Cadillac Bets on Virtual Dealerships | Hacker News Reader

Cadillac Bets on Virtual Dealerships

wsj.com

16 pointsprostoalex11 comments

Ford tried to do the "No inventory" dealerships in the late 80's and it was a spectacular failure. While buying a vehicle isn't the same as Amazon's same day delivery, do you really want to be the person who just told someone who dropped 80K+ on a vehicle that they won't be able to get it until it's driven off the line?

Cadillac has an image and an innovation problem. Have you driven a Cadillac recently? The entertainment system is buggy if you have an iphone -- you'll be driving down the road listening to something on the satellite radio and it'll just switch over to your iPhone...even though there's nothing playing on your iPhone. Disable everything's microphone access...and it's still randomly connecting to your iPhone. GM's blaming Apple...Apple's blaming GM...who cares, just fix the damn thing. You're paying a premium for features that should just seem "standard" if you're buying a luxury vehicle (Heated/Cooled seats are a 3K upcharge, you can get them standard on the Kia Forte EX). Unfortunately, the In-Car Entertainment has been the same for the last three years.

I realize that GM is trying to innovate and do things outside the box, but, I really think that they should step outside the comfortable world of badge engineering and try to create something that is out of the box...and unique to the brand.

The infotainment even caused them to be a featured brand in Consumer Report's "least reliable" cars.

Cadillac is in a strange position. The classic Cadillac joke is that a survey of the customer base came back with ages between 65 and "deceased". Cadillac used to be the luxury brand, at the top of the General Motors Ladder of Success devised by Alfred P. Sloane (Chevy < Buick < Pontiac < Oldsmobile < Cadillac) but now they're kind of a joke. Luxury and status have been taken over by other brands. Cadillacs are the car of second-tier sales reps.

Cadillac tried to become cool. This resulted in such strange beasts as a V-16 1000 horsepower sedan. Unclear who would buy that. They came out with the Cadillac Escalade, which, like the Hummer 2, was really a Chevy Suburban underneath. They have an automatic driving project, which is a good fit for their customer base. But they're just not selling many cars.

The story goes, GM made the fantastic decision that the executives in charge of each division had to drive their own cars. So Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile wound up making something very much like a Cadillac. This created brand confusion, and Cadillac lost its status. (although i can't remember the source of this story, so it might just be a fairy tale from the 80's)

Also, i thought the 1k hp was an aftermarket thing. (although 640 is still kind of insane.)

Due to a random circumastance I have visited a luxury resort where rich people go on weekend retreats and such. Anyway was surprised to see lots of Cadillacs in the parking lot. I thought the same that they were a luxury brand for 70 years olds. Granted some people there were in their 50s and such, so perhaps it still holds some appeal for them.

Also funny to hear the phrase "The Cadillac of $X", where $X is some category of products. Even though in reality most today would not consider Cadillac as anything cool or associated with quality.

The first Escalade certainly was a Suburban/Tahoe in different dress, but the last two generations are just different cars that share only the platform (which is a good thing, too). Its sales are steadily increasing worldwide.

As for Luxury, I doubt you can find anything more worthy of that attribute outside of brands like Bentley or Rolls-Royce. And in its segment even the CTS is well above average. It's the perception that you're showing as well that's hindering the sales.

Oh, and you forgot how they "tried" to be cool by holding the Nurburgring record for a while.

Cadillac needs to make better cars. I visited the GM building in Detroit a few years ago where they have a number of new Cadillacs on display. I sat in a few an was surprised how cheap they felt, like a nice Chevy.

I thought maybe it was just one model but all of them from the lowest price point on up felt cheap to some degree.

I think the problem is the options war. In order to sell more cars you sell out your core to the point where an entry level build is not what you are known for.

So the same model could be 35k or 55k. It dilutes the brand for sure to make it more approachable to the masses.

Just how many years ago was that?

3 so admittedly they could have improved.

Well, the car that was "The Cadillac" then was still the second generation CTS, which is a 2008 car. While I love the looks (layout and whatnot) of the interior in it, it certainly is plasticky a lot (but also very leatherly), and the quality is hit-or-miss. Since then the ATS came out, and the new CTS, not to mention CT6. All of them supposedly have much better quality of interior, but they have touch-only central panel, which is a huge red flag for me...

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