1969 Cadillac Deville Convertible on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2018 Lincoln Navigator vs luxury SUV rivals: How it compares on paper

The all-new 2018 Lincoln Navigator is an impressive, luxury-lined beast. However, while its Black Label interior stood out most during our first drive of the new Navigator, it also seemed pretty clear that much of this full-size SUV was superior to the competition in a number of fundamental ways. Its Raptor-sourced 3.5-liter V6 had class-leading power for one, and its third-row seat seemed as spacious and comfortable as its rivals' are cramped and barely usable. To search for your next new vehicle, try Autoblog' s Car Finder. Yet, I wanted to take a closer look at how the Navigator fully compares on paper to its competitors - especially the Cadillac Escalade with which it most directly competes. The below spreadsheet should tell the whole story, but as you can see, there's an awful lot of class-leading green highlighter in the Navigator's column. The cargo volume and third-row legroom numbers are particularly telling, with the latter actually going up to 42.3 inches when you slide the second-row fully forward. Now, a few things to note about the above spreadsheet. The GLS-Class is also available as the GLS 550, which boasts a 4.7-liter V8 that just comes up short to the Navigator with 449 horsepower but has to deal with only 5,578 pounds. Its $94,950 price tag is comparable to the Navigator Black Label. Much of the LX 570's information is also applicable to the Toyota Land Cruiser, which, badge aside, could certainly be considered a member of this segment given its feature content and still-hefty price tag. It has better ground clearance and approach/departure angles than its Lexus sibling, along with an as-indicated lower price. Much of the Escalade's information also applies to the GMC Yukon Denali, while the Infiniti QX80 is applicable to the Nissan Armada. Related Video: Cadillac Infiniti Lexus Lincoln Mercedes-Benz SUV Luxury Off-Road Vehicles consumer lincoln navigator

GM admits Cadillac ELR no real competition for Tesla Model S

Last year, then-CEO of General Motors, Dan Akerson, made it clear that the company lookouts at the Ren Cen had California automaker Tesla in their sights. "If you want to compete head-to-head with Tesla, and we ultimately will, you want to do it with a Cadillac," he said. So, given the fact that the Cadillac ELR has a plug and sells for roughly the same price at the Tesla Model S ($75,000 vs $69,900, before incentives) and that Cadillac doesn't have any other electric vehicle on the horizon, you'd be forgiven if you thought that the way that Akerson wanted to challenge Tesla's EV success was with the ELR. Well, you'd apparently be wrong. "The ELR is a different car, it's a different price point. It's way-different technology." - GM's Mark Reuss Speaking yesterday in Detroit, GM's head of global product development, Mark Reuss, admitted that the ELR is not the Tesla competitor that Akerson promised. "People like to say the ELR is [competition for the Model S], but it's really not. It's a different car, it's a different price point. It's way-different technology." So, if we follow that logic to conclusion with Akerson's quote from last year, then the only way that Cadillac can eventually compete with Tesla is with a pure electric car, and that seems an outside chance, at best, for the foreseeable future. Through the end of July, Cadillac has sold 578 ELRs since it went on sale earlier this year. Tesla doesn't break out monthly US sales, but has sold 15,114 Model S EVs around the world in the first six months of 2014. For his part, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has already said that GM is headed down the wrong path with plug-in hybrids like the ELR or the Chevy Volt. Speaking about the Volt last year, Musk said, Chevy "sort of created something that's a bit of amphibian," which resulted in a car that's, "Okay but not great."

Cadillac considering more radical ATS-V

Cadillac is stepping up its performance game with the launch of the new ATS-V and CTS-V, but it's not about to rest on the laurels it removed from its own badge. While it's tipped to launch additional V models in the future, the latest word is Caddy could also come out with an even more extreme version of the ATS-V in the near future. According to Car and Driver, the prospect is on the table: "We might have something down the road that is a little bit more aggressive," chief engineer Dave Leone said, while another source pegged its potential arrival for 2017. It's too early to say what would constitute the more extreme model. The magazine points toward the Mercedes-AMG Black Series as an example. Jaguar took a similarly extreme approach with the XKR-S GT, as BMW has with the M3 GTS. As it is, the ATS-V is offered in both coupe and sedan variants with a 3.6-liter twin-turbo V6 producing 464 horsepower channeled to the rear wheels through a six-speed manual. Cadillac reportedly considered employing a dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive, but went the old-school route to avoid excess weight and (no doubt) cost.