Following a notable delay in the model’s official launch schedule in the Asian country, the all-new second-generation 2025 Cadillac XT5 has just made its global debut in China.
General Motors’ SAIC-GM joint venture in China officially unveiled the all-new, completely redesigned 2025 Cadillac XT5 on August 2nd during an event at Cadillac House in Shanghai, which represents the luxury brand’s flagship location in the region. During the unveiling, the automaker revealed the design and key design features of the second-generation Cadillac XT5 for the Chinese market.
2025 Cadillac XT5
The all-new second-generation 2025 Cadillac XT5 debuts eight and a half years after the nameplate’s initial introduction in November 2015, and about eight years after the launch of Cadillac’s current midsize crossover in the Chinese market. This, in fact, represents the first major update to the Cadillac XT5 in its entire history as one of the brand’s highest-volume models globally.
Based on an iterated version of the GM C1 platform known as C1-2, the all-new 2025 Cadillac XT5 features a fresh look with larger dimensions and different proportions, while adopting the latest evolution of Cadillac’s design language. The body has a more planted stance with increases of nearly three inches in overall length (192.4 inches) and 2.1 inches in width (77 inches), as well as a bolder front-end design and more organic lines.
In particular, the first official images show the new 2025 Cadillac XT5 in the range-topping Sport trim level that features distinctive elements such as the mesh-style grille, blacked-out moldings, gloss black accenting and contrasting red-painted front brake calipers. It stands out compared to the 2025 XT5 seen in previously leaked images, which showed the redesigned crossover in base trim with bright accents.
The all-new 2025 Cadillac XT5 is set to officially launch in the Chinese market in the coming weeks, when SAIC-GM will reveal all the equipment and powertrain details of Cadillac’s new internal combustion midsize utility vehicle. GM Authority initially reported that the second-gen XT5 would be exclusive to China, but that the company was considering the redesigned model for North America. As of this writing, we’re not aware of any decisions that would have resulted in this model coming to the U.S.
Subscribe to GM Authority as we bring you the latest Cadillac XT5 news, Cadillac news, and ongoing GM news coverage.
Comments
Now bring it home where it actually belongs. Sales in China are falling like ninepins. Launch it with a hybrid powertrain and watch it’s sales ease past Lyriq (effortlessly), reverse the 2030 all EV obliviousness and start refreshing/redesigning ICE lineup to save Cadillac.
I’m sure they won’t bring it to stateside because it will eat the Optiq and Lyriq sales for lunch and GM won’t let that happen.
That’s a stupid assumption for GM to make. Because when I bought my XT5, I would have gone over to Lincoln, Lexus, Acura or Genesis before considering the Lyriq or Optiq if they cancelled the XT5. I love the Lyriq, but I am not ready for an EV yet. I take my XT5 on frequent road trips from North NJ to central PA and I would not be comfortable doing this in an EV.
Cadillac isn’t a niche brand. It can easily sell ICE, hybrid, and EV vehicles. Not sure why GM is so hell bent on not offering a great mixture (like they do with their other brands).
That assumes Cadillac has the bandwidth and resources to manage and develop all of those options.
Nice. I’m confident it would do quite well if they decided to import it.
Heck, the new Nautilus is doing well (3,000/mo) and it’s a stink’in Lincoln.
This meets all my needs. Build it here and I will pay MSRP!
Bring it to ★U☆S★A
What a beautiful new XT5 that we don’t even have an option to purchase here the US! I wish they would offer it here with the plug in hybrid option! Gee, I wonder why more and more are buying German and Asian cars? GM is sending all of the upgraded autos to China, including the gorgeous new CT6 and a very nice car called the GT4 that we aren’t even offered! We couldn’t buy these if we wanted to! Check out the Caddy website in China to see what I am talking about! Cadillac.com.ch
Except that the new XT5 and CT6 are manufactured in China and not in the US. China buys more Cadillacs than the US – and the quality is much better because the Chinese and the Europeans demand better and higher quality than us Americans. We get what we pay for and ask for. We want cheap and cheerful – we get cheap and cheerful.
This is a spit in the face to many generations of north American loyal customers whom have religiously purchased cadillac. I have purchased the xt5 through the years waiting for a refresh. I’m due for an upgrade and only wanted the xt5. My work will not support a EV. Driving remote locations where there are no gas pumps for 2 hours let alone a charging station..lol
If cadillac doesn’t offer the xt5 in north America then I’m done with them and will go to another brand with no connections to cadillac. And from what ive heard millions of other north Americans feel the same.
It would be so good for them to move this stateside, though this is kind of a catch-22 situation because of the launch of the Lyriq and Optiq. The Lyriq is experiencing success, and I could imagine if the new XT5 hits the streets it could eat into its sales.
Maybe to some degree, but I would assume most people are cross shopping the Lyric against other EVs from Tesla, BMW, MBZ, and Acura. I could see if this was a niche market (ex. a coupe), but we’re talking about the highest volume segment. Cadillac can absolutely support both the Lyric and XT4/XT5.
I don’t like the look. Looks like any other nock off vehicle with a crest on the front. It’s not something that says “luxury cuv” and a little boring…
I own a 2021 XT5 and a 2024 Lyriq and love them both and I’m getting more use to go for longer trips with the Lyriq and charge on all the new super fast charger network available in Canada and USA. I found for trips between 800 to 1000 km leaving my home with 100% charge, I do my first stop after 400 km, charge up to 80% that takes 25 min and another 20 min charge 300km later and with that I reach my destination. I understand with gas is less than 1 time 10 min stop. But a 30 min delta is not a big deal for me.
So let me get this straight, an American iconic brand in Cadillac won’t offer sales of a refreshed model for Americans to buy? If this vehicle isn’t offered for sale in the USA it’s an absolute disgrace. The Chinese will get an opportunity to have a hybrid and we don’t, who’s making decisions at Cadillac? They have no idea what the public wants or will buy. This vehicle can compete head to head with the Audi A5, Genesis GV70, BMW X5 and MB GLC. It has gorgeous looks and practically, which is what consumers want. The premium look and level of refinement will sway owners away from the German Brands without feeling as if they are missing anything. Hello Cadillac! I’d take this over an Optiq in a heartbeat, if you sell it we will buy. Also don’t offer it for sale and out price yourself from the start. This car should max out at 60K, not 70K, please use common sense!!!
My theory is supply chain and logistical management. It’s probably a lot easier to get all the materials in China. Going off how the XT4 refresh is performing, sales are flat / declining. They may not feel it is worth the investment to refresh the XT5 and XT6 and would rather just discontinue them.
Note to Javier and anyone else with an EV. your spending your life wasted sitting at a charging station. You just admitted you spend 45 min in total to drive 700 kms. Multiply that over the weeks, months, years,decades. Thats years off your life man. All we have is time on this planet and mine is too precious . You only get one life man. Mine aint gonna be sitting at a charging station. I can fill up and drive the whole 700 kms non stop and still have 300 I was being extremely kind when I said 2 hours driving. you obviously have not driven in the remote north of ontario or the prairies, northern alberta, bc interior.. heck even just the backroads in the country you dont see them. Your lucky to see a mom and pop store. You can drive 6 hours back roads from Windsor to barrie and not see one. It’s a cidiot vehicle. Also some food for thought for you EV owners , studies have proven the effects of long term exposure to small battery radiation. Well, you are now you are sitting on a massive one.. directly exposed to a massive litgium-ion battery. Lol
Not to mention the disposal of these lithium-ion batteries that are filled with radiation and harmful heavy metals is much more toxic to our environment then any combustion engine will ever be. But hey the gov and car companies say they are safe so they must be. Let’s see in 20 years.
China Mary should be fired! And take all her EV DEI bull with her.
Its actually very simple – Cadillac, and the remainder of the European, US, and Asian auto industry, is transitioning to fully electric transportation. It may be 2030 or could just as easily be 2035 but the die is cast – there is no turning back and Cadillac is simply being rational about what parts of its ICE portfolio deserve to be refreshed and which parts deserve to die. As American drivers seem bored with the XT5 and XT4 they are being let out to pasture. What sells in the US are the big SUVs such as the Escalade. Our gasoline prices are abnormally low because we do not properly tax gasoline to help with this transition. So the transition is occurring much more rapidly in Asia and Europe but in the end we will get there but tardily because our incentive structure is warped. We don’t invest in roads or transitioning to full-electric and so we will be behind the rest of the world. As I said – it is simple.
Don’t “bring” this to the USA… “Make” this in the USA. Otherwise, it’s an insult to their home and original market.
I agree but you can only bring a horse to water – cant make it drink. The Chinese auto market is the largest in the world and has eclipsed both Europe and the US – the Chinese buy more Cadillacs than we Americans so GM and Cadillac focus on profitability in the US and the XT5 and XT4. We even cancelled the CT6 sedan in the US but the Chinese designed and built a much more refined second gen CT6 which we Americans don’t even get to drive. The Chinese like sedans and we Americans do not so Cadillac stopped making the CT6 which is sad – and if we want it then it will be imported from China.
Hello BEK – I dont disagree with you but we Americans don’t make good quality cars and SUVs relative to the Chinese, the Koreans and the Europeans. That is a fact and has been a fact for the past 50 years. I never understood why we cannot make cars and SUVs with the same quality as the rest of the world – especially when it comes to finessing the interior ‘jewelry’ and the squeaks and rattles. The home market does not care and so when we stop showing much interest in a particular car line/brand we are certainly not going to go through the aggravation and cost of homologating it in small numbers. Because that is also another disadvantage for us in the US. The rest of the world follows UNECE homologation standards and so it is very easy for the Chinese to homologate a car for Europe and vice versa because the regs are the same – the US/Mexico/Canada is very different and so assembly lines have to run 3 – UNECE/US/RHD. Since the US is such a large market the costs for the Japanese, Koreans and Europeans is low. For the US to offer UNECE or RHD it is expensive since we don’t sell much outside of Canada and Mexico – so we lose out twice. The US should adopt the global standard just as it should convert over to metric but for reasons that escape me we prefer to go it alone for no purpose. Can you think of a reason?
Why can’t we build better quality cars in the US? Cost of engineering improvements rejected by the bean counters? or the UAW workers not giving a S-it when assembling the vehicles in the US ? I’ve owned two XT5s. THe first was an 2018… Fantastic and tight car. I now purchased a new 2024 XT5 that rattles all day long and has so many paint defects. What’s the deal ? Just frustrated with GM…
Hi Tony – sadly you are right. Not only do we not build high quality cars we build inconsistently and that means that every now and again you get a car like your 2018 that is solidly built with few defects and we say, ‘ah finally’ they have figured it out only to be disappointed again. Don’t I know it. And as for the UAW not caring – sadly I think the relationship between management and the union(s) is so poisoned that they are constantly working at cross purposes with the effect of damaging the interests of the UAW, the car companies and management. And to think that 50 years ago US management techniques were considered the best in the world. And as for the bean counters the issue is more nuanced. Americans lease cars and rarely buy them outright. Americans also rarely buy cars that they order directly from the factory. They are either too lazy, do not care enough or are too impatient and want the car yesterday. That means they always settle for close enough when buying a car and focus only on the monthly payment. This is much rarer in Europe especially with luxury brands – Europeans and Japanese want their cars tailored exactly to their requirements which means ordering from the factory and waiting 3-12 months for it to arrive or up to 36 months if it is something like a Ferrari. So Cadillac focuses on shipping cars to dealers that fit in lease buckets of $1000/month//$1200/month//$1500 month and bean counters spend all their time building cars down to that spec – sadly that usually means cheap interiors with inferior switch gear and visibly synthetic carpets that don’t even cover up the line of sight in the interior. I could go on but hopefully you get the picture.
I get it. Thank you ! GM is just not playing the long game for the US customers. Sad.
GM should consider dropping SAIC from its brands, when Trump gets into office, it’s going to be very difficult for American corps to keep their Chinese holding, since it’s unlikely that the CCP will see eye to eye with the American congress or Presidency.
For GM, a sale of its assets and withdrawal from this market is their best option. Chinese parts will not be finding their way into American cars,
Fershur…
Yes I agree that European, Japanese and American auto investments in China have seen their best days. The Chinese have now learned to design and build cars with better and higher quality than US cars and so we will end up with 2 markets and little crossover and over time the US and Europe will reduce their investments in China. However and to indicate how good the Chinese have become – The quality of the Tesla 3 was so execrable that Tesla Europe decided to stop importing it from California and started importing it from China – so European owners of the Tesla 3 drive the China-built version and not the US version. Our reputation for building poor quality cars continues decade after decade.
WTF, this looks amazing! Would love this in hybrid form to complement the EV offerings (Lyriq is trash, Optiq looks nice).
Too bad, I am on my second XT5. Don’t care for the looks of the XT6. Lyric is not on my radar, at this point in time. If they offered the turbo 4 with hybrid to bring the performance on par with the V6. They would have a winner. Hopefully someone wakes up at GM soon.
Images of the interior?
So GM is not bring the new xt5 to North America.
Looks like we get the same OLD dog of an xt5 with a big price increase.
Way to go GM. Guess I’ll,be buying another Volvo.
No. Cadillac is selling the electric Optiq in the US as a replacement for the XT5. There is not enough demand for the XT5 to do a US homologated version of the SUV built for the Chinese and world market. Now if the US aligned its safety rules to the UN EU rules used in the rest of the world then it would be easy. But we prefer to trundle along with inferior regs.
I must watch episode 12 to understand why the XT5 isn’t coming home. Cadillac has the XT4 and the Optiq. Then the XT6 and the soon-to-be-released Vistiq. The Escalade and the Eascaladt IQ. So why not the XT5 and the Lyriq? This is the vehicle I’ve been waiting for. The Escalade is way too big. The XT4 is too small and the XT6 is too big (three rows). I’m looking for a two-row mid-size SUV and the XT5 looks sharp in these photos. 🙁 This is very disappointing.
Hi Benji – The XT4 will drop off soon also. Cadillac, like all brands, is moving at speed to full electrification. The world is moving on and we have a serious problem of climate change and every industry and human will have to do their part. It is irrelevant what you and I think about this issue – the world is ‘a changing’. As mentioned in earlier comments on this commentary if the US had adopted the global safety standards for cars – the EU UN global standards used in China and Europe, then importing even a small number of XT5s from China would be easy. But since we use our own archaic standards called FVMSS (only for Canada, the US and Mexico) then the cost is prohibitive. This is similair to the metric system vs the olde Imperiale system borrowed from the British two hundred years ago – we are stuck with and even the British have moved on.
It looks like a slightly longer XT4. Zzzz. Too cookie-cutter.
I would be shocked if they don’t bring it to the U.S., but stranger things have happened.
Prepare to be shocked, especially once they discontinue it after next year.
hi Ron and Doug – per my previous comments, GM and Cadillac WILL NOT BE BRINGING any Chinese built Cadillac to the US unless it will sell in substantial numbers. Why? Apart from the political blowback that they might get since China is slowly evolving into a massive military threat to us, we use car safety standards that are very different from what is used in Europe, China, Japan and other large auto producing countries. Ours are called FMVSS and the rest of the world uses UNECE. Personally, UNECE standards are more rationale and better. So the XT5 and XT4s built in China are using UNECE standards – different chassis and different everything. So it ain’t going to happen.
I too have owned may xt4 and xt5’s want the 2025 second generation. Sad they are ignoring the customer who made the Cadillac brand.
The current XT5 has been around since 2017 making this the eight year for it. Talk about a stretch…. The new China version is a real winner in my opinion and I’m sure others agree. It’s overdue and would be a hit here in North America as a 2026 model and it should be offered in a Hybrid/Gas model. Not a plug in. Most Americans aren’t ready for an EV or a plug in such as myself but a regular Hybrid is what the market is leaning toward most. I’m gearing up to buy a 2026 model car and I already know that the XT5 would be first choice, gas or hybrid. Make good choices Cadillac….
Afraid you’re asking a lot of the Cadillac engineers. The new XT5 is designed by the Chinese and follows a different safety standard. I also don’t think they have the logistics to slap together a hybrid powertrain in short notice. They sacrificed any development on the XT5 for the EVs and that’s a decision they can’t afford to reverse even if it was mistake.
Maybe Hyundai will save them.
Hi Mark It might have been possible to ship the Chinese-built XT5 to the US but the rest of the world including China follows UNECE safety rules which in my opinion and obviously the opinion of most of the world are a better safety standard than ours (FMVSS) which are followed basically by the US, Canada and Mexico. There are hundreds of major and minor differences that make it impractical to have 2 assembly lines for UNECE and FMVSS unless you are sure of selling thousands of cars/SUVs in that different market. Had we not been so proud in thinking that our standards are better and went along with a uniform global standard then we could easily ship a couple of thousand XT5s to the US. Sadly it is a bit like the use of the superior metric system – the ROW uses this more rationale system but the US stands out as a clog head. A German executive at BMW told me once at a car show that they have 3 assembly lines for their 5-series – a LHD UNECE; a RHD UNECE and then an FMVSS line – North America gets its very own assembly line with all the additional costs to consumers that that entails – it works because they sell thousands in the US. It rarely works in reverse which further explains why so few US-built cars/SUVs are sold outside of the Middle East (which accepts both standards equally – they were strong-armed by the US into accepting our standards even though they too recognised that UNECE standards were better)
Meh. It looks cheap in the so called higher trim level Sport edition. Needs a little more exterior brightwork as its cookie cutter dull with all the blackout crap