Cadillac to focus on electrification instead of diesel
GM’s Cadillac announced they have put their diesel development on hold as the market appears to be “changing more quickly than we anticipated,” said new Cadillac President Steve Carlisle. Their focus is on electrified drive trains.
What may appear natural to us here is a more surprising step for Cadillac. The GM label had continued to pour resources into “clean” diesel development but now felt the change of times.
Automotive News quotes Cadillac President Steve Carlisle, speaking last week at the XT4 compact crossover launch. Carlisle said: “We have been working on diesel, but the markets may be changing more quickly than we anticipated. Going forward, we will focus on electrification.”
Yet, he maintained that the strategy has come “under scrutiny” and the programme on hold rather than dead. Still a revival appears unlikely, latest since Cadillac’s diesel development partner Opel had been sold off to PSA. Opel/Vauxhall is now following their PACE! strategy and plan to offer all models with an electric or plug-in hybrid drivetrain by 2024 in Europe.
A similar development is in stake for Cadillac. GM had announced before that the brand is to take the lead in the group when it comes to electrification, particularly in China. Johann De Nysschen, who was succeeded by Carlisle as Cadillac President, back then specified that “technologies will debut in Cadillac first and then cascade down to the other brands,” making it a “technology lead brand” for General Motors as it has been in the past (we reported).
As a corporation, GM is working on a novel platform due to launch by 2021. The new architecture is supposed to make electric vehicles profitable and shall be used across several market segments and GM brands (we reported), much like Volkswagen’s MEB. Overall, GM targets global sales of one million EVs per year by 2026.
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