Cadillac chief: Future models will be smaller, more affordable, yet faster

Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen has one of the tougher jobs in the auto industry — making General Motors luxury brand a global success. Despite billions in spending over the past decade, Cadillac still trails its major German competition at home and abroad; last year, sales fell in the United States even as the rest of the market grew, and Mercedes-Benz outsold it 2-to-1.

Armed with a fresh plan for $12 billion in new models — including a top-line CT6 flagship sedan set to be unveiled in April, along with new SUVs — de Nysschen has been unveiling a revamp of Cadillac, including upgrading many of its 900 U.S. dealers (who sell far fewer vehicles per store than the 200-300 dealers its competition uses.) In an interview with Yahoo Autos, de Nysschen answered several questions about where Cadillac goes from here, and how. The responses have been edited for space.

Q: What's the sales outlook for 2015?

JDN: The United States will be similar to last year. We are looking more at preparing the way for the introduction of a strong product offensive as the first big shots being fired next year with all-new product. We have this year the exciting cars, the V-models, but they’re not big volume cars. The reality is that SRX which is a big car for us is at the end of its life cycle.

Next year we will have full-year availability of the CT6, but once again that is a high profile but not high volume. During 2016, the new SRX will be introduced...By the time we are firing on all cylinders in 2018, 2019, with the new product we are launching them into a market that’s ready to receive them.

Q: When you get these new cars out in a few years, what will be the distinction between a typical Cadillac and a typical competitor from the German brands or higher-end Japanese models?

JDN: All the car companies at the high end of the market are utilizing advanced technology. Cadillac is going to focus on the dynamic driving characteristics of the car. When you develop a car you need to determine what kind of car you’re going to do. Everything’s a trade-off….Cadillac is a luxury car, it's high-technology, it will have high craftsmanship and features, but fundamentally all our platforms and features are geared around driving excitement in a unique American way. We are not going to try to emulate the German brands. We can’t be more German than they, but we can definitely be more American.

This will also be reflected in the evolution of the Art & Science design language, very edgy but probably a touch more organic in shape — the hard edges will become a little softer. I m going to work very hard to take our current high level of fit and finish craftsmanship especially in interiors to new levels. I want us to be the benchmark.

We will utilize a portfolio approach to powertrains...I expect that plug-in hybrids will feature prominently in our longer-term future and beyond that, full battery EVs. As we look to Europe, which is really our focus beyond 2020, we will add diesels — if you don’t have diesels you won’t play.

Q: How much of the Elmiraj (the Cadillac concept from 2013) is a generally accurate direction of Cadillac design?

JDN: I personally very much fell in love with the Elmiraj the first time I saw it…My brief to the designers is as we look at the next evolution of Cadillac Art & Science design, what does the Elmiraj look like 10 years from now? That is what the next Cadillac should look like. It is very much the inspiration for what lies in our future.

Q: How important are dealerships when so much of car buying has moved online?

JDN: The dealer is a vital part of the ownership chain. Online is predominately used as an avenue to gain information. By and large it's a capital-intensive transaction...Customers want to experience the product physically, they may have trade-ins — it’s a more complex transaction than mail-ordering from Amazon.

Q: Would you like to reduce the number of Cadillac dealers in the United States?

JDN: I would like to use the comprehensive market coverage that is the reality of Cadillac in the U.S. as a competitive advantage. So no, I do not plan to reduce the dealer count at all. What we want to do is upgrade the representation of Cadillac to a consistent level throughout the country so that even our smaller stores are presenting Cadillac in an exclusive environment that portrays the brand values, but is focused on delivering a customer experience that is consistent with a high-end buyer. This is a reality of life whether we like it or not: Customers who buy luxury cars have a different set of expectations than those who buys mainstream cars.

Q: What will this future Cadillac dealer look like?

JDN: The ambiance we want to create must be something that supports the positioning of the brand...I’d like to evolve Cadillac's architectural design to also give a more contemporary luxury expression — choice of materials, choice of furniture, and so on. I really want to emphasize now in a very consistent manner, and now aim to keep this brand positioned as a modern, contemporary luxury brand that will also resonate very well with Generation X and Millennials who, by the end of this decade, will account for 80 percent of buyers.

Brands that are unable to evolve with changing demographics are the ones that are left behind.

Q: At the moment, those Gen X and Millennials buyers have a significantly smaller amount of wealth than Baby Boomers. What happens at the transition when they become the majority?

JDN: This is what’s driving the growth in the compact premium segment — the (Audi) A3 and the Mercedes CLA — and the compact SUV segment. It’s even more prevalent in China than it is here. These buyers will, as their careers progress, migrate upward. They will be fueling the segments above them. Our need…is to ensure that we actually have products to complete the loop…The entry price point has to be more accessible, and they don’t need such a large car.

It’s somewhat frustrating for me. I look at the luxury car market in the U.S., and the luxury car market in China, and the headlines are “luxury car sales grow 6 percent.” All of the growth is in these segments where I do not have a single car to sell. I have got to fix this stuff.

Q: What’s the future of the ELR?

JDN: The ELR as a concept is a fantastic car. There will be more ELR-like cars in our future. Whether they have to be at the intersect of high sophisticated, high technology, very luxurious, well equipped, compact, two seater plug-in hybrid is a question. All of those things I just mentioned are each of them constricting to the sales potential. I think there will be successors to the ELR but they might have a different product concept, and certainly the technology in the ELR will find applications across a far broader spectrum of products in the Cadillac portfolio.