The GMC Denali and AT4 sub-brands are outselling the Cadillac brand so far in 2020.
According to data obtained by Automotive News, Denali and AT4-basdged products have accounted for a whopping 40 percent of GMC’s retail sales so far in 2020. Duncan Aldred, vice president of Buick and GMC, believes there is still some room for the pair to grow, as well, and believes the two premium sub-brands could one-day account for 50 percent of its volume, if not more.
Denali sales are so strong, in fact, that if Denali was classified as its own separate luxury brand, it would be a competitive name in the marketplace, Aldred said.
“In its own right, [Denali] would be a very, very successful luxury brand,” he revealed to AN earlier this year. “We’re not doing this by discounting or trying to go to the lower end. We’re staying true to the vision of being the only premium brand that occupies this space.”
The space that Aldred is referring to is the premium truck, crossover and SUV market. At a time when sales of large vehicles are at an all-time high, GMC is one of the only brands operating as a dedicated premium purveyor of trucks, SUVs and crossovers. This has given the brand, along with its honed-in Denali luxury and AT4 off-road sub-brands, an advantage over its direct rivals.
One GMC dealer principal that spoke to AN, Will Churchill of Frank Kent Country GMC, told the publication his dealer “can’t get enough Denali and AT4 vehicles,” which often sell for large, $60,000+ sums.
“It’s not even a question (of price),” Churchill told the publication. “It’s a matter of who has them.”
AN also points out that the performance of the Denali and AT4 sub-brands has “contributed hefty profits to GM’s bottom line during the coronavirus pandemic,” and helped it retain the pile of cash that it will need for its coming electric and autonomous vehicle onslaught.
With results like these, it goes without saying that GMC will be looking to expand the Denali and AT4 range. Right now, the only GMC vehicle that is not offered as an AT4 is the Terrain. A Terrain AT4 will be introduced for the 2021 model year, however, completing the portfolio.
Going forward, it seems inevitable that GMC will rely on its increasingly popular sub-brands to bolster its product range. It’s unclear if the GMC Hummer EV will be offered as a Denali or an AT4 due to its unique position in the marketplace, although it will inevitably feature characteristics of both due to its luxury features and off-road capability.
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Comments
If Cadillac loses it’s sedans, what’s the point to keep Cadillac around anymore? Why is Buick still around? Just change the name to Avneir in China and drop it in the U.S.
WTH is a “sub-brand” ? These are freaking trim levels.
Maybe for Chevy since y’all have 183626 different trims dedicated to just color choices these days lol. The Denali name rings luxury in it, from the Sierra Denali to the Yukon Denali, even the GMV Savana Denali. You won’t see that with the lame High Country badge Chevy has, in fact high country just makes it seem like a low tech vehicle and leather added to the seats if anything. The Chevy premier trim sounds bland like it’s a step above regular but not anywhere near as luxurious.
They are trims that consumers treat like brands. Plenty of people are only proud of owning a GMC because Delani is printed on the door. Same will be true of Hummer as it becomes a third “sub brand”. Guess this is smart because it eliminates need for unique designs or dealers.
Cadillac no longer serves any purpose unless it’s sedans catch on. It turns a profit, mainly because like Buick it gains scale from China, but should be considered part of GM China’s portfolio.
In the US Chevrolet and GMC are the popular GM brands. I’m hoping GM discovers a way to draw Buick into the GMC sphere by making all CUVs AWD & using adverts to intermingle the brands.
Ultimately a Buick GMC dealer also sells Delani, AT4, Avenir and, soon, Hummer. At this rate Buick deserves a sport/muscle moniker like GNX on a next generation of AWD sedans.
There is no point in Cadillac or Buick. The days of having many brands is gone. I don’t know why GM doesn’t see that all they should have is Chevrolet for mass-market and GMC for luxury.
To pull off luxury what do you have to do? You have to de-content and down-grade the materials used in your the other products. The more brands and/or trim levels you have the worse the de-contenting and downgrading of materials gets. And these days, no one wants de-contented vehicles with sub-par materials.
Having said this, it’s debatable whether or not a manufacturer should have more than a single brand. There really is no reason why trim levels cannot outright replace having multiple brands. Look at RAM. All they build is trucks. With all the trim levels and interior presentations of each, if RAM were to decide to have a luxury truck brand how would they pull it off? I would say they wouldn’t. What would RAM have to do? Remove the Limited model from the trim level line-up and rebrand it? De-content and downgrade the interior materials used in all the RAM’s to make the trucks in the new brand viable?
That’s literally what GM tries to do, and in my opinion that’s dumb. I would say Ford thinks this is dumb as well, at least I would hope they learned their lesson from the failed Lincoln truck. F150 Limited these days is pretty luxurious. How would Lincoln out do it? Again, de-content and downgrade materials used in the F150? This wouldn’t go over well and most likely screw with F150 sales, something which Ford needs to ensure never happens.
Take those long ass coments and shove ’em up some where
The 2020 GMC Yukon Denali AT4 outsells the Cadillac Escalade and this shouldn’t be a great surprise to anyone given that they’re essentially the same vehicle; but the GMC Denali AT4 offers a bit more performance at a lower price as why would anyone pay more money for a less capable vehicle.
I have a 2018 Cadillac XT5 coming off lease in 6 months. I have been thinking about what I will replace it with and decided just last week on the GMC Acadia Denali. Same if not better luxury appointments. Same size, equipment and options for about 8000.00 less. Why pay a premium just so you can ride around in a “Cadillac”. I can live with the shame.
Honestly man what were you thinking when you opted for the XT5 lol, that money could have been spent better like you said to the Acadia
We looked at the XT5 before we bought the Acadia Denali.
The Cadillacs are nice but I can still get the GMC much cheaper.
Image is what got people to buy Cafpdillacs in the past. It was the V16 and V12 engines, it was custom body work. It was specific styling, it was having a vehicle that was not like any other GM vehicle.
Today Cadillac is like how Pontiac became a Chevy with a few more options and different body.
My hope is when the EV models arrive they will once again set Cadillac apart at least for a while.
GM needs to deliver a reason to step up to a Cadillac. Right now they have the same engine and chassis with just a marginally better interior.
Heck Cadillac does not even offer the HUD GMC has if I am thinking correctly.
C8.R
I think the skateboard chassis of future GM EV products will create less differentiation, not more. I think that’s why GM is going all-in on that platform. They’ll have a generic battery pack that can be scaled up or down and common electric motors with no differentiation; only the quantity will vary. The body and interior and suspension become the variables. They’ll be cheap to build. I’d envision them like Chrysler’s venerable K-Car where the same platform spawned a luxury sedan, sports car, family sedan and mini-van. The Cadillac package, if there even is one, will be mostly just a body married to the common skateboard. That’s a long way from the days of the V-16 or even the Northstar.
You don’t know that. The BEV3 is a modular platform. GM can make a vehicle feel different from brand to brand. Of course Cadillac will be RWD based while the rest of the brands will be FWD based with some brands with a possibility going RWD like the Camaro.
The EV products can be configured in a number of ways and could be set up specific to a brand.
While it will share parts it can be tuned much differently with the number of motors and the specific suspension hung on each corner.
Right now little is done under the skin and that is easier to change with this new concept.
I don’t agree….. Have any of you guys seen the new 2021 Cadillac Escalade? I’ve spent a lot of time considering the 2021 Denali Yukon XL which I am now buying, and then sat in an Escalade – wow the interior and electronics are much more luxurious. Sticker price of $100k is out of my budget, but the Cadillac Escalade provides a higher level than Denali and for some it justifies the higher price point. Maybe targeting a smaller universe with lower volumes but I this is a lucrative market at the ultra high end for GM.
There are like 200 yukon xl AT4 nationwide when looking at new car inventory. Not a single one has 60/40 split bench second seat. All have second row bucket seats.
Why did they not put enhanced emergency braking on at4 and super cruise?
Sad to see the continued decline of once strong Cadillac, all the while GM management live in some sort of fairyland, companies like Audi, BMW, Lexus and Tesla are growing
The Cadillac brand simply needed a better than Chevrolet vehicle.
So far the Escalade IS the ONLY Cadillac that offers a better than Chevrolet vehicle,
That doe NOT mean it is BETTER than the Denali in the GMC line, just different !
GM is just too da/\/\ slow at the customer want list.\
GMC needed a RWD/AWD midsized SUV with a shared platform for the Cadillac. The Cadillac refined, the GMC off road !
The Cadillac sedans are a blah, base, with the 2.0T POS and a Chevrolet plastic fantastic interior. The Cadillac midsized SUV’s, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, FWD platform !
Cadillac would be done if not for China.
The chickens have come home to roost. The years of neglect and ineptitude have taken their toll on Cadillac. They’ve lived off their name for as long as they could and now there’s little left.
Mary Barra wouldn’t know style, elegance, or class if it smacked her in the face. Ruess wouldn’t either. Neither one of them understand how to manage a luxury brand. I think Johan de Nysschen tried to help them but they fired him probably for being difficult. In order to manage a luxury brand, one needs people with good taste at the helm or the intelligence to hire subordinates that possess it. Mary has none and she hasn’t hired anyone up to the task either.
GM needs to put the Cadillac brand up for sale. All GM is good at is trucks and truck-based station wagons (SUVs) where style and elan aren’t important.
Mary Barra has transformed GM into a different company and continue to do so. She had to make the most difficult and at times painful decisions. Not sure why people knock her base on the products currently out.
Has anybody driven a late model Cadillac or just blindly commenting?
JR,
I attended a BMW Ultimate Driving Event some years ago. They had a test track and professional drivers there that encouraged attendees to push the cars; full throttle then panic braking among other things. It was thoroughly enjoyable and like a mini driving school. I learned a lot about driving dynamics and car control. They then turned us loose on public streets and encouraged us to sample their entire fleet on a pre-ordained route. I think I drove about 10 cars. The result: I bought one of their cars and have been subsequently invited back to other driving events that were equally fun.
So then I get invited to a Cadillac event that seemed similar. After all Cadillac wants nothing if not to be just like BMW so I think they targeted me; I became a potential conquest. At Caddy’s event, I quickly saw the difference. I tried to explore the acceleration of the CTS and was promptly scolded by my guide that “this is test track, not a race track’. Back off flogging the 3.6 was the obvious message. It was all pretty lame in comparison. That was over five years ago and the last time I drove a modem Cadillac.
These days, I don’t even see Cadillacs around other than the Escalade and the XT5. It doesn’t appear that they’re sold much anymore and therein lies the problem.
Where did you attend the Cadillac Ride & Drive? I’ve been to both events also since I own both brands and there was never any hesitation to push the Cadillacs. One of the Cadillac drivers actually challenged us to beat her time around the course, which we failed at but enjoyed trying.
I attended both events in Atlanta. As someone who wanted to see Cadillac win, I was completely disappointed by their event compared to BMW’s. One seemed like a pared-down version of a trip to the BMW Performance Center for professional driver training and the other felt like a test drive at the dealership with a hapless salesperson.
I guess it’s which instructors you get and or locations since my experience was great on both fronts. Both events were in Illinois at two different facilities which allowed hard acceleration tests and timed handling courses for everyone.
The Denali sub-brand was at the right place at the right time, same as AT4. Denali and AT4 don’t have too much of a budget to create a sub-brand which the trims are based on GMC in the first place. Even though I don’t have anything against the Denali or AT4, auto critics and consumer publications only see Denali as an afterthought and not a true luxury class on the same level like Cadillac, Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover and etc. However, consumer demand seems to like the Denali based on value. GM will be more serious with future Denali and AT4 models if you look at the ’21 Yukon Denali as an example.
The Cadillac image has been damage and mismanaged for far too long for many decades. The Escalade has potential for a sub-brand but it can’t be a sub-brand if you have FWD crossovers that is not boldly styled like the Escalade. The XT4 is the best Cadillac crossover in the line-up but it is not enough to have the Escalade nameplate as a sub-brand. The sedan market for CT4 & CT5 is relevant but consumer demand for sedans are wearing off. Cadillac is still relevant and GM has a chance to fix Cadillac with the upcoming EVs and whatever they have in store for them.
JR,
YES !
The real question here is have YOU or other Cadillac owners driven the late model competition ?
I have owned 5 Cadillacs from 1996 to today. 2005 SRX AWD and 2005 STS AWD, both Northstar’s. 2004 CTS still own and 2014 ATS AWD 2.0T blah still own.
Replaced my 2005 SRX with a 2015 GMC Canyon as I will NEVER own a GM BLAH FWD 3.6 Cadillac !
We wanted to replace the Canyon with the new onslaught Cadillac XT4, so we waited , only to test drive the BLAH 2.0T FWD based vehicle ( not impressed ).
Our next want was to replace this POS 2.0T ATS with the all new !!!!! onslaught Cadillac CT5. So we test drove the BLAH 2.0T Chevrolet plastic fantastic interior blah CT5 ( not impressed )
So to recap:
To replace our 2004 CTS in 2014, we test drove the 2014 CTS, great vehicle with the 3.6 AWD, just bigger than our 2004 CTS.
So we test drove the ATS with the 2.0T, as the dealer had NO 3.6 to test drive, ended up with this POS 2.0T 2014 AWD ATS.
To replace this POS ATS, we have now test driven the BLAH XT4, the BLAH XT5, the BLAH XT6, and the BLAH CT5 with a 2.0T, as again the dealer had no 3.0TT’s on the lot !
Yet here is my question to you !
After 40 years of GM ownership, and the HORRIBLE customer support, we NOW have test drove the competition.
Just to put it simply, ITS NO WONDER THAT GM IS SLIDING IN CADILLAC SALES !!!!!
Like johnls_39 said above about the Denali not belonging in the true luxury class, Cadillac HAS NOT belonged there for 30 years now !!!
And ONLY a GM kool-aid drinker who has not driven the TRUE luxury class, knows this !!
And look, we could sit here and go back and forth for years, but the truth is,
THE NUMBERS DO NOT LIE !!!!
Look at the numbers of customers Cadillac has lost to the other TRUE luxury names !
And the worst part is, with the all new Cadillac onslaught, GM thought they could once again just leverage the Cadillac name to a BLAH Chevrolet vehicle.
This is OVER, Cadillac is simply a JOKE to the true luxury buyer.
Jet out of your GM kool-aid circle, drive the country, go to some country clubs, golf courses, hospital doctor offices, law firms, other than the Escalade, the majority are the TRUE luxury names.
If you are a TRUE luxury buyer, and want to drive a tank, the Escalade is for you !
If you are a TRUE luxury buyer, and want to drive a mid-sized vehicle, Cadillac, and really GM, simply has NOTHING to offer except a Chevrolet BLAH mid-sized SUV !
Can someone explain why the 2021 Yukon Denali trim level, which is the highest, has been dumbed down and made 1-2K cheaper than the Chevrolet Tahoe High Country? Every 4X4 regular length Denali I have seen on the lots is nearly 2K less than an equivalent Chevy High Country. That has got to be very confusing to the typical buyer where GMC is touted as the higher end offering!
When I think Denali, I only think of the Sierra and the Yukon. The Acadia and Terrain are never a thought or consideration.
Has the same ugly face as the current Sierra
Caddilac needs a full size sedan.
I have some info i would like to share to the readers here
Take those long ass coments and shove ’em up some where