GM President Mark Reuss Speaks To Cadillac Strategy, Electrification
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Cadillac has seemingly been part of a whirlwind since the turn of this decade. Leadership and strategies have come and gone, but now, it seems parent company General Motors has staked out what it wants the brand to be: an American luxury brand.
GM President Mark Reuss, who oversees the Cadillac brand, spoke with Cheddar about the Cadillac strategy moving forward and future electrification efforts. Reuss wasn’t shy to admit there have been mistakes regarding the brand, some of which have occurred in “recent history.”
He said Cadillac was positioned as a brand people couldn’t relate to. We imagine he’s taking shots at the brand’s short-lived marketing mantra “Dare Greatly,” and the dramatic scapes that surrounded the division. Reuss also noted Cadillac practiced what he called “followership,” that is, “imitating other brands that were successful,” in Reuss’ words.
Today, that changes, per the executive. Cadillac will be Cadillac again and the tip of the brand’s calling card has always been technology, he added.
Cadillac has said the brand will be GM’s technology spearhead and major breakthroughs will debut on Cadillacs first. Eventually, they’ll trickle down to Buick, GMC, and Chevrolet, but for a while, they’ll be a Cadillac-exclusive fixture. Think features like Super Cruise, GM’s semi-autonomous driving system.
Reuss also followed up on the automaker’s commitment to make Cadillac its electric-car brand with major EV products heading to the luxury division first. We’ll see Cadillac’s first all-electric vehicle, an unnamed SUV, debut early next decade with at least 300 miles of range on a dedicated electric-car architecture. Crucially, GM has said the platform will help produce profitable EVs.
Yet, the internal-combustion engine isn’t going away at Cadillac. Reuss said special engines like the Blackwing V8 and other powerful mills found in cars like the ATS-V and CTS-V are part of Cadillac’s heritage, and we’ll see them stick around for some time.
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Mark Reuss, along with his entire crew (including Steve Carlisle) have absolutely no idea how to execute a luxury vehicle. Can they make a nice handling product? Yes. Can they execute the whole package? No way.
Mark Reuss and crew are responsible for the mess at Cadillac. You can change the sales and marketing deck chairs all you want, but the product is always on the spectrum of marginal and that is what ultimately counts. Oh, and let’s not forget that Cadillac is on the bottom of just about every quality survey. So much for “followership”.
JdN, for all his faults had the right idea. Unfortunately, the promised $12b in product was never realized- probably closer to $2b. And who was responsible for that? See above.
Looks like what Reuss is saying about letting Cadillac be Cadillac could be true. And I beginning to see the potential here.
If you notice, the CT6 4.2 V8 Platinum is more expensive than the CT6-V. So, I’m thinking if Cadillac is rethinking Platinum and let Platinum be more upmarket and have unique features only for Platinum like the 40-20-40 rear motorize heated, cooled massaging seats for example. Also for the CT6-V, this car could weigh 200 lbs. less than the CT6 V8 Platinum makes me wonder if the in-testing on GM Proving grounds of the CT6-V was so good and performance was better than the CTS-V, they decided to rebrand V-Sport to V. 90% if torque can be reached at 2000 RPM with the Blackwing. So assuming the CT6 -V weighing in at 4250 lbs. with the CTS-V weighing in at 4,141 lbs., the CTS-V only comes in RWD while the bigger and heavier CT6-V only comes in AWD with rear-steering as standard. On the CT6-V, the foot lbs. of torque come in earlier at a lower RPM than the CTS-V does. But anyway, these are guess and assumptions. However, the jury is still out on the V-series. Is GM making the V-Series more sophisticated and with a balance of sport and luxury mixed in? Is GM scaling back on the hardcore performance like the CTS–V for example? Too early to tell but I don’t want GM to V up the current CUV models in the line-up. They deserve the V-Sport moniker since they are not RWD.
Also, the XT6 starts off at Premium Luxury & Sport w/ an optional Platinum package which is confusing and why it was not stated in the press release one wonders. Is Luxury being rethought and will have more standard features in the future? This will get interesting when we see the upcoming products.
The only followership that I can think of with the current Cadillacs were the late ATS sedan, V-Series ATS and CTS. Also strip the cars of the necessary stuff that should be standard in the first place and upcharge the customers with options like the competition from Germany like to do.
So I see leadership with the CT6 with the Platinum going thru transition same as for added standard feature contents with the XT6. But why Platinum was not a separate trim for the XT6 remains to be seen.
So, IMO, things should improve from here on out. Last but not least, Cadillac is going back to the tweener strategy which started with the CT6 in 2016. The tweener strategy was so successful for the CTS for the first and second generation models and second generation SRX. Things will get exciting for Cadillac for now on. However, Cadillac still have work cutout for them and still have room for improvement.
Good luck with that one.
Why not make Cadillac”s tag line something simple and descriptive of who it is – “Luxurious Performance”.
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