Cadillac to Offer a Barrage of New Cars, Including Halo Vehicle
The 2019 Cadillac XT4 is the first of what could be a dozen new or redesigned cars from Cadillac over the next 45 months. GM’s luxury brand is on a “product offensive that will see a new launch every few months right through the end of 2021,” Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen told attendees at the 2018 Automotive Forum on the eve of the 2018 New York International Auto Show.
Related: More 2018 New York Auto Show News
The product salvo will come in a swath of luxury classes. As de Nysschen spoke at the forum — an event hosted by J.D. Power and Associates and the National Automobile Dealers Association — a slide behind him showed blacked-out future products in myriad vehicle classes. Those classes are designated by Cadillac, but the upshot was clear: In less than four years, everything but the CT6 sedan and Cadillac XT5 SUV will be redesigned or all-new, with a product spread that reaches nearly all classes. That means new or redesigned Cadillacs could debut over the next four years among everything from entry-level premium sedans to larger crossovers and full-size SUVs.
Super Cruise Is Super Popular
Which Cadillacs will have the brand’s Super Cruise hands-free self-driving system? The highway-only feature comes only on the CT6 sedan, and it’s only on the highest of its four trim levels — the $85,000-plus CT6 Platinum — at that.
“Our industry has arrived at a new inflection point with the rise of the autonomous revolution,” he said. “We’re actually beginning to deprogram a century of muscle memory. For the first time since 1902, we’re telling drivers that it’s OK to take your hands off the wheel.”
And consumers are buying it. One in four CT6 customers gets a Super Cruise-equipped car, de Nysschen said, and even more buyers order their CT6 with it. That exceeds Cadillac’s original expectations, which projected about 15 percent of CT6 shoppers wanting the system.
The news comes as the brand unveiled a Cadillac CT6 V-Sport version of the sedan, complete with a twin-turbo V-8 that’s good for 550 horsepower. It also launched its third SUV, the compact XT4, at this week’s show.
Given shoppers’ current preference for all things SUV, GM’s luxury brand needs it. Global sales are surging, but Cadillac slipped 8 percent in the U.S. in 2017 despite incentives increasing 10.6 percent per vehicle, Autodata Corp. finds. That beats the industry’s 9.4 percent gain, but overall Cadillac incentives last year still averaged $6,881 per new car sold, outpacing all other major luxury brands.
Halo Needed, but Not a Conventional Sedan
Still, de Nysschen points to the brand’s progress on transaction prices, which he says are up 15 percent from 2014 to 2017. That’s despite the brand lacking a traditional full-size flagship sedan to compete with the likes of the BMW 7 Series and Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
Asked about building an expensive flagship sedan in the conventional sense, de Nysschen demurred.
“Cadillac needs some halo product to really reinforce its aspirational appeal,” he said, “but I don’t think the world needs another large, three-box conventional sedan. … It’s a segment that we used to own, but it’s occupied land right now.”
A halo car of some sort is coming, de Nysschen said, but he hinted at a longer timeframe.
“We are going to produce a halo vehicle for Cadillac,” he said. “When it comes, it will stun the world. But I’m going to ask that you’d be a little more patient.”
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