It’s an odd time for the automotive industry, as traditional automakers scramble to get electric cars out the door. Car companies like BMW who’ve been giants in the auto industry for literally a century are now trying to reinvent themselves to keep up with the quickly changing times. Just a few years ago, BMW was one of the few brands pushing EVs. Now, several brands have some really impressive electric cars and another brand that will soon be making the push comes from left field a bit — Cadillac.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the hell GM wants to do with Cadillac most of the time. It’s a shame, too. Cadillac is a brand with an incredibly long history and was once known as the pinnacle of American automotive ingenuity. Now, though, it’s a shell of what it once was and pumps out rebadged Chevys more than anything else.
Under the helm of Johan de Nysschen, Caddy was starting to show signs of life, with cars like the current Cadillac CTS-V, which is a 640 hp monster. Also, Caddy is developing its own 5.5 liter twin-turbo V8 that would be hand built by one engineer, similar to AMG.
However, de Nysschen was forced out for some reason and now Cadillac’s plan has been flipped around and focused more on front-wheel drive crossovers to appeal to the soccer-mom crowd. Though, there’s a chance that the famed American brand could once again be at the forefront of technological advancement, as GM seems to want to make Cadillac its “lead electric vehicle brand.”
GM is actually off to a good start in the world of electrification. The Chevy Bolt is a fantastic little electric car, one that provides excellent range, good interior tech and a very attractive price. Also, Cadillac is quietly one of the best makers of autonomous technology, as the CT6’s “Super Cruise” system is quite impressive. So the Detroit Giant actually seems to know what it’s doing when it comes to the future.
With that being said, it makes sense to make Cadillac the face of that future. Cadillac is supposed to be the shining beacon of GM’s capabilities and, in turn, America’s automotive capabilities. So putting Cadillac in charge of EV development, based on GM’s new scalable EV architecture, is a smart move. It makes Cadillac the high-tech, high-end luxury brand it’s supposed to be and always should have been.
Also, it lets Caddy’s engineers do their thing. For years, I always wished that Caddy would break from GM, as its engineers showed so much promise in its cars but it was obvious the only thing hamstringing the cars was their budget. So with Cadillac heading up GM’s EV tech, it will likely get a bigger budget to create some impressive cars that will spearhead the brand.
Honestly, we’re cautiously optimistic about this. It would be very cool to see Cadillac become one of the industry leaders in EV tech and make some cool electric cars. However, we’ve been let down by Caddy in the past (all the time, actually), so we’re tempering our optimism a bit. Still, it’s hard not to like hearing this news.
I grew up loving Chevy but there rental car mentally, quantity vs quality has hurt them. Then they went bankrupt trying to leave rental fleets to compete in the global market which they had too much catching up to do. The tax payers took a 10 billion tax hit. Then a few months after the bailouts the upper levels received multiple million payouts. GM needs to be a leader. They follow what comes out of Germany. Plus Germany has always been a leader in safety. Seatbelts, airbags, stability all had to be mandated in the USA. Europe has tougher emissions and recent headlight tech can not be released in the USA because of the slow wheels of bureaucratic democracy. You can sit in a $40,000 Caddy and a $40,000 BMW, MB, or Audi. The Europeans still have the edge! Plus GM always is the same MSRP as their competitors and it is made in Mexico/CanadaUSA
No.
I’ve given Cadillac a lot of rope over the past few years, but have been continually let down.
They are stuck in a good-enough, save a few cents here and there, use a Chevy window switch because we have one, mindset; and are unable to recover.
How do I know? They hired Johann DeNysschen a few years ago with a promise to rebuild the brand, taking care to pay attention to and target the standards of global luxury brands. Ultimately, GM was unsatisfied with Johann’s insistence on taking a temporary hit as Cadillac shifted customer focus, and with his desire to pursue quality over quick-and-easy quantity. Especially with crossovers.
The result, Johann was unwilling to compromise on quality and push out crossovers fast enough, so GM fired him and brought in an inside man to run the division instead.
Now, Cadillac is moving to decidedly downmarket Warren, Michigan; surely a place where no one with a villa, yacht, or private jet has ever sought to visit. They have indicated they will be satisfied with gussied-up Chevys.
I do not see Cadillac as a threat to a true luxury player like BMW, Audi, Mercedes, or Lexus. They don’t know what luxury is, and even if they did, they don’t have it in them to execute.