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Is it shortsightedness or 20th century thinking in the 21st century? (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/in-the-news/t-cadillac-division-europe-the-wrong-vehicles-at-the-wrong-time-5649.html#post38416)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Cadillac_-_European_BLS.jpgWayne Gerdes - CleanMPG (www.cleanmpg.com) - July 28, 2007

The 2007 Cadillac BLS – Europe’s first Cadillac Diesel with Saab’s 9-3 underpinnings and heritage.

A story was recently highlighted in Autoweek regarding the slow sales of Cadillac’s on the European continent. Brand cuts sales goals following weak sales. (http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070725/FREE/70723023/1024/latestnews) Europe is currently a stronghold for low CO2 emitting personal transportation with the most stringent FE standards on the planet. Is it any wonder why GM with its conspicuous gas guzzling tradition is having problems selling the brand on the European continent? Although the new Cadillac BLS includes Cadillac’s first real European diesel, does the rest of the lineup offer anything of interest to Europeans? The following is where GM’s European marketing divisions wheels really fall off.


Club Cadillac on tour through Europe.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Cadillac_Escalade_-_Club_Cadillac_in_Europe.jpgThe European Club Cadillac Escalade with its high end sound system and pull out turntable in the flesh.

Cadillac will be making its presence known over the next two months presenting the new Escalade and the revamped SRX to the European public in a surprising way. Club Cadillac will be touring Switzerland, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany to target groups at hot spot venues.

According to GM, the new Escalade and revamped SRX were chosen for their “eye-catching values of luxury and glamour”. Visitors to the events will be able to view the Escalade and revamped SRX equipped with advanced DJ equipment powered by Bose and Pioneer. The most pretentious feature includes the following: “A full turntable folds out when the rear hatch is opened and the public will be entertained with trendy lounge music during the tour”.

Instead of wowing Europe and the rest of the world with an automobile consisting of the performance oriented yet fuel efficient V6 Diesel and a 2-Mode based hybrid powertrain, GM instead insisted upon previewing an American based Cadillac Escalade which has to be one of the most pompous and impractical vehicles available on the European continent.

GM, a word of advice. It is time to step it up. A performance oriented Cadillac CTS w/ the V6 diesel and a PHEV-10 capable 2-Mode drivetrain is what Europeans would purchase by the tens if not hundreds of thousands, not an oversized and over conspicuous American gas-guzzling SUV. You have the solution so please place it into practice before we are all laughed off the European continent.

Okay GM. Europeans hate Americans for our pretentious attitude. Showing them this kind of bling is like slapping them in the face.

Oh well. We can only hope you figure this out sooner than later.

I don't think they'll ever figure it out. Instead of looking to the future they try to make cars to compete with models that came out 5 years ago.

Whew! The woman doing the demo will be in for an interesting time!!!

Luddite Lutz, the klutz!

Harry

GM Executive: No one in Europe likes our over-sized, gas guzzling, dirty and expensive as hell vehicles, but we're not about to change a decades old formula, no matter what the science and public opinion say about it. What can we do that doesn't require lifting an engineering finger?!

GM Marketer: Shush, don't you cry now. We shall give them bling, and they will love us for it.

GM Executive: Bling? What's that?

GM Marketer: Observe.

*hits the remote buton*

*the turntable deck slides out of the demo vehicle*

*the Marketer steps behind the table and pushes some buttons*

bump bump buddada bump bump buddada bump bump deeeeeeeeeeee

*the Executive starts doing the Twist*

GM Executive: Oh, man! You've done it again! We'll make a meeeeleeeon dollars!

Ya'll don't know much about marketing. If BMW did a publicity tour in the US, do you think they'd bring basic cloth-seated 3-series and 1-series? Would Mercedes Benz show it's basic models with cloth seats and plastic hubcaps? No, they'd show fully loaded versions of their most expensive models.

GM "conspicuous gas guzzling tradition"? I guess the millions of Opels and Vauxhalls sold over the years were just so woefully bad, that the European market didn't have the common sense to not buy them in droves, and make them the best selling car in Europe (Astra). The Chevrolet brand is growing quickly in central and eastern Europe. It's too bad those people are so dumb to spend their money on the market-appropriate Matiz, Captiva, Kalos, and other models. I guess these are the "wrong vehicles for the wrong time".

The BLS is admittedly not blazing the sales charts, but it's the first Cadillac vehicle intended for that market. The Toyopet didn't exactly blaze the sales chart during the first years in the US market.

This blog is really becoming tiring. I joined it learn more about more efficient driving techniques, and "learn to raise fuel economy and lower emissions in whatever you drive". The reality is it's a Prius-booster site, and a domestic automaker bashing site.

Hybrid, diesel, electric, and any other fuel efficient vehicle booster site actually. But nice try.

Hi Aca2983:

___You could not be further from the truth :(

___I was at a Turbo-diesel Preview - Ride and Drive in Detroit just last month. The Beemer 3 and 5 series as well as the MB Blutec super diesels were there. You know, 35 - 45 mpg mid-sized models unlike anything we have available to us here in the states wrt FE capabilities. GM pushing an Escalade into the European Union while they have 2Mode ready to go was shortsighted and a mistake just as they are doing here in the US.

___About GM, do they sell anything that has a rating over 40? Ford’s 08 FEH is rated at 41/32 (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/ford/t-85-07-epa-of-the-08-feh-would-have-been-4132-4403.html) on the 85 – 07 EPA test cycle. Honda’s Civic and HCH-II plus Toyota’s Prius-II, Corolla and Yaris all have 40 + mpg highway ratings. GM is losing market share as is Ford. Does the loss of 20% of your large trucks and SUV sales say anything about the US consumer as a whole? It does and if GM doesn’t get it over here, they most certainly are not getting it over there. It is our job to make sure they change. How is that? How about a PHEV-10 capable 2-Mode CTS for Europe or here? They couldn’t make enough of them! How about a Volt? Without these advances, they are a dead man walking as gasoline continues to become an ever more scarce commodity looking forward and market share for 20 mpg or less vehicles continues to shrink into oblivion. In case you have forgotten, European gasoline prices are in the $5 - $7.00/gallon range. A 2WD Escalade at 13/20 and a real world 14 or less is not going to sell squat over there. Can you imagine let alone afford throwing a $0.50 piece out the window every mile just for gasoline? I know I would balk at the very thought yet GM must believe this is the status quo and simply doesn’t get it :(

___Lastly, I don’t own a Prius but do own a Ford Ranger P/U truck (made in MN.), a Honda Accord (made in OH.), an Acura MDX (made in Canada) and a Corolla (made in CA.).

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Come to think of it, I don't really think I want the next gen Prius anymore. I'm actually looking forward to the Honda CRX due in 2010.

Aca2983:

It may be a minority opinion around here, but I don't care for the current generation Prius; to me it is butt-ugly. From the back it reminds me of an Aztek's ugly kid sister---when I see one I always say to myself "What were they thinking????"

I do agree though that Prius boosting has been pretty strong here lately, probably in response to Hybridfest, but I figure that will die down after a little bit.

A lot of people here are obviously frustrated that GM acts like a big, stodgy company and to me that seems fair. It seems like the best GM small car guys who were at Saturn in the late 80's and 90's got set back in company politics by, among other things, Saturn's "new kind of car company" marketing campaign that noticeably bit at all the other GM divisions (AKA: the hand that feeds it). I admired the sass, but GM didn't have much patience with weak profits and sort of starved Saturn's product development after that.

From what I've read and has been outlined elsewhere, it sounds like the small/efficient car guys have been making a comeback at GM lately, but the product development cycle takes a few years. I hope they aren't so foolish about company politics this time around and can stick around to make a difference. Personally, I am still rooting for the home team.

I guess the best thing to do would be to post up a thread about a topic you are interested in......

Rich

Hi Rich:

___Way OT but here goes.

___I agree with some and not so much wrt to your post above but let me give you a little detail as to the way news is pulled. I usually pick up the stories from about 40 sites and various Google, YaHoo and Topix searches. Try doing a search for Yaris, Civic, Corolla, Focus, Aveo or Elantra and see what pops up. News wrt the fuel efficient non-hybrids in the US is all but non-existent the past few days. I pulled a search up on the FEH today and 90 + % of what showed was the Prius PHEV links. Thank goodness our members find News that they do because otherwise it would be a drought here! I don’t create the news but I do try and post what shows up with some balance. Members get top billing as hopefully everybody here sees … This one on the Escalade however raised the hair on the back of my neck.

___As to the reasons why this GM story … Toyota has stated publicly that HSD is a $2K upcharge. GM on the other hand is touting a $2K upcharge for BAS let alone offering upwards of $5K or more off various P/U’s, SUV’s and Lux sedans including Cadillac’s in the Chicago area because they cannot sell them! Instead of giving away the store, where the heck is 2-Mode in the sedans up front? It is nowhere. 2-Mode is less costly then HSD given its simplicity although I am sure the economies of scale have not even come close to being met given no 2-Modes have been sold yet. 2-Mode has all the capabilities of HSD and more imho. If GM had 2-Mode in everyone of those vehicles instead of pedaling them off w/ $5K rebates and promotions, there would not be a glut and GM would be back on track and making money hand over fist. Right now, they are thinking 5 - 10 years behind us whereas we have all come around to today’s realities :( Europe has been living with those same realities for decades and thus even the lux market is filled with V6 diesels that receive in the 30’s and 40’s. GM is on one extremely slippery slope and this Escalade promotion in Europe added grease to that slope in a manner I simply cannot fathom :ccry:

___Wrt the small vehicle guys, I hear you loud and clear. I hope Podstawa and his team are ready because the PHEV capable 2-Modes and the Volt in particular is GM’s only saving grace as far as I can see into the future :(

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Every time GM launches some new overpriced, bling-laden hulk, I ask myself, "how much sooner would that e-flex platform have been made available if GM hadn't wasted their resources developing yet another land yacht?"