Cadillac's First Electric Car (SUV) Is Still 3 Years Away

By: Mark Kane

Jan 28, 2019 at 4:27pm ET

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GM develops a tailor-made BEV platform, similar to VW's MEB, but it will take 3 years?

In 2018, Cadillac set its new sales record of 382,184 according to Deborah Wahl, Global Chief Marketing Officer. However, in the U.S. sales decreased by 1.1% to 154,702 - and are way lower than leading premium brands - Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz.

It's important to reflect on the future of the brand, which in 1978 was selling over 350,000 cars, but mostly in U.S.

One of the answers for the future is to be electric cars. Cadillac will lead General Motors' new EV initiative and is expected to introduce its first model... three years from now.

The timing suggests that the decision on the development of an all-new BEV3 architecture for a broad range of electric cars was made recently - late, but hopefully not too late.

The new platform will be suitable for electric cars:

various sizes and body types (including SUV/CUV)
all-wheel drive, front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive
both left-hand and right-hand drive

The important word in the announcements is "profitable" as after previous experiences, GM really needs to find a profitable patch both for itself and for dealers.

“Cadillac will be GM’s lead electric vehicle brand and will introduce the first model from the company’s all new battery electric vehicle architecture, GM’s foundation for an advanced family of profitable EVs.

The flexible platform will provide a broad array of body styles and will be offered in front-wheel, rearwheel and all-wheel configurations.

Its most critical components — including the battery cells — are being designed for maximum usability across all programs. The battery system will also be adjustable, based on vehicle and customer requirements.”

What do you think?

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The time is ticking away. In the U.S., GM hit the federal tax credit phase-out procedure so the only way to profit on BEVs will be to leverage scale. High scale to stay competitive will be required in China (the biggest EV market). We guess that this is the main reason why the all-new general EV platform is needed for many models of various brands (starting with the premium Cadillac to recover as much costs as possible).