2014 Cadillac Escalade Esv Premium on 2040-cars

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Combative de Nysschen defends Cadillac move, naming change

Johan de Nysschen isn't afraid of taking quick, decisive actions, even if they are criticized. Since taking the wheel at Cadillac, he instigated moving the luxury division's base of operations to Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood and introduced a new naming scheme for the future of the brand, like he did at Infiniti. The polarizing boss recently explained his feelings about the future of Cadillac in more depth on his Facebook page, but unfortunately only his friends could read it. Thankfully, Daily Kanban posted much of the strongly worded missive for the whole world to see.
Much of the message examines the decision to move some employees to New York. De Nysschen claims that it's all about giving Cadillac distance from Detroit to reshape itself. It allows for, "No distractions. No side shows. No cross-brand corporate considerations. No homogenized lowest common denominator approach. Just pure, unadulterated, CLASS."

GM cutting vehicle trim options to save money for electrification

Information continues to filter out about GM's plans based on comments the automaker made during its Capital Markets Day event in February. GM President Mark Reuss said the company's push to save money by rationalizing the number of build combinations will continue in 2020, carrying on the work done in 2019. As GM Authority covers, last year, the carmaker cut 3,500 components across model lines, a 12% drop in the number of parts it needed to stock in its plants. Reuss used the next-generation Chevolet Equinox and GMC Terrain as examples for more cost efficiencies, saying build possibilities — which include international markets and their options — will be cut by more than 50%, and use more shared parts. "We will reduce total trim levels on Equinox and Terrain from eight to six," Reuss said, "reduce engine variants from 11 to 5, reduce build combinations from more than 200 to less than 100 per program, and see significant cost savings of an already paid-for architecture that took the mass out, helping us self-fund electrification programs." GM will plow a large amount of the money it saves into its ambitious EV program. In 2017, the automaker said it intends to have 20 electric vehicles on the market by the end of 2023, some of which could be shared between brands. An automotive analyst at Seeking Alpha and a piece in Automobile attempted to put specifics to what we should expect. As Automobile points out, the first two EVs in the 20-car program are already on sale, being the Ariv Meld and Ariv Merge eBikes available in Belgium and The Netherlands. We've seen the Cruise Origin autonomous rideshare taxi, although we don't know when it will hit the road. The next three, which we should see in the metal shortly, are two Cadillac EVs and the GMC Hummer EV pickup. The Cadillac pair are expected to be sized like the XT4 and XT5, and along with the Hummer, should hit the market starting in late 2021.

Genesis wins J.D. Power Tech Experience Study for third straight time

The results are out for the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Tech Experience Index (TXI) Study, which "focuses on the user experience with advanced vehicle technology as it first comes to market and is an early measure of problems encountered by vehicle owners." Its measurement metric is problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), same as with the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study (IQS). The takeaway this year isn't that owners aren't using advanced technologies, as was the case with the 2022 study, or that they're having more problems with them overall. It's that owners of battery-electric vehicles are having more problems with advanced tech than owners of ICE-powered vehicles. According to the study, 17 of 21 features that can be had on both propulsion types — such as remote parking assistance and gesture controls — get lower satisfaction ratings by owners of BEVs, in some cases nearly 20 PP100.  The survey organization says this tracks with what its found in the IQS, where total vehicle problems were "46% higher among BEVs (excluding Tesla) than ICE vehicles and satisfaction is lower among owners of BEVs across nine of 10 APEAL categories than among owners of ICE vehicles." Findings regarding biometric measurements are among those that go against the overall study findings. Whether a fingerprint reader or an eye tracker, car owners in general said "they do not consider them to be useful." In terms of ease-of-use and satisfaction, plug-and-charge capability on EVs gets good marks. This allows EV owners to plug into a public charger and have payment taken care of automatically; the vehicle communicates with any charging station compatible with an automaker's plug-and-play system, so the vehicle can automatically submit a bill for the charging session to a central owner account with no further action needed at the station. Survey respondents noted a mere 6 PP100 and an 88.9% satisfaction.    Among manufacturers, repeat winners took the top prizes. Genesis earned the highest rank for innovation overall and among premium brands for the third straight year. Hyundai not only won the tech innovation banner for mass market brands for the fourth straight year, ahead of Kia, GMC, Ram and Subaru, Hyundai finished in second in the overall standings. On that overall chart, the top five are Genesis, Hyundai, Cadillac, Lexus and BMW. On the premium chart, Genesis is followed by Cadillac, Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the top five. It wasn't close from the first to the rest, though.