Cadillac News: Who Is In Charge At Cadillac?

[William Maley]

Cadillac has been one of the few brands at General Motors to mostly avoid the Ignition Switch recall drama, but that doesn't mean they have their own set of problems. The brand has seen sales slip 2.2 percent within the first five months of this year, a bit surprising considering the luxury market is booming.

“The brand has not grown as well this year as it did last year. They do have a greatly improved product line, but they need to have that produce results. They need to connect more with the consumer,” said IHS Automotive analyst Tom Libby.

Not helping matters is the question of who leading Cadillac at the moment. Bob Ferguson, Cadillac's global chief and former lobbyist for the company was sent to Washington back in February to work on the political fallout over the ignition switch recall. Rumor has it that Ferguson will not return to his post as Cadillac's global chief.

“He was asked to step in on an obviously urgent project there for the CEO. How long that goes and how much that continues into the future, I just don’t know,” said Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell to the Detroit Free Press.

Then the past week, Cadillac’s head of U.S. sales, Bill Peffer stepped down. Peffer held this position for just a year.

A possible answer is that GM President Dan Ammann will hold down the fort for the timebeing. Meanwhile Kurt McNeil, GM’s head of U.S. sales operations is the interm vice president of sales and service for Cadillac, a position he held until 2012.

Source: Detroit Free Press

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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[Drew Dowdell]

Cadillac needs to stand firm on pricing as long as they feel their cars are worth the price, feature for feature, relative to the competition.  Let the people hunting for a deal on a luxury car go to Buick or get an Impala.

[balthazar]

Cadillac's primary goal is NOT sales volume, but profit. 2% is no where near motivation to write an article over (...unless of course; it's a domestic brand).

[David]

I agree with the comments above, I just hope they get a Auto person that has passion about building world class luxury cars and SUV's!

[SoCalCTS]

The incentives have favored new customers over existing customers. Honestly, if I can't get the same deal as the next guy then I will look at other brands. If Cadillac isn't loyal to me they shouldn't expect me to stick around.

[smk4565]

The Cadillac brand has lacked leadership and focus for the past 10 years or so.  They started on a plan in the early 2000s to dump the FWD boats and bring out the CTS, the first SRX, the STS and XLR.  The idea was great, a pair of rear drive sedans to take on the Germans, a badly needed crossover giving them an SUV priced below the Escalade, and a convertible halo car.  The execution was just poor.  Now Cadillac is sort of back to square one, the ATS is getting crushed by the Germans and the IS350, so they missed the mark there.  The CTS and XTS cost the same, similar to the failed STS-DTS strategy of 10 years ago, and they have no convertibles or sports cars.  Cadillac doesn't have any hybrids or diesels either so they are missing on the "green" crowd, with the exception of the ELR which no one is buying.

 

Lexus has loads of hybrids which can sucker people in, and it makes it seem like Lexus is cutting edge technology because they were the first luxury company doing hybrids.  The Germans have a wide range of body styles and engines to hit every niche there is.  You can't build a luxury brand on gas V6 powered sedans: see Acura, Lincoln and Infiniti for proof.

 

As far as profit margin goes, it is hard to say if Cadillac is successful because GM doesn't seem to break down the numbers of where the money is made.  Audi makes about $5,000 profit per car, Porsche makes a staggering $23,000 in profit per car sold which is an 18% margin.  A 10% margin is what the luxury brands strive for, Mercedes actually has the lowest profit margin of the German brands, they have been between 6-7% the past few years, but they also aren't dressing up Volkswagen's like their neighbors are.

[Guest Mike Jones]

Moral, sometimes you build and they still don't come!!