Cadillac has continuously pushed back its European invasion date, and at present, the brand won’t make a real push to invade the old world until 2025 at the earliest.
Johan de Nysschen, Cadillac President, told media at the 2018 NADA-J.D. Power Automotive Forum that the brand is looking at where it wants to be 2035, and Europe is still a part of the plans. According to an Autoweek report on Wednesday, Ideally, Cadillac wants to be a much larger entity in Europe, but since the Volkswagen diesel scandal, General Motors’ luxury brand will likely take on Europe with electric cars.
We know Cadillac will receive a large proportion of GM’s planned 20 electric vehicles through 2023, and they may serve as infantry for the division’s European plans. de Nysschen made it clear that plans for a European push will not happen until Cadillac’s finances and product line is in order.
“It’s going to be a tough battle and we better be ready to fight it,” he said.
In the meantime, Cadillac will focus on strengthening its presence in North American and building on momentum in China. The brand revealed the 2019 XT4 compact crossover, which Cadillac hopes will bring younger buyers to the brand in an effort to create long-term customers for the future.
Comments
Patience and a long term plan for entering a market when the product mix is right? Who are these guys??!! 🙂
Glad to see the discipline.
I wish Vegas would put up a line to if JDN will be working for GM in 2025…If your vision is to deploy an expensive Escala ICE sedan in a world where the hottest trends are crossovers, electrification and self driving, if an opening appeared at McLaren, why not take it?
The folks at AutolineTv disagrees in that they think Cadillac should return to giving proper names for their cars especially as Cadillac as a number of famous names to consider using and one has to wonder why the Escalade hasn’t been rebadged as the Cadillac XT10.
The present names are orderly, logical, and show a clear hierarchy anyone anywhere on Earth can understand, where even language isn’t a barrier to understanding the Cadillac range.
The old names were disordered, illogical, and didn’t have any way to relate what one car was to another throughout the range, and they don’t translate well. Besides, it’s in Cadillac’s history to not have ‘proper’ names.
Europe has more than enough luxury brands as is so that Jaguar, Land Rover, Alfa, and Volvo can hardly catch a break. Cadillac will need to offer a truly unique proposition in order to compete. The CUV freak out means that GMs Alpha and Omega platforms won’t mean much.
I suppose there’s a plan in the works.
But I wish Cadillac would focus, really focus, on a) the vehicles, b) the US, c) and China.
Until there’s a Cadillac that Europeans must have, Europe and the Middle East just don’t seem to be primary priorities.
Cadillac Houses in NY (the media center) and Shanghai seem to make sense. (They used NY to unveil the XT4), but they added one in Frankfurt (?) – not sure where else.
The distractions – the US is difficult enough. Europe and the Middle East just seem premature.
XT4 introduced with an anemic powertrain.
Why??
Just send ’em all to Europe until you can design it with at least 280 ft-lbs of torque.
XT= Crossover Touring, CT= Cadillac Touring. Was that so hard?
There is a plan. Continue to grow the market in China and Middle East. Re establish Cadillac as a force in America again.
Then re enter Europe once the EV regulation hav3 taken ho,d with the coming EV product GM has coming.
To make ground up in Europe it will take totally new product over just new sedans.
Also you cut the crap on names. It is product that matter not what you call it.
A bad vehicle can not be saved by an old name and a good car can not be hurt by a bad name. Good product defines the label.
And no the Nova did not fail in South America, it sold well there for years, the no go was just a urban legend.
I agree with this build great cars and don’t worry about what it’s called
The Germans dominate cadillac with their modern ICE engines.
So don’t come to europe with dated high emission engines.
Finally they realize this.
They can try it over 10 years with electric engines, but it’s likely the Germans will have again superior electric engines since they will have a 10 year head start over cadillac. (In 2020 the Germans will flood the market with electric luxury vehicles)
cadillac always is at least 10 years behind the competition and completely irrelevant in Europe.
And even if they come close to the Germans (in their dreams), there still is the all important matter of the incredible huge amount of cheap plastics used in all cadillacs.
And also no dealer network present.
It would be very unwise to try to enter the European market yet again and find the Germans beating them again and again, it would be a total waste of money.
Just focus on china and the us alone.
Yeah here’s an idea. Pay my entire years wage for a car on credit and when something goes wrong with it return it to an empty car lot strewn with final demand notices.
Sounds a plan.
That’s a joke, surely. The “push” was supposed to be in 2008, then in 2020, and now it’s been pushed back again to 2025. Their minuscule dealership network is getting even thinner, they don’t attend European auto shows.
No, Cadillac is not coming to Europe.