Cadillac’s upcoming flagship is living up to its status, as the CT6 is set to have a PHEV option on the checklist when it arrives for the 2016 model year.
According to The Detroit News, General Motors product chief Mark Reuss claims the PHEV option will offer consumers an “industry-leading fuel economy upwards of 70 mpg equivalent.” The CT6 will be powered by a 3-liter twin-turbo V6 with an eight-speed auto aiding in the power delivery.
Cadillac’s flagship will also be built upon an advanced architecture composed of “high-strength steel, aluminum and steel stampings,” combined with the automaker’s patented welding tech to create a vehicle with 20 percent fewer parts. Reuss says the results help improve “safety, ride and handling,” as well as NVH. The overall product will be 8 inches longer than the current CTS, but will weigh 53 pounds less.
As far as other technology is concerned, the CT6 will have stop-start and a so-called thru-view mirror — a rear backup camera “steamed… into the front mirror,” per Reuss — allowing the driver to see more of the outside behind the car in its rearview mirror.
The flagship, set to battle the Mercedes S-Class and BMW 7 Series, will leave Hamtramck beginning in late 2015.
Has Cadillac already given up on going after BMW and Mercedes and is now going to make a pass at Tesla?… Oh, wait, ELR
Everyone is going the this route (e.g. BMW i3 and i8), the ELR was just way overpriced for what it is (a loaded Volt coupe).
Heck, the Germans have been dropping cylinders across their entire lineups. Green is in. I would bet this iteration of luxury flagships will be the last ones with available V12s.
…and you don’t think a all-new Cadillac CT6 won’t be waaay overpriced?
Unlike, lincoln at least Cadillac is trying.
Cadillac is working hard, not smartly.
It doesn’t help that their product mix is awful, their cars are grossly overpriced, that they threw their heritage and reason to exist away while trying to become BMW v2.0, and that the reliability of their vehicles sucks as is typical of any GM division.
This is a shrewd move. If only they had gone this route for the ATS/CTS. Better to spend the money on weight shaving, fuel economy and plug in/battery technology than stuff luxury buyers couldn’t care less about like Ring times and Brembo brakes. The Alpha platform was a huge waste of money.
Yes – Time for GM to stop listening to car magazines and websites, and start “listening” to the market and consumers.
“The overall product will be 8 inches longer than the current CTS, but will weigh 53 pounds less.”
2015 CTS length 195.5 in.
2015 XTS length 202.0 in.
So the new “flagship” is one inch larger than the too-small XTS. HOW FREAKING BRILLIANT.
Depends where they add the length, the XTS has a big booty. From the looks of things the CT6 will add more wheelbase.
I would hope so. That XTS has way too much car on too little wheelbase.
They are going to downsize the engine from the XTS/CTS and add plug-in option for their flagship?
This. I hope future blurbs from Cadillac contain information that proves more than [email protected]#wittery is ruling the day at Autobot HQ. As it stands, this seems asinine for several reasons.
The 3.0 would be fine as the _base_ engine. But even if they match or slightly exceed the output from the turbo 3.6 in the CTS, their competitors all have FI 4.0+ liter offerings in higher trim levels. I hope this thing is being engineered around a larger engine being optional, otherwise they have very little room for incremental performance improvements that Mercedes/BMW/Audi could easily make.
This will be a comparatively low volume car, like all of the big flagship sedans. It isn’t going to crush the fleet CAFE averages to offer this thing with something GM is exceedingly good at building…a 6.2 liter V8. Just make the LT1 the base engine and don’t gimp it compared to the Corvette. Put the LT4 and other ‘vette bits on the V model. This shouldn’t be so complicated GM.
And as others have pointed out, the name absolutely positively sucks. Just use the Elmiraj name. Or revive some long dead but revered name from your past. The last thing the world needs is another alphabet soup.
Don’t care much any more. I was once excited about a new Cadillac flagship, but now wince whenever I read “CT6”. If they are putting as much effort into the car as they are into its name, then it is already a lost cause.
CT6 sounds like the economy,low-spec version of the sporty CTS, not the pride of General Motors, a flagship equipped to take on the world. This stunning lack of inspiration in the naming process leaves such a negative suspicion about the car itself. I am dubious as to how it will turn out. After the egregious XTS, a mis-shapen hunchback that mars the landscape wherever it goes, I am skeptical about Cadillac’s ability to do what it used to do best – turn out beautiful, desirable, luxurious, and technogically advanced dream machines. I hope I am wrong. They have proven they can build compelling lower level BMW clones, but can they build a true high-end luxury car anymore? We’ll see.
While they are at it, how about figuring out what the Cadillac crest should look like, and stick to it?
That goofy badge has had more faces than Dr. Who.
They traditionally change it up all the time…
http://creechimport.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/cadillac-logo-history.jpg
Yet it barely changed from 1968 to 1999 which is the demographic which nearly every current new Cadillac buyer grew up in… hmmmm. Might be time to drop the BS and go with a classic.
So it’s not a big vehicle, it has an engine meant for a compact, its key feature is an also ran system in a saturated market, making unsubstantiated claims on efficiency.
We already know they care little to nothing about its success as they didnt even spend the time to properly name it.
Luxury branded car, engine slightly bigger than that of a motorcycle, flagship that isn’t even large, exotic materials used with no reasoning for using them, doesn’t even have a name.
The success of this car means nothing, this is another paycheck for Johan.
I don’t think a 3.0L twin turbo V6 is meant for a compact. I would be okay with one in my C-Max though.
High strung engines to me equate to hot hatches, which tend to be in the compact category.
If this can’t exceed the CTS-Vs SC6.2, it immediately fails to be a flagship, as much as rebadging a compact as a cadillac did to caddies reputation in the past.
They’re chasing a nonexistant market, no one wants a flagship that is worse than the “lesser” cars.
Else they can rebadge a corvette and put the cruze engine into it.
I don’t think it needed to be more powerful than the CTS-V. Just like the S-Class and 7er aren’t more powerful than the performance oreiented E63 and M5 (yes the new S65 has more HP than the E63). They do offer bigger engines though. I don’t think Cadillac is putting a V12 out there though.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Corvette a compact by most metrics?
I think it’s in the “sports car” classification like Porsche, Lotus, Ferrari etc. Not big cars, but certainly not classified as “compacts”
I was really trying to give Johan a chance to prove he learned from the last few messes he left, obviously not.
Maybe Johan is a double agent, BMW pays him to get hired by luxury makes and destroy the makes credibility.
No doubt he tried to destroy the escalade and got his hand slapped.
CT6 sounds about as flagship as the Cimarron.
He strikes me as being a tool, although in his defense some, if not all of these product decisions were made prior to his appointment. His only confirmed direct contribution thus far is another ridiculous naming scheme. Winning.
I find it hard to believe a tool could get that far up into a company that has its name on the NYSE, don’t get me wrong, I agree, but I think there’s more issues than meets the eye with him.
Didn’t he say caddy would start making there own engines? That boneheaded move, along with the 70MPG estimate for the PHEV is similar to what caused the volt to be such a disaster when it was released. It wasn’t a terrible vehicle but it had nothing that represented the concept, not even close, and the price being charged was rediculous without the specs that were expected to make it into production.
According to The Detroit News, General Motors product chief Mark Reuss claims the PHEV option will offer consumers an “industry-leading fuel economy upwards of 70 mpg equivalent.”
Seriously now, have Cadillac buyers ever cared about fuel economy? Never. This technology in a Buick might actually mean something. Putting it into a “luxury” brand in order to demand a high price to try and limit per unit losses is foolish, we evidently did not learn from ELR. Tesla has bested you in this arena RenCen, and unlike you, apparently can afford to mfg cars at a loss and they will still be better than yours.
“The overall product will be 8 inches longer than the current CTS, but will weigh 53 pounds less.”
So about the size of the Sigma CTS, but for way more?
MPG is a selling feature, but the proof is in the driving. An electric drivetrain is a very nice thing to have in urban/suburban driving.
Tesla is already the electric car for the rich, with Lexus providing luxury hybrids, and Toyota, Chevrolet, and Nissan providing a mix of EVs and hybrids for the masses. People who might be interested in an electric Cadillac can afford a Tesla, and people are already interested in Cadillac may not be interested in a electric car. This sounds like another potential stillborn in the making, although as you point out the drive will be key.
You forgot Ford, they will be close to selling 100,000 hybrids and plug in hybrids this year.
I’m so confused. I don’t understand the downsized engine and PHEV on the flagship. There is also no way that the PHEV version weighs less than the CTS. At its heaviest, the CTS still weighs less than the compact PHEV Cadillac can’t seem to sell.
And what regions do they think they have a snowball’s chance in hell of selling these things? They will be comparatively rare in the USA (low volume flagship sedan market), and even more scarce elsewhere. How many markets where this has a glimmer of hope have displacement taxes? How many of those have enormous price variations in the tiers between 3.0 liters and 6.2? And even then, can’t someone buying a flagship afford the taxes? The only places this thing might be moderately successful happen to like big V8 engines…something GM is kind of known for eh? People say Lincoln isn’t even trying. Cadillac seems to be trying to fail.
Merecedes, BMW, and Audi all have smaller engines in their flagships. But they also all have V12s or W12s.
Here’s to hoping that a GM V8 somehow makes it into this thing. Talk about not playing to their stength.
This this. It’s like they forget they have V8s just lying around, ready to go. They would save money on hybrid PHEV etc etc development (which the full-size luxe market doesn’t want anyway) and could put money into, oh say the interior or some such thing which really matters.
@CoreyDL (which the full-size luxe market doesn’t want anyway)
While they might not care about the fuel economy (with maybe the exception of the livery market), the torque and silence of an electric drive train works perfectly in luxury applications.
I love cruising along at 80 mph with just a tiny bit of wind noise and muffled traffic sounds. Accelerating away from a light with no downshifting or high revs – just quiet torque pushing you back into the seat. That’s modern luxury and once you experience it there’s no going back.
+1.
“I love cruising along at 80 mph with just a tiny bit of wind noise and muffled traffic sounds. Accelerating away from a light with no downshifting or high revs – just quiet torque pushing you back into the seat. ”
^This^ is what it was like riding in, then driving my dad’s Cadillacs when I was a kid. They were different and you knew it the minute you climbed in. You didn’t have to ask what was under the hood, you knew it was the best GM had to offer. There was nothing better, more graceful or more powerful on the road. You had the finest car and everyone knew it.
Substantial length? A V8? Who needs those things? It’s not as if the most popular flagship configuration is a long-wheelbase V8.
Oh wait….
Importantly, we can make the wheelbase short, and the trunk extra tall and long. It makes it better for hearse applications.
Gotta take those sales away from the MKT.
That picture is a reminder: Cadillac is going nowhere until they put the ducks back.
There’s nothing inherently wrong or unappealing about taking this direction with a flagship car, but until Caddy finds its way back to execution of design and assembly it just can’t work. I continue to hold out hope for it, but because of their LONG descent into sub standard vehicles at premium pricing they’ll have to do better than the competition before I take them seriously.
At least Cadillac is trying. Lincoln is in lobotomy model.