Here we go again. It seems that General Motors is plagued with a crisis every handful of years that nearly brings the automotive giant to its knees. This ignition recall has really grinded the little progress the company made to a halt.
Cadillac was one of the shiny little pieces in the GM toy chest. While other brands were shuttered or significantly diminished, GM always made sure that Cadillac stood the test of time. But it seems that in recent months things have become a bit unstable at the luxury brand.
This week its head of U.S. sales stepped down and Cadillac's Global Chief, Bob Ferguson, has been ordered by CEO, Mary Barra, to report to D.C. to stanch the bleeding due to GM's recall woes.
Looking at the most recent sales data, its clear that there is a bit of a sales problem. The ATS, which was supposed to be the brand's savior is down more than 23 percent year-over-year and over the five-month calendar year, ATS sales are down more than 20 percent. The XTS isn't doing any better.
The two bright spots in the product portfolio are the CTS and SRX, which are both in the green for 2014. The Escalade we'll have to wait and see, and the ELR is a complete failure.
Given everything that's going on GM, this got us thinking: What REALLY is the BIG problem at Cadillac?
In recent memory, to us it seemed like it was on a solid track for a while there and now it's starting to come apart slowly. Is it experiencing a PRODUCT problem? A SALES problem? Or, something else?
Weigh in below!
Leadership of Cadillac is in flux with the luxury brand’s top executive dispatched to Washington and the search beginning for a replacement for Bill Peffer, Cadillac’s head of U.S. sales, who left this week after less than a year on the job.
Soon after GM’s ignition-switch problems surfaced in February, CEO Mary Barra dispatched Cadillac global chief Bob Ferguson to Washington to help address the political fallout of the deadly defect.
Ferguson was GM’s top lobbyist from 2010-12, and there’s speculation that he might not return to the full-time Cadillac job...
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