Kalea Hall, The Detroit News on
Cadillac, in its bid to be all-electric by 2030, will reveal three new electric vehicles this year that should go into production in calendar year 2024, Cadillac Vice President Rory Harvey said during a Wednesday business update.
General Motors Co.'s luxury brand didn't provide details on what markets the EVs will be for or when to expect the reveals. Cadillac's electric lineup so far only includes the Lyriq electric crossover, which launched last year. GM had sold only 122 of them in the U.S. at the end of 2022, but Harvey said the brand will deliver 1,000 of them by the end of this week out of the Spring Hill, Tennessee, plant and all debut edition models sold will be delivered by the end of the first quarter. The brand has not revealed how many debut editions it sold.
"The Lyriq ramp-up is on schedule, and indeed it will continue to ramp up as we go through the calendar year," Harvey told reporters. "So at this particular point in time, we're happy with the progress that we're making, and that will continue to build."
During the Lyriq launch, Cadillac did hit some road bumps as is usual with new vehicles. It issued recall for 186 Lyriqs last fall after discovering a software error in the driver video display control module that could cause the instrument panel to go blank, according to documents filed with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
"We did come across a software issue. That was part of the reason for doing the slow ramp so that we could snag those as we go through the system," Harvey said. "So it did what it was supposed to do. That now is all resolved. Everything is is fixed. The vehicles are being delivered with quality. And, as I said, we're amping up the distribution of the vehicles significantly now."
Cadillac is also prepping for the December launch of the more than $300,000 Celestiq, a hand-built, high-luxury EV.
Cadillac saw a 14% year-over-year increase in its U.S. sales last year with significant increases in sales of the CT4 and CT5 sedans and the XT4 SUV. Meanwhile, every brand GM has in China saw declines in 2022 as the country battled COVID-19 surges and government mandates to slow them down. Cadillac's sales dropped 16%.
"We do anticipate at this stage that China sales will grow this year versus last year," Harvey said. "But it's relatively difficult to predict because there is still a significant degree of uncertainty in terms of exactly what is going to happen in China and when it's going to happen."
GM is trying to reenter the European market with its electric vehicles and on Wednesday Harvey said the brand hasn't "started the rollout of EVs in Europe yet, so watch this space in terms of that one."
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