smk4565

Their crossovers had a bad month, that is sort of surprising since crossovers are hot. The 5-series is their oldest product and it was up and had a good month with over 4,000. 3-series got clobbered, but C-class and ATS and Lexus IS were down too. So maybe those buyers are going to crossovers.

Good thing they were prepared for the Crossover boom, with 4 crossovers and 1 SUV.

Well a used E350 is a better buy than a new CTS, and the E-class will last longer. They probably send the same think to Audi A6 and Lexus GS350 buyers. There are probably a fair number of luxury car buyers that think a Mercedes is too expensive, or the maintenance too high, that they can afford a Lexus or Cadillac but can't afford a Mercedes. So 2 years pre-paid maintenance, extended warranty and $45k price tag is to conquer that type of buyer. A CTS-V buyer is obviously not that type of buyer. I get mailers to trade in my car with a CLA lease deal, which also makes no sense, but they are just trying to draw people into the dealerships. Really they should do a better job on the mailing lists to better target people, a CTS-V owner should get an AMG flyer, not one for an E350.

The S-class and E-class/CLS outsold all the mid-large Audi and Cadillacs combined. The A6, A7, A8, CTS, CT6, XTS all have lousy sales. Many buyers are moving toward crossovers, those buying a sedan must want the best or nothing. Lincoln was up 20% and Cadillac down 28%. Lincoln has Ford crossovers with wood and chrome added on and is growing (although still small) and Cadillac is shrinking despite the performance charachteristics of the Alpha chassis. Most buyers don't care about perfoamnce sadly, they just want a lame crossover. Bad news for us performance car fans, but that is where the market is going.

I have thought for a while a twin turbo V6 S-class at $8,000 would help steal sales off teh A8 and 7-series. That big sedan segment is shrinking, they shouldshoot to drive the competition out. They did the V6 with the SL. The E-class/CLS is back up, while all the others in that segment are down. C-class had a huge year last year, but I am a little surprised it is struggling this year, yes crossovers are hot, but they should still be able to hit 6,000 a month, if the 3/4 series can do over 10,000.

The Audi A7 is priced $10,000 above CT6 for base model, but overall the A7 lines up well with the CT6 price. A4 beat the ATS 2,983 to 1,737. On overall sedan sales Audi is beating Cadillac, plus Audi has 3 crossovers that were all up big. The thing about Audi is they don't even need the American market, they sell 1.7 million cars outside of the USA. Cadillac is American market dependent. Mercedes and BMW beat Audi here by wide margin, but in China Audi sells nearly as many cars as BMW and Mercedes combined.

Cars down, crossovers up. Nice job to Alfa for selling 60 cars, that has to be profitable and worthwhile to sell 1-2 cars per state.

Sedan sales are dropping fast in all segments. They can probably start merging products like Regal and Verano, Spark and Sonic etc and just put more crossovers out. I don't know if this trend will reverse.

Maybe Sergio can be CEO of Citroen/Puegot and VW I think needs a new CEO. Makes sense to be CEO if multiple companies.

Well I did post examples of E-class and CLA selling in 10-11 days on dealer lots, that were from 2015, at the same time the Cadillacs were taking 120-150 days. I couldn't find any 2016 numbers.

an E-class in its 7th model year and the 2016 is no longer in production. I wouldn't worry about the E-class, the turn around starts this summer with the 2017. The more they run that ad where the driver lifts his hands off the wheel and the car drives itself, the more people will want it. That is next level, none of the competition drives itself.

August 2015 fastest selling cars, from September 2015 Cars.com https://www.cars.com/articles/augusts-fastest--and-slowest-selling-cars-1420681121521/?cmp=sf12686344+sf12686344 Mercedes GLE 8 days Mercedes GL 11 days

February 2015 story, CLA sold in an average of 10 days on dealer lots. And that is the bad Mercedes no one wants. http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/news/january-2015-fastest-selling-cars-article-1.2101560

This was from December 2014, but not good news for Cadillac. http://www.cheatsheet.com/automobiles/americas-most-wanted-12-vehicles-flying-off-dealer-lots.html/?a=viewall "For a luxury status symbol that only costs a small fortune, the Mercedes E-Class remains at the top of America’s wish list. In fact, data recently showed the E350 sedan ($52,300) is the third-highest selling car priced above $50,000 in the U.S. That would explain the hot demand for this classy Benz offering 302 horsepower and 29 miles per gallon on the highway. Tied with three other vehicles for fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh on this list, you could say only three automobiles are in hotter demand in America than the Mercedes E350. They disappear from Daimler lots in 11 days on average." 11 days!!!

Good find.

I do agree about trim level names. What is wrong with Luxury package, technology package and sport package, it works about on any car. Things like Lincoln Continental Reserve are dumb, how do I know if Reserve is better than Select, or Select better than Limited, or Titanium better than Platinum. It is all garbled, probably to confuse the customer into overpaying for options they don't want. Problem with the Envision is the boat anchor 2.5 is priced higher than the 279 hp V6 Acura RDX. The Envision should have a standard turbo 4 and cost about $2k less than the Lincoln MKC or Lexus NX.

Agreed with Olds hurst, but I like Balthazaar's idea of the full size coupe. Something like the Phantom coupe that is just huge and over the top would be awesome.

And we can all assume you will purchase one of these cars? How about just having a car that dominates BMW, Audi and Benz in all areas at a price that is competitive with the others. You do that it will amount to a hell of a lot more than a car that few will buy. You have to earn trust first before you dream super car. I am not in a position to buy a $250,000 exotic car, nor will I ever be unless I hit the Powerball. From a practice sense, I was thinking Cadillac should build an Omega crossover with turbo V6 and turbo V8 power. People like the crossovers. But my wish, or in this case dare would be more of a moon shot product, just so they can say they did it. It isn't a car that makes financial sense, but I am sure VW loses money on every Bugatti sold, but they made it just to prove they could.

I dare Cadillac to build a V12 supercar, something to compete with Ferrari and Lamborghini and really stir up excitement. This could probably be done with a twin turbo DOHC V8 and electric hybrid powertrain too. Carbon fiber body, 200+ mph top speed, 3 second 0-60 time. So really moving toward that hyper car territory.

Since "Dare Greatly" is the current ad campaign, I thought it would be a good idea for everyone to come up with one thing they dare Cadillac to do. It can be anything, it could be to put the Sixteen intro production, to make a pure EV Tesla fighter, a mid-engine supercar, to changing the naming scheme to introducing a new marketing campaign, or anything you want. But you only get 1 Dare, people can up vote their favorite idea.

Cadillac has been saying wait till next year since 2002. Remember they launched the STS, SRX performance crossover, and XLR roadster in the same year. That was to be an assault on the 5-series/E-class, the X5/M-class and the Mercedes SL and Jaguar XK and Lexus SC430. They attacked 3 segments in the heart of the luxury market at one time, and got no where, they gave up on all 3 products. They have been saying "wait till next year" and "this product is on the way" for the past 15 years. The other guys have that product on sale now, and that is where the people are going.

The advantage Cadillac has over the Japanese brands and Audi for the most part is a long history and their heritage. That is something they could play up to boost their image. If they are going to try to advertise their technology and make that the focus, they better have the best technology out there. And they don't even have Super Cruise yet, when even Volvo has semi Autonomous driving. There isn't really a true identity or clear focus that they use to differentiate themselves from the crowd.

Here is another one, "Since 1886" Cadillac could easily do a similar ad, and talk up the heritage. Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti have no heritage, unless Lexus wants to run that video of the 1991 LS400 balancing champagne glasses on the hood. Cadillac needs their word names back, Fleetwood, Eldorado, play up the heritage they have, spark some emotion, you strike the memories of older buyers, you teach the young ones who you were. To people under 35 they only know Cadillac as a poorly made American land yacht who only recently tried to make sports sedans, and has the Escalade, that rappers and athletes drive. The millenials don't know Cadillac was the first modern car really with the 3 pedal set up, and gear shifter on the floor that every other car adopted, that they had interchangeable parts, first V8, etc. You gotta tell the story. https://www.ispot.tv/ad/A5ac/mercedes-benz-since-1886

Cadillac needs ads like this, that play on heritage. They never talk about their history. They could copy this ad with Since 1902, "standard of the world" put, talk about the first electric starter, the first mast produced V8, the 1930s V16 Phaeton, 50s Eldorado, hopefully they won a race at some point in their history that they can throw in, show the technology of the CT6, lightweight construction, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8QnBqH-KfM Sorry, I didn't know how to put the video so it plays on here.

Yes, Cadillac has to market to the people that aren't buying the car now. This is what they are awful at. They aren't conquesting from the Japanese and Germans. If they don't conquest, they have to get huge numbers of first time luxury buyers, I don't think they are doing that either. They have to market to people that can afford the car though. If they make a car that 30 years think is cool, but they can't afford more than a $25,000 car, it doesn't do Cadillac any good. How about the Corvette? Median buyer age of 61, and they don't build it with VTEC for the younger buyers, they build it to suit the fan base, and the fan base buys it. They aren't trying to sell it to 30 year olds that can't afford it. You're right Cadillac doesn't do that. MB does though MB markets towards that same group of 30 year olds, hence the CLA and the heavy marketing push by MB touting its "under $30,000" campaign. Funny how you don't mention that. CLA median buyer age is 46. But Mercedes brand overall is 52-56 depending on what survey you believe. So they are marketing toward younger than their norm with the CLA, but they aren't ignoring their customer base. CLA is a way to get new buyers into the brand. That is what smart companies do, they cover all bases. They sell 4 crossovers, 5 if you want to count GLE coupe as separate. I have long said Cadillac desperately needs a small crossover, that is a way to attract younger buyers. But their older buyers probably want V8s and classic American luxury, give it to them. Cater to both.