-generators. Buick also refers to a "dual automatic/manual eight-speed transmission," but doesn't mention how it's combined with or integrated into the electric motors.

We hope to talk to GM about exactly how this mix of components work, so we can make some guesses about performance--even if the company won't release numbers.