Cars and Drivers

Cadillac Struggles to Sell Cars

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: May 3, 2016 12:11 pm

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 9:56 am

Across the figures for most car companies that released April sales results for their brands, Cadillac’s have to be among the most disastrous. It is one more example that the General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) luxury brand has a smaller and smaller chance of making up ground between it and industry leaders BMW, Mercedes and Toyota Motor Corp.’s (NYSE: TM) luxury brand Lexus.

Cadillac April sales dropped 28.9% to 11,236. Sales for the first four months of 2016 fell 11.5% to 46,869.

Despite the sharp drop, GM management made two statements about Cadillac:

Cadillac ATPs were $54,600 in April, up approximately $1,600 from last year.

The Cadillac ATS, CTS and XTS all gained year-over-year retail market share in their respective segments.

24/7 Wall St. recently made an analysis of Cadillac’s sales as part of its “Cars Americans Don’t Want.” A summary from the article that ran on April 29:

Cadillac has three models on the list of 15: ELR, ATS and CTS. Cadillac has released a new large sedan, the CT6, which it hopes can reverse a difficult trend.

ELR
> Make: Cadillac
> Avg. days to turn: 208.6
> 2014-2015 sales change: -21.8%
> Starting MSRP: $57,500

The ELR is one of three Cadillacs to make the list of the cars that spent the most time on dealer lots before being sold in 2015. It is also one of only two to take more than 200 days on average to sell. Cadillac skipped the 2015 model year, which may have contributed to the high days on lot for the ELR.

ATS
> Make: Cadillac
> Avg. days to turn: 153.3
> 2014-2015 sales change: -10.1%
> Starting MSRP: $33,215

Cadillac’s ATS is a relatively recent addition to its lineup, having been introduced for the 2013 model year. Sales of the ATS, a smaller and cheaper version of the CTS, declined by 10.1% from 2014 to 2015. While this was less of a decline than the CTS’s sales decline of 37.4%, the ATS spent nearly two weeks longer on the lot before being sold than its counterparts

CTS
> Make: Cadillac
> Avg. days to turn: 141.3
> 2014-2015 sales change: -37.4%
> Starting MSRP: $45,560

The third generation of the Cadillac CTS made its debut in 2014. Despite receiving generally positive reviews, sales of the luxury sedan declined by 37.4% from 2014 to 2015. Cadillac CTS models sit on the lot for an average of 141 days before selling, far longer than is typical.

Methodology: To determine America’s slowest-selling cars, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed days to turn figures provided by Kelley Blue Book’s vehicle research and valuation site. This figure measures the average number of days a particular model spent on dealers’ lots following its arrival until it was sold in 2015. Additionally, Kelley Blue Book provided figures on U.S. sales by model for 2013, 2014 and 2015. We also reviewed monthly sales releases published by auto manufacturers. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) figures come from the manufacturers’ websites.