Cadillac Outsold By Audi By 10K Units During Q2 2024

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1. 

   The real difference is right there, Q5 vs XT5. “8000 units”. Cadillac doesn’t care about ICE and it shows. And the new gen Q5 just launched which will further widen the gap b/w Q5 & XT5. 1) The Q5 sales will grow. 2). XT5 sales are falling and will drop further.
   Furthermore, mid-size SUV segment is the best selling Luxury segment and GM has new gen XT5 exclusively reserved for China where ironically midsize cars outsell midsize SUV’s and sales are drastically falling. Who else can make such great decisions except GM, ignoring your home market where midsize SUV segment is booming? This is just a circus at this moment.
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   1. 

      “Ignoring your home market” — the LYRIQ is responsible for all of their sales growth. Audi’s portfolio is TWICE the size of Cadillacs. And Cadillac is introducing 3 brand new models within the next 12 months.
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      1. 

         The Lyriq is selling well…for a luxury EV. But all of Cadillacs ICE models are sitting in the shadows of the Germans and Lexus. Alex Luft in a podcast said it perfectly. Cadillac is taking just a “good enough” strategy rather than aggressively competing in many categories which is what the Germans are doing. There is enough consideration on luxury customers for Cadillac but GM is only interested in “good enough.” So they opt to lose their market share to other ICE manufaturers should this EV craze fall on its face and fail to further materialize.
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   2. 

      Pretty much. And many of those current XT5 customers aren’t interested in going electric. So they will start looking elsewhere when the time to replace their XT5 comes. I said it before and I will say it again. Lexus and Lincoln are loving this half brained decision to not sell the 2nd gen XT5 here.
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2. 

   Given Audi is selling twice the number of models it’s kind of sad they only sold 10k more.
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3. 

   Audi is the weakest of the German trio right now and has the oldest lineup, is facing several software issues, cannot update it’s lineup on time and still outselling Cadillac in it’s home market. Isn’t that kind of sad if we look at the bigger picture? Audi hasn’t given up on it’s ICE lineup and has started updating them and isn’t putting all it’s eggs in the electric basket, we shall see who will be outselling whom in next few years.
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   1. 

      The make twice as many models, but only sell 25% more. That’s really inefficient.
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      1. 

         Only appears inefficient when considering the US market alone, but these same Audis are sold globally and share basic platforms/architecture with other VW brands. Globally, Audi sold 1.9M vehicles in 2023 while Cadillac only managed 183k. Hate to say it, but Cadillac is now just a minor regional brand – only Lincoln has fallen further. For reference, in 2019 Cadillac sold nearly 400k vehicles globally. The only vehicles with ‘volume’ are the Lyriq and Escalade with the Escalade being the only one generating a solid profit. GM has invested billions into Cadillac, but it just hasn’t panned out despite making some compelling vehicles.
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   2. 

      I wouldn’t say Audi is weak. They had a massive turnaround in the late 2000s and have really come a long way since the 90s and 80s a reputation tarnished by the 5000. Their current lineup is still modern without being offensive looking like BMW. And of the Germans, they and Porsche are my favorite.

      But I do agree its sad that Audi is putting Cadillac to shame in their own home market. This is what happens when you put all your focus on one outside market and neglect your own home market. Eventually the home market forgets about you. It really boggles my mind to no end how GM could have such a backwards strategy. And now they are losing the Chinese market and have to desperately regain ground here and elsewhere but are doing little to show for it like not bring the new XT5.

      Its like the man who cheats on his wife with a mistress. When the mistress has milked him for all his worth and now decides to return home only to find his wife has moved on with a Japanese, Korean, or German man who respects her more and the cheater only finds divorce papers on the table. Sound familiar? Much like what is happening to Cadillac and Buick now? The “spouses” have now moved on.
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      1. 

         80% of Cadillac sales are in the US as they have now fallen off a cliff in China – soon Cadillac will retreat from China as they have from Europe and their sales will continue to crater. So, as you say, they need to focus exclusively on the US market and only sell EVs like the Lyriq globally through existing GM dealers/partners. Why are they sponsoring racing – waste of resources, especially when they pretty much just sell warmed over SUVs that share platforms with other GM cars. Keep the Lyriq, Escalade, make a Porcshe Cayenne like SUV and make performance/luxury cars – simple.
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         1. 

            The Blackwings don’t seem to be doing much for them considering they are great chassis, and while an Alpha platform crossover to compete with the Germans is doable, that to me sounds like a 700 million investment and all hands-on deck.

            They are in a tough position; how do you claw back years of underinvestment during an economic downturn?

            As for the racing, that side of the business is probably self-sustaining with sponsors and prize money.
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            1. 

               The Blackwing and the associated platform could have been used as a replacement for the XT5 and XT6. What Cadillac needs is a nice RWD midsized SUV. It doesn’t need to have the Blackwing V8 but Genesis has success with the GV80 being a RWD platform. They can also charge more for it and make more margin. At $58k, my premium luxury XT5 is slightly more than a bare bones GV80.
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         2. 

            “Why are they sponsoring racing – waste of resources”

            I’ve asked that same question to some people I still know at gm and basically they just shrug their shoulders and all they could come up with was , “cuz Mark is a racing enthusiast and he likes to go to races on the weekend”.

            There isn’t a legitimate business case in the world that should be able to justify Cadillac being in endurance racing much less their desire to enter Formula 1. There just isn’t. The low sales numbers, regionality of demand, buyer demographics and their interest in racing (or lack thereof) could never justify such an investment.

            So much for corporate governance and Board oversight.
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            1. 

               Most Auto manufactures do some form of motorsports and GM / Cadillac have shown a lot of success. They’ve been racing for years, and the current regulations are designed to be more cost effective. If it’s not bleeding money from the parent company, then the pros likely outweigh the cons.

               While the initial investment in F1 would be high, if they have some success even as a mid-field team, they can recoup the investment and become profitable.
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               1. 

                  Corvette racing makes sense, Cadi, not so much
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4. 

   Am I the only one who has noticed that the Lyriq is now the second best selling Cadillac after Escalade? It shows that even though it is electric that high design sells in the luxury market. In my opinion the Lyriq looks like an expensive luxury vehicle when the other Cadillac CUVs look like rebadged chevy’s.
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   1. 

      But it also shows how low the bar has gotten. The XT5 use to move 70K units annually when it was new. The Escalade is what keeping the lights on in the building.
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   2. 

      So why not strive for more? Sell the 2nd gen XT5 here and retain your customers that aren’t comfortable with EVs yet before they go to Lexus, land up loving their RX, and go for an RZ instead of a Lyriq? This is an opportunity for growth when the Lyriq is bringing in new customers to the brand. This is what I mean by they are using a “good enough” strategy. If American athletes only did “good enough” none of them would have even a bronze medal to show for.
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      1. 

         And, on the used market, reliability of Audis are well….mostly not very good apart from some cars. Diesel Audis are a different story.

         I see old Cadillacs MORE than old Audis here in Qatar….in the Middle East, Audis like other cars have expensive electronics (not excluding Cadillac from this), but generally Audi likes to overengineer things that are probably DIFFICULT to fix after warranty (the only other case is the Northstar ).
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5. 

   Let’s see. By my count from the chart above, Audi has 9 sedan/coupe models compared to Cadillac having 2 that they barely care about. Audi has more EV’s than Cadillac.

   So the fact that Audi outsold Cadillac is zero surprise to me and shouldn’t be to anyone.

   At least Cadillac has that super fancy Tahoe.
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6. 

   What is kind of interesting is that their least efficient vehicle and their most efficient vehicle are their best sellers. In 1974 they had basically four models not including a factory limousine. Multiple exterior colors and multiple interior colors, fabrics, leathers, a verity of tops and even multiple choices for such minor things like pinstripes. You could pick from a host of options not just a couple of packages. Maybe they should look in the rear view mirror if they want to go forward. 
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7. 

   Wait until Mary takes Cadillac to the all electric path and ceases to produce any ice vehicles. Cadillac will die on the vine and their customers will go elsewhere. Yup what a great decision !
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8. 

   I don’t see the ESCALADE IQ selling in huge volumes as the plain ESCALADE does…. $129,000 is just too much for a mainstream vehicle.

   The objection will be of course that Jeep Waggoneers get $125,000 stickers… That’s true but they’re still on the dealers’ lots.
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9. 

   we need to kill xt6.and ct4 bring home the 2025 ct6 and xt5 from china give the ct5 sport and prem lux manual gear boxes

   the 2024 escalade needs 10.5 rebate plus loyalty rebate to move some the pandemic 2021-2022 consumers from the sidelines

   once electric vehicles became political and made out to be some green leftwing conspiracy it became a uphill battle to conquer the hearts and minds of the consumers
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