Where does Buick sit in the automotive world today? By all accounts, they’re meant to be more premium than Chevrolet, but not as luxurious as Cadillac — but isn’t that the role GMC usually plays? It made sense when they made cars as well to differentiate themselves, but Buick’s lineup today is all crossovers, making its position among GM’s portfolio all the more confusing. The 2026 Buick Envista ST doesn’t help.

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The Envista is based on the ho-hum Chevrolet Trax, sharing the same platform and powertrain. It’s definitely the looker of the two, with a swooping roofline giving it an almost fastback look akin to a BMW X6, right down to the short and flat rear deck lid. The slim headlights and tail lights look sharp, and the large but well-integrated grille looks classy. There’s a mix of gloss black trim and satin silver accents which work well with our tester’s Ocean Blue Metallic paint. Ditto the black 19” wheels. The Envista is a handsome little thing for sure.

Premium outside, something else inside

The premium feel doesn’t seep into the Envista’s cabin, feeling much closer to its Chevy counterpart than you’d expect. Cheap-feeling, dark plastics are littered throughout the cabin, including in places you regularly interact with. The seats are comfortable enough, but feel flat overall both front and rear, although the contrast stitching and ST logos embroidered on the headrests are nice touches. Although not an Envista-exclusive issue, there’s far too much piano black on the centre console. The shifter also feels oddly hollow and doesn’t have a pronounced-enough detent for D, which caused me to accidentally slip it into L more than I’d like to admit.

The single-zone climate control — more on that later — has physical controls below the “ultrawide” 11-inch infotainment screen, itself sitting to the right of a smaller eight-inch digital gauge cluster. The gauge cluster is as basic as it gets, with very simple graphics and an achingly slow refresh rate. The larger borders around both screens certainly don’t help in keeping things feeling modern, especially compared to the truly ultrawide display in models like the Enclave.

The money’s in the features

As uninspiring as the Envista’s interior is, it does come well equipped from a tech and feature standpoint. Single-zone climate control aside — it’s odd to see this instead of dual-zone in a premium product — you do get all the active safety features you’d want for your growing family, including adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, parking assist, lane keep assist, and more. The Envista even has a following distance indicator, so you can see how many seconds behind you are from the car in front of you, like an F1 driver! There are also creature comforts like wireless charging, a power liftgate, remote start, and rain-sensing wipers, as long as you tick off the optional convenience package.

Thankfully GM’s Android Auto/Apple Car Play axe hasn’t hit the Envista yet, so I was able to take advantage of wireless Android Auto, which worked except when my music would skip like the Sony Discman I’d try and keep still on the school bus. Sadly, this happened multiple times, but a reboot would often solve it.

Triple threat this is not

The entire Envista range features GM’s 1.2-litre turbocharged three-cylinder Ecotec engine, driving the only the front wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission. We’re seeing more three-cylinder engines out there, but this one doesn’t feel particularly polished. Due to its diminutive size, there’s virtually no power to be had until the turbo kicks in, which can take a beat as the transmission is rather slow to respond to generous requests via the throttle pedal. With only 137 horsepower, the Envista runs out of steam in the upper RPM range, but once the turbo is fully spooled up, its 162 pound-feet of torque feels wholly adequate for a compact crossover like the Envista. The slow-responding transmission can also be a little clunky at times its operation, compared to the CVTs and multi-gear automatics used in the Envista’s competitors. I never thought I’d praise a CVT.

The Envista’s suspension and steering are well-calibrated, with our tester featuring an optional Watts Link rear suspension which keeps the solid rear axle centered during hard manoeuvring. A bit of an unexpected feature on a Buick, but it does help the Envista maintain maintain good overall composure and decent ride quality. The automatic start/stop feature makes things a bit herky-jerky at times, but helps keep fuel economy pretty solid, averaging 8.1 L/100 km over a week.

Who am I?

The 2025 Buick Envista has its flaws, but is also priced at a very value-driven $32,489 as-tested, including the two Convenience packages and an extra $495 for our tester’s Ocean Blue Metallic paint. Buick’s problem isn’t the pretty little Envista, but rather an existential crisis as to who they’re supposed to be and where it fits into GM’s portfolio. They make great products — the last Envision I drove was especially nice — but if Buick is to survive, I think they need to decide what really makes them different outside of being nicer-looking Chevys.