In case you’ve been asleep behind the wheel of your Autopilot-equipped Tesla, Cadillac plans to be a 100% EV brand. Smaller and rural Cadillac dealers are already shocked to find out that unless they pony up at least $200,000 for EV charging infrastructure, tools and training, they may lose their franchise after 2022, as they’ll have nothing else to sell.
“There may be a few dealers that don’t necessarily share the Cadillac vision,” Rory Harvey, Cadillac’s vice president of sales, service and marketing, told Automotive News last week. “We believe that most dealers will.”
Harvey communicated the requirements for Cadillac’s 880 U.S. dealers to maintain their franchise beyond the arrival of the Lyriq electric crossover in late 2022 in a video last week. In an interview, he said $200,000 would be the “entry ticket cost,” with expenses potentially rising beyond that as more EVs debut and sales volumes increase.
It hits Cadillac dealers extra-hard, as GM expects to fully phase out everything but EVs for Cadillac, sometime around or before 2030. Meanwhile other GM dealers have a choice, as they will still have IC vehicles to sell if they choose not to sell the coming range of EVs. So far one-half of GMC dealers have opted to pony up to sell the upcoming Hummer EV pickup.
While admittedly not feeling overly charitable at the moment, this announcement by Cadillac sounds marinated in arrogance.
From a semi-rural perspective, Cadillac is often still “The” luxury car for many reasons, not least of which is the dearth of other “luxury” brand dealers in non-urban areas. One can find a Chevrolet/Cadillac dealer in the middle of nowhere; that does not happen with Acura, Lexus, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, etc. Thus my question is how much of Cadillac’s overall sales come from more rural dealers.
In turn, I fully agree with the assessment in the headline as many of these dealers to tell Cadillac to go pound sand.
Additionally, Cadillac is a brand of lesser prestige and aspiration in the more urbanized areas. That’s where the Acura, Lexus, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, etc. dealers can be found.
Go for it, Cadillac. Like the annoying kid who thinks he can fly when he jumps off the roof of the house, I say have fun with that.
Like I said, I’m not in a charitable mood this morning.
UPDATE: According to carsalesbase.com Cadillac sold 156,000 vehicles for 2019. With 880 dealers, that is an average of 177 cars each – and we know that is strictly an average. So with the smaller dealers moving, what, maybe 35 to 50, it’s not worth their time.
It’s been good knowing you, Cadillac. You may be the rejuvenation of Lincoln.
I don’t understand their moves at all. The Escalade has been the only Cadillac that consistently sells well, and yet GM is intent on constantly coming out with cars to compete with the Europeans, that are what 0 Americans expect or want out of a Cadillac. It might be the most traditional, conservative brand in the US.
So when going Euro didn’t work for them, go full EV? It’s almost like they’re intent on killing the brand.
Build a midsized CUV with the Escalade’s style, but easier for retirees to park, call it the Escalade Sport, print money. The XT4/5/6 aren’t awful, but what people want out of a Cadillac is some style & swagger, not overpriced anonymity.
Use that money to built a new Fleetwood (ie a car American’s expect of Cadillac), and leave EVs & small sedans to Chevrolet.
If you want a modern Fleetwood, try to find a 2019-2020 Cadillac CT6 4.2 Platinum or 2019-2020 CT6-V and re-badge it. That is the end of the line for the model formally known as Fleetwood. Once the “V” sold out Cadillac introduced the 4.2 Platinum.
The Platinum makes 500 HP and 574 LB/FT
The V makes 550 HP and 640 LB/FT
The difference in trims are described by Cnet’s Antuan Goodwin below.
The CT6-V also features unique and more athletic tuning for its steering assist, adaptive suspension, stability control and rear-wheel steering systems. There’s a carbon fiber spoiler out back and a more aggressive lower fascia, both of which are aerodynamically functional and help reduce lift at high speeds. Braking duties are handled by the same large, Brembo stoppers as the Platinum model, with four-pot calipers up front and two-piston grabbers at the rear. However, standard 20-inch wheels shod in stickier Summer tires help the CT6-V grip better whether braking, accelerating or cornering.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/reviews/2020-cadillac-ct6-preview/
That sounds more like a BMW 550i, nobody looking for what they know as a Fleetwood would take a glance at this. And nobody looking for a BMW 550i would look at it either, they’d just get the BMW. This car exemplifies everything that is wrong with Cadillac and making it electric or replacing it with an electric car won’t change a thing.
That car would have better luck as a new Chevrolet SS or a Corvette sedan…
If we all lived in a timeline where Buick embraced rear wheel drive, all wheel drive, and turbocharging from 1988 onwards, and Buick became an American alternative to Audi, this would be the 2019-2020 Buick Park Avenue Ultra. We can all dream, can’t we?
Yeah, the CT6 is still trying to hard to be a European competitor IMO. It needs to be about 50% softer riding, and much less expensive. And the name! Enough with the alphanumerics Cadillac!!
Something along the idea of a Chrysler 300, but a little more upscale. A full-sized, comfortable sedan with no pretense of sportiness.
I don’t get the whole model name issue with car buyers. When people buy boats they name them “Princess” “Destiny” etc.
When people by planes they are required to paint “Civilian Registration Numbers” on them.
If you have enough money to buy a new Cadillac, there should be enough money to take it to someone like Counts Customs and get it re-badge to Fleetwood, Sedan Deville, whatever else. The only people that need to know it’s a CT6 are the DMV, the leinholder, the tax assessor, and the insurance company.
The customer is under no obligation to retain factory badging or identification.
Customization will probably hurt re-sale, but we only live once. Might as well have fun.
It’s not that the name itself is bad, it’s that it conveys nothing.
You’re coming it at from the point of view that people would buy this car, but for the name.
That’s not what I’m saying, the point of a name is to market a car. To get them to know it even exists.
No one sees a commercial and remembers, “Ohhh, I really like the new CT6”. If someone sees a commercial for the “The New Fleetwood”, they’ll remember it and maybe consider buying it.
Alphanumerics work when the make of the car sells itself, and people just buy whatever size sausage they can afford. BMW. Mercedes. Audi
Cadillac isn’t one of those, it has to sell individual cars, like the Escalade, on their merits because the brand itself is not motivating buyers.
Unfortunately, Cadillac fudged it up again and again since the 1970s with product planning.
Cadillac decided to sell only 275 units of 550-hp CT6-V Blackwing for the US market. Yes, just 275 units. The entire allocation of CT6-V Blackwing was sold out in minutes. Cadillac offered the second CT6 model with Blackwing engine: this time, 4.2 Platinum with detuned 500-hp engine. They were also sold out quickly.
Cadillac made the Blackwing V8 an exclusive for its CT6 and stillborn larger flagship, Escala. This engine would not be fitted to any other Cadillac.
Every once in a while I’ll see a nice (I.e. old) Cadillac but then I realize how very long it’s been since Cadillac even remotely mattered. Same with Lincoln. I think both of those ships have sailed – and sunk. Car people have much longer memories than car customers.
I don’t disagree.
My reference to Lincoln was purposeful. It will (at least for now) remain as a “luxury” brand in a wider cross section of this country than what Cadillac will be after this short-sighted edict from GM – and Lexus, Audi, BMW, etc will not be building dealerships in rural areas to capture those potential sales. Similar jumps happened during the 1980s and 1990s with Cadillac’s front-wheel drive endeavor when many jumped ship to Lincoln.
I agree with you today. Cadillac wants to play in the big cities where the cool people live but I have some serious doubt that this is where their customer base really comes from. And I am not sure that ditching that base is going to make them attractive to the folks who are not buying their cars now.
But I have been wrong before.
It’s their eternal dream. I used to drive past their relocated marketing department on Hudson Street in West Soho every day. That didn’t last very long.
I agree with you. Also, this reminds me of JC Penney’s disastrous attempt to reinvent itself under Ron Johnson, formerly of Apple.
RJ thought he’d turn JC Penney hip by abandoning traditional sales, hiring Ellen D. as a spokesperson, and generally doing everything else he could think of to send JC’s traditional, older customers running for the exits. RJ apparently thought he was some kind of retail genius due to his success at Apple; truth be told, he could have sold Apple stuff out of rusty shipping containers and still been a success.
We all know how that turned out. Now Cadillac in its infinite wisdom is doing somewhat the same thing.
Good luck with that.
Misread your second-last sentence as “infantile wisdom” Fits.
It’ll probably be a moot point, since switching to a mode of propulsion nobody wants will assure the Cadillac brand of extinction by the end of the decade anyway.
“Switching to a mode of propulsion nobody wants”
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?
In Bill’s defense, what I think he may have meant is that EV’s are a mode of transportation that Cadillac owners do not want.
EVS are all the rage among the young and/or trendy, as well as educated folks who see the benefits of EVs and are willing to accept the shortcomings, and who have the scratch to afford them.
But for having the scratch, Cadillac owners are not who I’d put in the previous paragraph. That’s not a knock on them, just what I see.
Cadillac has been trying to chase the Euro and Asian lux brands for decades, and has shot itself in the foot every time. This move just may be the coup de grace.
There are quite a few Tesla owners that would disagree.
In fact, I would wager Tesla’s rise is what’s behind this move. GM has figured out that investing in a solid charging infrastructure is critical to the success of a luxury EV, and they’re laying the financial burden on the Cadillac dealership network. Expensive? You bet, but Musk ponied up the billions for the Supercharger network (they’re constantly adding stations) and it’s paid off handsomely for him. GM is simply trying to look ahead to where the luxury vehicle market is headed. I can think of much worse luxury marques to follow.
GM has figured out that investing in a solid charging infrastructure is critical to the success of a luxury EV…
What about the electricity infrastructure? We have seen how the infrastructure struggled to keep up with demand in California last summer, leading to the numerous rolling black-outs. Will the infrastructure be upgraded as fast as possible to meet the increasing demand or be bogged down by financial issues or by the local city councils and citizens with NIMBY mentality?
Requiring dealers to have a charging station is not, repeat not investing in a solid charging infrastructure. Look at Chevrolet dealers right now. Dealers who carry the Bolt are encouraged to have a charging station. Invariably its a L2 rather than a DC quick charger. Often it’s either inside the service bay or hidden on the side of the building where dealer cars are parked blocking it. I hear some dealers are good about others using it, but it is not generally part of the “charging infrastructure”.
I love my electrics, Bolt and Spark, but as usual GM doesn’t really get it.
I don’t see what this has to do with investing in a charging infrastructure. They are just requiring dealers to have some chargers so that the vehicles can be charged when they roll off the transporter, between test drives, and after the customer brings his car in to have that squeak or Christmas tree dash board checked out. Sure just like Nissan dealers they might allow you to get a charge for free if there is a free spot, but chargers at dealers aren’t intended as charging network.
Nobody wants an EV? Maybe in your world, but that’s a very risky generalization. And I’m definitely an exception to that generalization, as I’ll be buying (used) or leasing (new) my first EV sometime in the first 90-120 days of 2021. It’s been in the planning stages for two years now, was supposed to happen last fall, but the little matter of my garage fire put it on hold. Not necessarily for the bad, as the new garage is wired for Level 2 charging, while the old one wasn’t.
Now, I can’t disagree with you on the possibility of Cadillac extinction. However, if it does die it’s because this century has been a series of misshots and too-little/too-late in their product line. First, they decided to become the “American BMW”, completely missing the idea that if someone wants a BMW they’re going to buy the original German product. Which, of course, has more status because it’s foreign made (see Corvette vs. Porsche/Ferrari).
Now, they’re trying to be the “upscale electric brand” a decade after Tesla has already claimed that target, and looks to be holding on to it for the next half decade, at least.
As many other people has said here, repeatedly, Cadillac’s failing is that they aren’t anything special anymore, in fact they’re nothing more than a copycat of whatever is the latest hot marketing trend. Which sure doesn’t appeal to the status oriented buyer.
“Foreign” isn’t the prestige difference between Corvette and Ferrari/Porsche sports cars. They’ve outright won the world’s most important sports car race a combined total of 27 times: Corvette, zero. Nonetheless, Corvette outsells Ferrari and Porsche sports cars combined in the US as it should with the price and distribution advantage.
Barely. According to GMAuthority.com, Corvette sold less than 18,000 units in the US in 2019. Porsche sold 13,000 911/718 variants and Ferrari sold 1,555 units. I would have guessed a higher number of Corvette sales. If you want to include Panamera sales (I didn’t but that can be debated) that would add another 6,600 to the total.
Porsche’s line of SUVs is its bread and butter, like Chevrolet. Porsche mostly is an SUV company with a sports car name.
And exactly zero of Porsche’s SUVs and sedans have racing pedigree either. Point?
Hey, not a big Corvette fan, but they do have a history of winning big sports car racing.
Since 2000, Corvette has competed at Le Mans every year, won its class eight times. Most concur Le Mans to be the biggest sports car race, and that qualifies it as most important to most. So, while no overall wins, but class wins, and that is the same thing for Ferrari and Porsche for their street legal versions. The overall wins were using models one could not pop down to a dealer and drive off in. All overall wins were with special racing only cars How many 911 won overall? How many road legal Ferraris finished first overall?
Well, I certainly don’t want an electric car and don’t see myself ever owning one. (You’ll never be able to get rid of gasoline in my lifetime, certainly not in my remaining driving years.)
There is no legitimate reason for a massive push to electric vehicles. Seems like Cadillac is making a really bonehead decision here. Of course being GM that’s no surprise.
The automotive version of aging rock icons who tried to go electronic in the eighties in a bid to become hip again.
Or if Leppelin were to attempt a comeback as a boy band. Or if Radiohead tried it’s hand at gangsta rap.
This just feels completely wrong.
Maybe GM should proudly embrace its customer base and stop trying to impress people who will never buy a Cadillac.
Like your last sentence says. But I’m wondering whether the Cadillac name is now an insurmountable liability when it comes to reaching the customers they’re after. Cadillac has been trying to reinvent itself since, what, the late eighties? That’s almost two generations of people who haven’t been taking Cadillac seriously.
Trying to hang onto the older-style customer hasn’t worked. Trying to go after the new upper crust hasn’t worked either. Trying to appeal to both seems like doing the corporate version of the splits.
Bingo.
The chances of me having a Cadillac, electric or otherwise, in my own garage are basically zero. As far as anything labeled Hummer, even more so. I may be in a minority of people who believe that but note that I am NOT necessarily opposed to having a GM produced vehicle. Just not a Cadillac or Hummer, not personally interested in the baggage, and there’s plenty with both.
GM must believe that both brands have enough remaining equity that more people would buy electrics from either than would from either another GM brand (ideally a new one). Who’s even shopping Cadillac anymore? Perhaps this is actually the solution to eliminating the dealers at lower cost than simply buying them out.
Saturn, for all its flaws, did reflect that (a do-over) in the beginning, or at least the idea did. That’s what’s needed again if GM wants to be successful at this. It was a new beginning, and exactly what’s needed here rather than a large degree of failure before even starting.
Jason pointed out a startling fact, that being that there are 880 Cadillac dealers in the U.S. Why so many? That’s almost as many as Mercedes, BMW, and Audi combined. (I actually found a different site, gmauthority.com, that counts 924 dealers in the US, with half of them selling less than 50 cars per year). The more rural area populations with a small Cadillac-Chevy combo dealer I would think now are just as or more likely to buy a GMC Denali, Ford King Ranch or RAM Limited version of a pickup than anything with a Cadillac label on it as opposed to two decades ago, no?
If GM expect a small-time, rural, Chevrolet/Cadillac dealer to continue carrying their electric cars, they better downsize some of their expectations (charging facilities, especially) to what they expect for a dealer selling the Bolt. Aka, a J-1772 terminal (Level 2) or two per dealership.
I’d bet the charger requirement will be based on dealer size/volume. In other words the combo dealer that stocks 20-30 Caddillacs will probably only be required to have two chargers where the big store with 100 on the lot will have to install more.
I would assume that GM came to the same conclusion that you did. There are just a lot of Cadillac dealerships, and most of them, although convenient to the rural areas they serve, they are just more likely to move GMC product as Cadillac EVs. Getting the smaller dealers to self-decouple is really not a bad move, as it puts the onus on them for not upgrading, while still allowing the dealers to claim GM is the bad guy for making them either stop selling or pony up $200K+ in upgrades. All GM has to do is make sure that the dealer has either a GMC or Chevy franchise onsite as well, and nobody really loses.
And really, this brings up the point that GM, if they really are going to pivot to being an EV brand, willl face a ton of challenges in the smaller towns where dealers like these folks are based. At some point, the Buick and Chevy brands will have to make these upgrades, as will GMC – and GMC sooner if they handle the Hummer sub-brand. A small dealer, moving less than 100 units annually, will find it hard to justify the upgrades, and losing franchises means that consumers will have fewer places close by to get their vehicles fixed under warranty. That’s the problem. People may drive an hour away to a larger town to buy, but they want service to be close by. And with no dealers, no service. It will lead to GM seeing their built in advantage go away in the smaller communities that seem to be more loyal to them over anyone else. FCA and Ford can look to this to see what works, and what does not, and it will not cost them a penny – or a customer. First to market can also be first to fail. I just don’t see GM doing anything but failing in this exercise.
The reason there are so many is because there are a lot of areas where they are not stand alone Cadillac dealers but instead are Cadillac Buick GMC dealers, or the occasional Cadillac Chevy dealers.
When Cadillac builds the final ICE Escalade, Cadillac will no longer be Cadillac. The Escalade is the final full-size, Body-On-Frame, Rear Wheel Drive, V8-powered “luxury utility vehicle” that defines what at one time made Cadillac “The Standard of the World.”
The Escalade can trace is lineage all the way back to the 1924 Cadillac Type V-63. I can’t believe that GM is dumb enough to actually cede that history and market to what I presume will be the GMC Yukon XL Platinum Denali or Chevrolet Suburban High Country Z71. If they aren’t stupid enough to abandon the market all together in pursuit of green-guilt virtue signaling.
If Lincoln keeps updating the Navigator (hint: Coyote or Godzilla) and Jeep can make inroads with it’s Wagoneer and next generation Grand Cherokee, these vehicles will become very profitable for Ford and Stellantis (FCA) whenever GM-Cadillac decides make the switch from gas to electric.
Leave it to GM to think about abandoning a market at the exact same time that the Koreans are thinking of entering the same market. GM Product Planning to quote the popular meme: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/15/hyundai-kia-body-on-frame-large-suv-pickup/
Also a $200,000 dealer investment seems not that astronomical a figure at a time when the same dealers are asking for in some cases over $100,000 for a loaded Escalade Platinum ESV. What comes around goes around.
I agree. I think the Escalade is an ostentatious grille engineered Tahoe, but it’s the only Cadillac that has identity and attracts customers, and they seem to want it to be a ICE propelled luxury truck. This is a boneheaded move on GMs part to appear progressive in their technical prowess, but in reality and obvious to everyone watching, they just switched from trying to be at the cool kids table with BMW to Tesla. It hasn’t worked for 40 years, just be Cadillac or go away.
Those who haven’t driven an EV are in for a treat when they do. It is a luxury to not hear or feel the engine. I applaud Cadillac’s vision to go all EV.
People who buy Cadillacs want luxury. If they buy a Cadillac EV, they no longer have to listen to or feel the rumble of a small-block V8 under the hood. They no longer have to wait for the 8, 9, 10, 12, 16 speed transmission to get in the right gear when they want to pass someone. They no longer have to be inconvenienced, to go out of their way to go find a gas station to refuel.
People who buy Cadillacs have garages/carports/driveways that are easy to equip with a charging station.
Those Cadillac dealers that make the leap to EV will be rewarded for their investment. The batteries are already big enough for most daily use with overnight charging at home. For driving further than the battery range in a day, the public charging infrastructure is improving rapidly.
The issue isn’t whether electric vehicles offer benefits or disadvantages over conventional vehicles.
The larger concern is that GM is repeating its mistake of believing it can create an image for a division by simply issuing edicts from top management and then introducing certain types of vehicles sporting the badges of said division.
GM tried to turn Cadillac into the American BMW by introducing the ATS, CT6 and third-generation CTS, all of which went nowhere in the marketplace. This is even though these cars really did offer decent chassis tuning. But people who wanted a BMW simply bought the real thing, which had more prestige.
Maybe this effort will work. But we’ve all witnessed a 20+ year effort by GM to change the public’s perception of Cadillac, and the vehicle still sells the best, and resonates with public, is the Escalade. Which is the closest thing to an “old school Cadillac” offered by the division.
The division wants to go from being the place where people can buy their “21st century gas-powered land yacht” to a purveyor of only electric vehicles. That’s quite a leap. And Cadillac isn’t the only brand rolling out new electric vehicles.
Sometimes I get the impression that GM top management believes that it’s still 1959, when a Bunkie Knudsen could change Pontiac’s stodgy image by ripping the Silver Streaks from the hood and introducing a completely restyled car. The market has changed too much over the past 60+ years for that approach to work.
Geeber,
When the CTS was introduced to market for 2003 the base price was $29,995. Granted not many sold for that price, but it lured a lot of people into the showroom and many did end up purchasing a Cadillac in those years between 2003 and the financial collapse of 2008. For me, this was as close to the “Golden Age” of Cadillac as I will probably ever see. I am 37 years old.
The 2019 Cadillac CTS base price was $46,995. You have to really want a CTS to look at one that starts above $45,000 before options. The 2020 CT4 starts at $32,995 and is a step in the right direction in terms of price. However, the market has moved away from sedans in recent years.
The basic Cadillac crossover XT4 with FWD and no options lists for $35,190 on Cadillacs website.
I built a Honda Pilot AWD LX on Honda’s website for $35,370.
I also built a Chevrolet Traverse AWD LS with Blackout and Interior Enhancement Packages for $35,100.
Unless you absolutely need the prestige of the Cadillac badge, there are arguably better options with AWD, higher cylinder count, more power, and greater seating capacity available for the same money.
That wasn’t always the case, from 1985-1995 (Toronado-Aurora) the only way to get Front Wheel Drive and V8 at GM was through Cadillac.
“People who buy Cadillac’s want luxury”. Knowing you can quickly gas up wherever you go without worry is a luxury. Worrying about a charger and charging time wherever you go is a hassle. The charger in the garage/carport/driveway reminds me of people on oxygen. They can get around but life revolves around that oxygen machine and how much they have with them when they travel.
I’m pretty sure that even people on Oxygen can get refills or a replacement bottle when they go somewhere, or is that not the case?
The true luxury is not having to visit a gas station while out and about but instead having the tank be full every morning as you set off. There are thankfully relatively few days in my year where I am forced to drive over 300 miles. And for those days I could use one of the regular cars in the fleet or, more likely, just rent the perfect form factor vehicle instead of compromising if I didn’t want to work around any potential constraints.
I did however just return from a 2000 mile round trip voyage with the family and kept track of the progress. There wasn’t a single stretch where we went more than 300 miles before deciding or having to stop for gas, food, rest, restroom break or multiples thereof among the four of us. Refilling the electric tank if we had one in about half an hour would have worked just fine on any of those occasions.
I like the analogy. People on oxygen generally get supplied by a company that delivers tanks to their home. It may be possible to use one’s prescription to get a tank from a store somewhere, but there wouldnt be many such stores and it wouldn’t be easy and convenient. For the most part they are limited in how long they can be away from home by how long their portable tanks will last.
You are correct, it is an apt analogy, but not as you surmise.
Because there are oxygen tanks, and there are portable oxygen generators, which convert normal air to consolidate it to pure oxygen for breathing assistance for those who rely on it. Very few, other than those who are homebound, use refillable tanks.Those who are still mobile tend to have the generators.That’s what you see being used outside the home.
Those oxygen generators only need electricity to charge their batteries back up, much like the car would need recharging after 300 miles or so. Neither cares where the electricity plug is located, they all charge just fine in a short time and off goes the user on their merry way.
Those who haven’t driven a BMW are in for a treat when they do. It is a luxury to feel the engine. I applaud Cadillac’s vision to go after the ultimate driving machine!
The problem is that from a sales standpoint chasing BMW hasn’t helped Cadillac gain traction in the marketplace.
Tongue was firmly in cheek*
Chasing Tesla will net the same result.
It is going to take a mighty compelling car to overcome the 30 years of disaster that has been Cadillac’s real legacy. That is how long they have been telling us it’s coming. But it never really comes. Maybe their new Electrics will be a leap beyond Tesla, but I doubt it.
Or maybe Cadillac will expand the market to an older demographic that would never try a Tesla. Slightly more plausible to me, but I don’t think they are going to see the numbers they expect.
My guess is that GM is benchmarking the current Model S and 3. By the time the GM’s debut, Musk will have a “next generation” platform.
Just like the Citation benchmarked the previous generation Honda Accord in the early 1980’s and debuted just in time for the “All-New” Accord to eat its lunch.
Yet another stupid decision by GM. Don’t let the door hit you in the rear.
Wow Matthew, just wow.
It’s just an assumption without evidence that’s not anecdotal, but I don’t believe there are all that many standalone Cadillac dealers outside of urban areas. So instead of being Cadillac/Buick/GMC dealers, they’ll just be Buick/GMC dealers. I don’t think this puts anyone out of business.
It likely won’t put any dealers out of business. But it could likely mean many of these smaller dealers will no longer carry Cadillac, diminishing the brand even further.
Just more nails in the coffin.
I would find it hard to believe the marketers at GM are going to kill Cadillac. The brand has no doubt list it’s way. I’ll be the first to say they should focus on their true legacy and core competency: luxo-barges. But…I’m not a marketer will millions of dollars in resources behind me.
As far as the dealers having to cough up $200k to keep their franchise? That’s chicken feed. They have to decide if the corporate vision for Cadillac aligns with what they see on the ground. I surmise many won’t see eye to eye, particularly the rural dealers, and they just might try to get that Lexus sign out front, instead.
It remains to be seen…
This may be the CC Effect in reverse, but within maybe the past 10 days, or so, I saw a Cadillac ELR (remember those?) in traffic not far from my house. Cadillac’s electric offerings have gone full-speed since the Volt-based ELR was offered for sale in 2016.
I’m not sure why such a big deal is being made about this. This is SOP in the automotive industry. Mfgs have lists of “must stock” vehicles. If a vehicle is on that list then the dealer must stock it, invest in the special tool set, parts inventory and have technicians trained in any new systems/technology those vehicles have.
Because this represents a major shift, and an all new vehicle the amount of training required and special tools will be high.
In a lot of ways this is letting the dealers off cheap, all things considered and gives them fair warning of where the brand is going. Much of this investment is long term. The chargers will last a number of years and once the technicians are EV certified future training and special tool requirements will be similar to what is seen today.
If they were really interesting in culling the number of dealerships cheaply they would put the EVs on the not required to stock list. Then as they phase out the ICE vehicles over the next 10 years starve out the non EV certified dealers.
My question is what are the dealers that are voluntarily signing up to be Hummer dealers going to be required to invest in chargers, tools and training. How about those Ford dealers that are signing up to be Mach-E certified, both those who were EV certified to sell the Focus EV and those that are new to EVs?
For those Cadillac GMC dealers how much of that will be overlapping? Chargers certainly but I also expect a certain amount of the training will overlap. IE a tech could obtain basic EV certification and then a separate Cadillac and/or Hummer certifications depending on the dealership. There probably won’t be a lot of overlap on the special tools though.
Wow, there are so many incredible points in this debate by a number of people. I can’t comment on any of them in particular (or this would be a long post), but with such a major shift in the automotive industry, this era probably reminds me the most of the last decade or so of the 19th Century, and the first couple of decades in the 20th Century……transportation changing from horse and buggy to the automobile, and various automakers making various types of engines (steam, ICE, coal, etc), and various ways of the techniques and technologies used.
At any rate, much like back in that era, even a decently successful company could make a potentially fatal decision that sealed their fate. Big companies getting bigger and acquiring more brands/ marques, and mergers to stave off bankrupcies only reinforce the parallels between this era and that one. And then you add in the problems (ie: Great Depression, war, COVID), there’s unforeseen issues that come up to throw a wrench into the best laid plans.
I love being an automobile fan and embrace the switch to electric. It’s an exciting time. But I would absolutely not want to be in the industry at all from a financial standpoint.
There was no infrastructure for the early internal combustion engines, but they seem to have succeeded.
It would be interesting if someone had the actual figures for Cadillac’s sales split between town and country. Maybe there’s more New York dowagers than you think.
People go with the flow. Electrics will reach a critical mass, your neighbour talks about how convenient it is to plug in the car at home rather than queue and fill up, it’s only people like us who care what motivates the machine. The early adopters of hybrids and electrics seem, in my experience, to be women, gays and vegans ( sometimes all three), hardly the stereotypical petrolhead, yet their money’s just as good. Most of us are the conservative buyers and probably irrelevant.