But now Cadillac finds itself overrun by German and Asian S.U.V.s and G.M.’s leaders have parted ways with the man once seen as the brand’s future. And America’s premier luxury car brand must reckon with an uncomfortable truth.
“Cadillac is just not selling what people want to buy today, especially in America,”
.. Mr. Lutz said Mr. de Nysschen had done critical dirty work by breaking Cadillac’s habit of dumping production into rental fleets to plump sales numbers, a practice that marred the brand’s image, retail prices and resale values.
.. Cadillac’s semiautonomous Super Cruise technology — which allows full hands-free driving on most major highways — is being hailed by some critics as superior to Tesla’s vaunted Autopilot, particularly for its emphasis on safe operation.
.. Mr. Lutz suspected that de Nysschen’s physical separation from Detroit made it harder to win allies and arguments alike.
.. Mr. Brauer, the Kelley Blue Book publisher, panned Cadillac’s move to New York as window-dressing. It might have made sense, he said, if the brand had set up design studios or engineering in New York, but those linchpins of auto creativity remained in Detroit.
.. Some observers fault Mr. de Nysschen for spending too much effort chasing the Germans, including by challenging them on their literal home turf: the famed Nürburgring circuit. Cadillac’s 640-horsepower, nearly 200-m.p.h. CTS-V
Ford Doubles Profits for the Best Quarter in Its History
The combination of low gasoline prices and record auto sales in the United States is making for good times in the auto industry, and nowhere is that more evident than at Ford Motor.
.. In the first three months of this year, trucks and S.U.V.s made up 70 percent of Ford’s sales in the United States, up from 64 percent in the same period four years ago.
.. Trucks are not the only bright spot for Ford. The company also benefited from an improving economy and the increased sales of more expensive models.
.. Over all, Ford reported first-quarter revenue of $37.7 billion, $3.8 billion more than in the same period in 2015.