What Should Cadillac Do To Make a Comeback

What they need to do is they need to start increasing the quality of their vehicles and start making their own chassis again. Driving a Caddy-badged Equinox isn't what people want anymore. I feel they should just focus on their quality, not their quantity like Lincoln seems to be doing. Sure, it will drive the price up a fair bit but it's a Cadillac.

Every Cadillac sedan except for the XTS is built on a bespoke Cadillac platform and are all available with bespoke Cadillac motors. Then you say Cadillac should be more like Lincoln, yet every single one of their cars rides on a Ford platform. The only RWD car they make is the navigator.

Cadillac should redesign the Northstar to run and bring back the STS and keep the XTS.

I've been selling them for 3 years. Its simple. We were car heavy in a crossover crazed world. XT4 couldn't come to soon. XT6 will be huge for us as well. The redone CT5, if styled more aggressively than the vanilla ATS and lukewarm CTS, should help overall sales too. We can make the greatest sedans in the world and if no one is buying sedans, it doesn't matter. We need crossovers. We need an expressive coupe. We need a halo convertible. Those along with an updated CT6 and redesigned Escalade should leave us sitting pretty.

Sad to think that these mommy-mobiles are what everyone wants.

My personal opinion: ditch the gloss plastic interior and plastic chrome look... it looks too generic for a high luxury vehicle. Interior is great otherwise, but not a fan of the gloss at all as I've always thought it made it look cheap. I also think the fender line headlights need a major rework across the board. I can see they really tried to embed it in their entire lineup, but I think the depth could be reworked to not look so out of place/unnecessary all the way up the fender-line. Cadillac as a whole has done WAY better than Buick could ever dream off tho coming into a new age, and I think they'll succeed no matter what for a long time.

One big thing for me is ditching their stupid alphabet/numbers name soup on their cars! I know what a Seville is. What the hell is a CT6?

I understand that the latest rage is CUVs, SUVs and trucks, but I think that the low gas prices that lured people in to buy big vehicles are gone, and the gas prices are steadily creeping up. Even though Cadillac was slow to follow that trend, their most exciting cars to me were the ATS-V and CTS-V, but they are dropping both of those models now. Clues to a good future for Cadillac come from rumors of them building a halo luxury supercar based on the upcoming mid-engine Corvette, and the CT6 V-Sport with 550HP/627TQ is a good move. But with Chevy hinting at a Camaro V8/hybrid with 545HP and 24MPG, Cadillac should lead the industry by putting that drivetrain in their sedans, crossovers, and SUVs, and they should also leverage the Bolt's battery to offer pure electric versions on all of their models. In China Buick showed off their impressive Enspire pure electric CUV concept with 370 miles of range and 4 sec 0-60 acceleration, but they should release it as a Cadillac in the U.S. Cadillac earned their reputation as an engineering and luxury innovator years ago, but they need to lead in these new technologies, being the marque that shows off the best new ideas of GM first, rather than following Europe's luxury brands a couple years later.

Al, with all of the ideas that I mentioned, from a mid engined supercar to Cadillac selling the Enspire here under their brand, you shouldn't focus on the PHEV thing. PHEVs will be here for many years to come, just as regular hybrids have still flourished despite the introduction of PHEVs and BEVs. It is important to understand that the slice of electrified cars needs to grow across the board, including all variations, to be more than a token gesture in the larger automotive market. It isn't enough that Cadillac builds a flagship limo that's a BEV, they need to lead the industry to offer PHEV and BEV versions of all of the vehicles across their whole model lineup to be recognized as an industry leader.

Dean I love you. But ZERO EMISSIONS NOT LOW. ZERO. That’s ZERO. That is the point of having these things otherwise what’s the point of having your car can stink up the environment after 50 miles ok? Years yes by 2040. That’s it. Now did you do what I asked?

Yes, that article that Armen posted about Cadillac's future is very relevant to this topic. "First was at the Bank of America / Merrill Lynch Auto Summit in the spring of 2018 in which GM CEO Mary Barra showed a slide that gives us a glimpse into telescopic overview of future Cadillac product plans. Second, was that at the Barclays Global Automotive Conference a year ago Barra discussed GM's plans to develop a new, highly-modular EV platform. The third comes from Cadillac's Chief Johan De Nysschen, who told Motor Trend in April of 2018 that Cadillac will get its first pure electric vehicle in 2021. GM has ambitious EV plans, and Cadillac "features disproportionately in terms of how many of those vehicles will have the Cadillac crest." In that same interview he said that the next generation Escalade is not due until 2021 and its "gonna blow you away."" But we are talking about rumors, clues and educated guesses. And the timeline given for starting is 2021. This highlights the folly of a "Zero emissions or Nothing" philosophy. Tesla started over 10 years ago and they are just starting to make a profit now. Happily their EV groundwork brings a public awareness and acceptance that makes it possible for traditional automakers to ramp up far more quickly. But there is not going to be a full model lineup transition to BEVs. The move to adding more EVs will involve more hybrids, PHEVs, and a larger than 1% more to BEVs. Even VW who has a legal obligation to leave diesel, and promote BEVs will take several years to ramp up their MEB-(Modular Electrification Toolkit) system. I am excited about the EV announcements, but I am realistic about the fact that the current petroleum based system still dominates over 95% of new vehicle sales. So hybrids, and PHEVs will still pave the way for the BEVs of tomorrow, and it is vital to support the move to an electrification of cars in a way that keeps it's feet while promoting it's legs.

Cadillac should DEFINITELY produce V-series versions of their entire lineup, (sans Escapade) regardless of the models and when they change! If corvette shares their midengined platform reminiscent of the XLR/Corvette relationship, then I will stay buying Cadillacs for the rest of my life. Remember to make them fit 6'4" Americans...

Nope. I stand by my statement. I think that GM is making a real mistake cutting the Volt now, and I believe that many manufacturers will be offering PHEVs for several years to come, with many of them transitioning their normal hybrid offerings to PHEVs. I think that there will still be new PHEVs sold 10 years from now because there is a large group of buyers who want the security of having a gasoline backup for roughly unlimited driving range. The Volt was selling well in it's compact car market, but I think that GM will be soon releasing several BEV models, and seeing that their federal EV subsidies are nearing the end I think that they killed the Volt early to be able to announce the release of new BEV models with the full EV subsidies (+/- $10,000 cheaper) to insure early sales success. Most likely though the new GM BEVs will be built in China or Mexico, which is going to anger a great many Americans who are still upset over having to bail GM out a few years ago (because of making similar poor corporate decisions). So even though I am pleased that GM is jumping ahead with their move to BEVs (although they have not formally announced that this is the reason for killing the Volt and closing the Ohio factories) the choice was poorly timed. I heard that Tesla is looking to possibly buy the closed GM factories for production of their BEVs, but that would be a double-blow for GM getting bad press for the Ohio shut downs, and also enabling Tesla to grow just when GM is looking to seriously expand into BEV models of their own. The smartest move for GM would be to announce the move to BEV production ASAP and build them in the Ohio plants, but I suspect that they have already done preparations to build their upcoming BEVs overseas a long time ago, and reversing those plans now would delay their expansion into the BEV market for several (critical) years, while their competitors take over the expanding market. Ford and Chrysler are too quiet on their plans for BEV transition as well, which is disturbing.