2024 Buick Envision Avenir Interior Review: Technology Glow-Up
A new expansive display is the highlight of the refreshed Envision’s decluttered dash.
Much has already come out about the refreshed 2024 Buick Envision. The compact SUV’s updated, Wildcat-inspired exterior styling broke cover last summer. Since then, we’ve learned the Envision will be available exclusively with AWD, include several new standard technologies, and offer a sporty ST trim level.
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Ahead of the crossover’s summer on-sale date, Buick granted us our first in-person look at the refresh. It arranged a quick preview of a 2024 Envision Avenir, the top model, giving us a chance to poke around inside and appreciate its big new screen, among other design and feature content changes.
Displays Now in Widescreen
The Envision’s new ginormous 30-inch cabin screen easily gets top billing among the refresh’s changes. Seeing it in person stretched across the left two thirds of the restyled dash, it’s almost awe-inspiring in scope—like when 70-inch flatscreen TVs and larger started to become a normal thing for the home.
To be clear, it doesn’t look like one curved housing with a couple or more screens packed in it. This presents like one long, continuous monitor with uninterrupted graphics. It’s a significant upgrade from the old-school gauge cluster and available 10.2-inch infotainment touchscreen that used to occupy the space.
The screen runs a Google-based operating system and is customizable, which is to say it can host apps, and some windows can be shuffled around. Both wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are still supported. Status on critical vehicle parameters remains ahead of the driver and is now supplemented with a head-up display that comes with the Envision’s standard Technology I package. This also makes the nine-speaker Bose audio standard for 2024.
How Buick Streamlined the Envision’s Interior
The Envision’s redesigned dash, center stack, center console, and steering wheel admittedly look much less like they came out of the GM parts bin. The tailored rather than molded plastic appearance of the dash in particular—with its stitched seams—is more upscale, even if it doesn’t feel as nice as some competitors. HVAC controls now sit on the same plane as the front center air vents, switchgear that juts out a little from the center stack on a shelf.
The small triangular divider that used to sit between the front passenger’s knees and the front part of the center console is now gone. So are the biggish electronic precision shift buttons for choosing a gear—that selector is now a stalk on the steering column. As we’ve already seen, the steering wheel also skews more premium, boasting angled buttons and standard leather upholstery. ST models score a standard flat-bottom wheel.
Generally, the dash looks a lot less plasticky and busy compared to the pre-refresh model. The Envision ST in these photos reflects an attractive Garnet/Ebony interior color motif, a new theme this model year along with Cool Gray/Slate Blue. On the highest trim, the pattern in the front seat upholstery has been updated for the refresh, but seat padding seems otherwise unchanged—comfortable up front and a touch stiffer on the rear bench.
