
Cadillac Bets on Virtual Dealerships - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/cadillac-bets-on-virtual-dealerships-1465172482-lMyQjAxMTE2MzAwNjIwOTYyWj
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imroot
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.

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

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Animats
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.

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jfoutz
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.)

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bruceb
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.

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Aoyagi
Just how many years ago was that?

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bruceb
3 so admittedly they could have improved.

~~~
Aoyagi
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...

