The Cadillac XTS starts at more than $56,000 in China.
Cadillac is now making the full-size XTS luxury sedan in China as part of GM’s attempt to hold onto its sales leadership position in the world’s largest auto market. GM has led sales in China for eight consecutive years, but during 2012 it just barely stayed as Number One at 2.84 million vehicles because the VW Group, China’s Number Two automaker, sold 2.81 million vehicles, a +24.5% increase compared to 2011. Whether GM can hold the lead in China this year remains an open question, but it really doesn’t matter. The market is large and growing. It is projected that by the end of the decade half of all luxury purchases in the world – all categories, not just cars – will occur in China. (Read AutoInformed.com on VW Group Ties GM for Largest Maker in China as January Sales Soar)
Cadillac’s dealer network in China has now grown to 150 locations, doubling in the past year in part due to the sales success of the imported SRX crossover. Cadillac plans to expand to 250 outlets in the next two years. The brand sold more than 30,000 vehicles in China in 2012 – 17,000 SRX models – with a goal of selling more than 100,000 annually by 2015. China, with its protectionist policies, imposes high taxes on imported automobiles, thereby forcing job-creating local production. (Read AutoInformed on First Drive – the 2010 Cadillac SRX)
Cadillac XTS debuted in the U.S. last spring with a starting price of $44,995 including destination.
The XTS is not the first Cadillac assembled in China, though. The SLS Executive Sedan, an extended-length luxury car sold only in China, began production in 2006. The 2013 Cadillac XTS launched in North America late last spring at the Oshawa, Ontario Assembly Plant.
First shown as the Cadillac XTS Platinum concept car in 2010 at the NAIAS in Detroit, the concept was a V6-powered, all-wheel-drive plug-in hybrid design. No word on a hybrid today.
XTS is a so-called “five meter” car, as was the Cadillac Catera, about the size of defunct STS in the U.S., or just over 200 inches in overall length, once considered the optimum size for a European luxury car before BMW and Mercedes upped the ante with super-sized S-class and 7-series behemoths.
Cadillac has apparently abandoned plans for a new generation of rear-wheel-drive cars, and the XTS is derived from the evolving GM Epsilon front-drive platform. To some, XTS appears a cautious or bland design that is derived from the Cadillac 16 concept with its styling forms adapted to the different proportions. To others, including AutoInformed, it looks like a real Cadillac.
CUE, or Cadillac User Experience, is comprised of the eight-inch screen, the faceplate below the screen and steering wheel controls. The center stack has seven buttons – four of them for the radio. That’s less than half the controls found on the center stack of the typical car. The system is still challenging to use.
The Cadillac assembly plant in Shanghai complements Oshawa, Ontario as the second location for the XTS, marking the brand’s biggest expansion step since its introduction in China during 2006. Local assembly and a smaller displacement 2-liter turbocharged powertrain in the Chinese XTS – China has punitive taxes on larger displacement engines – could allow the luxury car to increase sales and overtake the SLX.
Audi in January benefited from it ongoing growth of local production in China, where 37,700 (27,200; +39% in Jnauary of 2012) Audi brand vehicles were sold – more than the annual sales of all Cadillac models in one month.
The Canadian Auto Workers were hurt when GM announced late last year that the next generation Camaro would leave its Oshawa home plant to be assembled in Lansing where the Cadillac ATS is also produced. ATS will also eventually be sold in China, but a GM spokesperson told AutoInformed that no decision has been made on imports or local production yet.
Criticisms that auto companies are making vehicles in China or transferring jobs there are at best ignorant of, or deliberately ignore, Chinese industrial policy, which requires local partners and production for access to the market in AutoInformed’s view.There are also high Chinese tariffs on imports that effectively restrict volume exports of the kind that are now coming out of, say, South Korea under the U.S. Korean FTA. (I can only imagine the outcry if Mercedes-Benz was required to partner with the city of Detroit to build cars there – the ruling political party in Detroit – currently Democrats – controlling the jobs as a condition of access to the U.S., one of the world’s most lucrative luxury car markets. This is required in China.)
The latest XTS production move to China is inevitable given the communist government policies, but it is unknown at the moment how the CAW will react to the latest GM move. GM argues that it is good for the brand and will help Cadillac all of Cadillac. Cadillac also previously said it would sell the ELR – a radically styled coupe with the Chevrolet Volt hybrid powertrain adapted to it – in China sometime in the future.
“Growth in the Chinese market is essential to any top-level luxury auto brand, and it boosts our brand and our business everywhere including in the U.S.,” Bob Ferguson, vice president Global Cadillac, said today.
The XTS is larger than the current CTS line, but at 202 inches in overall length, much smaller than historic Cadillac sedans. The 5-passenger car lacks a V8 and uses a 300 horsepower (224 kW) direct injectionV6 coupled to an all-wheel-drive system. A front-wheel-drive version is also be available.
Cadillac XTS is the most-spacious Cadillac sedan in the revised line, with interior room roughly comparable to current full-size sedans. In what appears to be a clear bid to make the XTS saleable to the chauffeur-driven, communist ruling class in China, XTS has 40 inches (1,016 mm) of rear legroom. That is about four more inches than the BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, and about two more inches than the Audi A6 – and comparable to larger sedans.
The Germans, of course, sell stretched versions of their cars in China to provide the required rear space. Ultimately, Cadillac might need a stretched version of the XTS or even a bigger car if it is serious about competing globally in the luxury car market, especially in China, an idea currently dismissed by GM.
Read AutoInformed on:
- Cadillac to build New XTS in China at Shanghai GM
- BMW to Build a Car Plant in Brazil Prompted by Tough Legislation
- GM to Increase Electric Vehicle Development in China
- Chinese GAC Group to Build Jeep Models in China
