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Cadillac CTS wins 2014 Motor Trend Car of the Year [w/video]

For the second time, the Cadillac CTS has been named Motor Trend's Car of the Year. After winning the COTY crown for 2008, the new-for-2014 CTS outdid the other two finalists for Car of the Year honors, the Mazda3 and its corporate cousin, the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
What's notable about the Caddy's victory, though, is how it simply brushed off its competition. Both the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and BMW 5 Series failed to make the finalist's bracket, leaving the CTS to claim victory. "It had to beat [Mercedes and BMW] on style, on performance, on comfort, and on quality. It has," Motor Trend said in its COTY recap for the CTS.
The team at Motor Trend praised the CTS chassis, calling it "fantastic," and citing weight advantage the Caddy has over the competition. There was also praise heaped on the car's engines, with the 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder getting nods of approval from the MT team. The team also raved about the VSport model and its twin-turbocharged V6, magnetic shocks and other performance accoutrements.

GM struggles to sell small cars, plans to lay off 2,084 employees at two plants

Due to low demand for some of its vehicles, General Motors plans to cut 2,084 jobs at its assembly plants in Lordstown, OH and Lansing, MI. At the same time, the automaker also announced plans to invest approximately $900 million in three of its facilities – the Toledo Transmission Operations in Ohio, Bedford Casting Operations in Indiana, and Lansing Grand River in Michigan - for future products. GM will discontinue the third shift at both the Lansing Grand River plant and the Lordstown, OH plant. The Cadillac ATS, Cadillac CTS, and Chevrolet Camaro are made at the automaker's plant in Michigan, which currently has 2,700 employees. The move to eliminate the third shift affects 810 hourly workers, as well as 29 salaried employees, starting on January 16th. The plant in Lordstown, OH currently has 4,500 employees and makes the Chevrolet Cruze sedan. The plan to discontinue the third shift will affect 43 salaried workers and 1,202 hourly employees and will start on January 23rd. As Fortune points out, sales of the Cruze are down 20 percent through October, while sales of the Cadillac ATS and CTS were down 17 percent through the same period of time. In addition to cutting the third shift at both assembly plants, the automaker plans to invest a total of $900 million between three of its facilities for unnamed future products. GM's Toledo Transmission Operations will receive $667.6 million, the Lansing Grand River Assembly plant will receive $211 million, and the automaker's Bedford Casting Operations will get $37 million. Last year, GM cut roughly 500 jobs from its Orion Township factory due to slow sales of the Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano, with surging crossover and SUV sales as the most likely culprit. With GM posting much healthier sales figures for the Chevrolet Equinox and Cadillac XT5 compared to the ATS, CTS, and Cruze, it looks like compact SUVs are to blame for this year's layoffs as well. Related Video: News Source: Fortune, General MotorsImage Credit: REUTERS / Rebecca Cook Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Plants/Manufacturing Cadillac Chevrolet GM Coupe Sedan Lordstown Ohio

GM to accelerate its EV strategy — Cadillac could be all-electric by 2025

General Motors will roll out details of an expanded and accelerated electric vehicle strategy on Thursday in an effort to convince investors it can be a serious competitor to Tesla, people familiar with the plans said. GM Chief Executive Mary Barra, who is scheduled to speak at a conference hosted by Barclays, is expected to say the automaker is ready to spend more on electric models by 2025 than the $20 billion previously outlined, the sources said. Supplier sources said previous plans to make the Cadillac brand all-electric by 2030 are being sped up, possibly to 2025, and other sources said that acceleration will be repeated in other brands and in segments such as commercial vans. Asked about the Thursday appearance, a GM spokeswoman called talk of increased spending speculative and declined to give details. The Detroit automaker is also expected to discuss a new timeline for many of the EVs to follow those already identified, such as the GMC Hummer EV pickup and Cadillac Lyriq crossover, people familiar with the plans said. Lyriq (shown above) is slated to go into production in late 2022, but GM officials have been stung by criticism the automaker was bringing the vehicle to market too late, one source said. "The pull-ahead in programs is real and the organization is really doubling down on speeding up product development," the source said. Barra and other GM executives have been signaling the automaker's EV acceleration plans. She said earlier this month GM would boost capital spending over the next three years to speed EV development and was talking with other automakers about partnerships to develop more vehicles using GM's battery technology. Last week, a GM executive said the company had pulled forward the rollout of two "major" EV programs, and GM officials have touted the faster 18-month development time for the Hummer truck. Tesla's soaring market capitalization, and growing pressure from regulators to phase out carbon-emitting engines, has put pressure on established automakers to respond to investors who view their internal combustion lineups as outmoded and doomed in the long run. A critical part of GM's pitch to investors has been its new Ultium batteries, which it estimates will offer an electric driving range of 400 miles or more on a single charge. It is building a battery plant with Korean battery maker LG Chem in northeast Ohio.