More Dealer Drama From Cadillac and the China Connection [Updated: Cadillac Responds]

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

Cadillac told U.S. and Chinese dealers they will each need to invest at least $200,000 on electric vehicle chargers and staff training to continue selling the brand’s products after 2022. The message was communicated to dealerships on Wednesday via video messages from Rory Harvey, the luxury brand’s vice president of sales, service and marketing. Cadillac is moving on electrification (seriously this time) and plans to launch the Lyriq EV within the next two years, with more battery-driven models to follow. Update: Cadillac PR has responded, saying that what was communicated yesterday is for U.S. dealers only.

The brand says dealers must be ready for the transition, giving us flashbacks to Project Pinnacle — the Johan de Nysschen strategy that forced stores to spend money to provide a more premium sales experience that differentiated Cadillac as special. At the time of its implementation, many dealers wondered why they should bother taking on more overhead under the assumption that they’ll make extra money over time. While luxury-specific outlets don’t have much choice in the matter, those selling GM’s other brands in conjunction with Cadillac seem to be substantially less eager to implement the changes.

This has especially been true in rural areas where customers may not have the option of visiting a Cadillac-specific storefront. When they go to pick up a new vehicle, they’re likely to have to walk past a couple rows of GMC or Chevrolet products. Shop owners are wondering if its worth bothering footing the bill for the upgrades, especially since EV sales are likely to be substantially lower in areas without a comprehensive charging network and that’ll be all Cadillac is offering.

Perhaps more telling is GMC confessing earlier this week that only about half of its 1,700 dealers have decided to sell the upcoming Hummer EV.

General Motors may be running the risk of segregating its market. Cadillac will have urban areas with customers that can make its luxury EVs work for them while GMC handles truck-obsessed rural areas without charging networks. It sounds a little dumb but the automaker may just be leaning into existing trends in the hopes of getting ahead of them in the United States. The Detroit News helped illustrate this by interviewing a few Caddy dealers to get their take on the mandatory upgrades.

“It’s a game changer for us,” Inder Dosanjh, a Cadillac dealer with four dealerships in the San Francisco Bay Area, told the outlet. “The current product is very hot. Electrification just really fits in our profile.”

From The Detroit News:

David Butler, chairman of the dealer council and executive manager for Suburban Cadillac, which has three Cadillac dealerships in Michigan and one in California, said the investment might be a lot for a small dealer who makes few sales in a year. But there are investments, like redoing showrooms, that are “substantially more” than $200,000.

“I have no problem investing in the brand as long as we’re going to bring buy-in behind it,” he said. “Generally $200,000 is not a number that scares most dealers, but at some point you have to start making financial decisions about whether or not this additional investment is going to be worth it for you.”

While there are “core elements” required to serve future Cadillac customers, the changes can vary by dealership, Harvey said, noting that a smaller dealership might only need one charging station. Every dealer will be contacted by a field person at GM about the transition.

Though GM’s entire decision probably has more to do with Asian sales than anything else. The People’s Republic of China has more home and work chargers than anywhere in the world. It likewise has the biggest public charging network currently in existence and has been pretty good to Cadillac vs most other American imports.

Going electric is a clear play at the PRC and ensuring the brand has continued access to Chinese customers. The Chinese Communist Party has prioritized EV adoption and has been working with global regulators on establishing deadlines for the banning of internal combustion vehicles for years. While this is being done under the auspices of environmentalism, China is also one of the biggest dogs in the yard when it comes to battery production and knows an EV-only world would it a massive trade advantage over the West. Automakers are well aware of this, which is one reason you see global brands doing a lot of business within the country (e.g. Volkswagen and GM) focusing on electric cars a little harder than their peers.

More from Cadillac: “While we do see great opportunity for EV’s in China, this is not the reason for the new standards. We also see great potential in U.S. but we need to get the network prepared. This is the logical next step on our path toward EVs.”

.[Image: Lerner Vadim/Shutterstock]

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.

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  • Inside Looking Out Inside Looking Out on Sep 17, 2020

    Communism rocks! China is ahead of USA! Where are headlines? MSM as usual is at sleep. We want communism! We want communism! Well are Cadillac dealerships so poor that cannot install EV charger in dealership? How are they going to transition to the Future? Or they are planning to stay behind forever and somehow survive? How is it possible?

  • CaddyDaddy CaddyDaddy on Sep 17, 2020

    Glorious chargers installed by glorious Cadillac Dealers for glorious people in a glorious nation.

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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