Future Cadillac Lineup to Include Five SUVs
By 2020 Cadillac is planning to expand its product lineup significantly and a big part of that growth will be with high-riding, all-wheel drive crossovers.
The luxury division of General Motors will invest $12 billion dollars to bring eight all-new products to market in the next five years, with three of those additions being crossovers.
Cadillac president Johan de Nysschen said crossovers are, “an important part of growth in the luxury market,” and confirmed to AutoGuide that, “There are three additional crossovers that will enter the Cadillac portfolio that do not exist today.”
The three new models won’t be replacement vehicles either. De Nysschen confirmed that the Escalade will live on and the SRX will have a successor, though it will be rebadged.
As for Cadillac’s sedan plans, de Nysschen described it as a “rebalancing” of the brand’s lineup. “Some will become a little smaller. Some a little bigger. With the sedans, some of them there is no natural successor.”
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The big investment in crossovers is in many ways being driven by consumer demand in China, but it’s also part of Cadillac’s larger strategy to take on the established luxury car brands from Germany.
“In order to expand Cadillac’s product portfolio we need to get to critical mass in terms of volume,” said de Nysschen. “The quickest yield to arrive at this critical mass is China.”
So China will essentially fund Cadillac’s ability to become a truly global player and take on the European brands and the European market.
“The Europeans are not about to say to Cadillac, ‘hey guys, come into our backyard and steal our customers.’ They’re likely to fight,” said de Nysschen. “And I’m ready for a fight. But I’ll fight them when I’m ready.”
That, he said, won’t be until after 2020. “I don’t think we want to wage war on two fronts at the same time. It’s better to attack Europe from a position of strength.”
Establishing that position began this week at the New York International Auto Show, where Cadillac launched the first of its eight new products, a new flagship sedan called the CT6.
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With AutoGuide from its launch, Colum previously acted as Editor-in-Chief of Modified Luxury & Exotics magazine where he became a certifiable car snob driving supercars like the Koenigsegg CCX and racing down the autobahn in anything over 500 hp. He has won numerous automotive journalism awards including the Best Video Journalism Award in 2014 and 2015 from the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Colum founded Geared Content Studios, VerticalScope's in-house branded content division and works to find ways to integrate brands organically into content.
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It's sad, but I think the day of the car has come and gone.