DETROIT — New Cadillac boss John Roth is preparing to hit the road to meet with dealers as he works to shape his vision for the future of General Motors’ luxury brand.
Roth took over as vice president of global Cadillac on June 1, succeeding Rory Harvey, who was promoted to president of North America with the retirement of Steve Carlisle. Roth will lead the brand as it aims to electrify its lineup by 2030, led by the Lyriq midsize electric crossover that went on sale last year.
“I was with our national dealer council last week having a direct conversation: ‘These are my initial observations; tell me where you think we are,’ ” he told Automotive News after a briefing Friday about the refreshed XT4 compact crossover.
“My message to them is, ‘OK, we’re here. Where do we go next if you want to keep climbing that hill and making sure that you raise the bar each and every day?’ ” Roth said. “We have a great dealer network that’ll push you and help you do what’s right for the luxury consumer.”
Prior to taking charge of Cadillac, Roth led GM’s Customer Care and Aftersales business since 2020. Before that, he held leadership posts in the company’s Africa and Middle East operations and with GM Canada as well as other roles.
Roth takes the helm of the brand as sales are growing. Cadillac said Friday that total U.S. sales are up 26 percent this year and retail sales are 17 percent higher through May. The brand said it has seen a boost from crossovers, with sales in the first five months of 2023 up 20 percent from a year earlier.
Cadillac also is preparing to debut three electric vehicles this year that should enter production in 2024, Harvey, Roth’s predecessor, told reporters in February. Cadillac has identified the first of the three, the Escalade IQ, which follows both the Lyriq and the ultraluxury Celestiq sedan, which will start in the $300,000s and is slated to start production in December.
Just 122 Lyriqs were sold in the U.S. in 2022. Roth said deliveries have reached 3,000 so far this calendar year, although a spokesperson said not all may have reached customers yet. He said the rollout was intended to be measured, with plans to scale up production this year. The brand has not disclosed the size of its Lyriq order bank, but Roth called it “very large,” adding that “we get fresh leads all the time.”
Cadillac will continue to produce internal combustion vehicles alongside its EVs. One of those is the XT4, which was updated for the 2024 model year with some new front and rear styling, additional safety features and a 33-inch curved infotainment screen borrowed from the Lyriq. EVs give designers and engineers “degrees of freedom” that they don’t have with a gasoline-powered vehicle, Roth said, while ICE vehicles will “coexist” for years.
“We have our mission and our vision to be offering an electric portfolio by the end of the decade, and you can kind of follow the customer as they tell you what they want to purchase,” Roth said. “We want to make sure that we’re fulfilling our vision, but you also don’t want to leave the customer behind in the process. And so that’s why we’re working together and managing that coexistence from now through the end of the decade.”
Cadillac dealers are excited about the brand and its product portfolio, said Inder Dosanjh, CEO of Dosanjh Family Auto Group in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Escalade and Lyriq are in particularly high demand, he said.
The brand has “a lot of room for growth” as its new EVs come to market and compete against the likes of Tesla in the luxury electric space, said Dosanjh, who chairs the Cadillac National Dealer Council.
“Cadillac’s in a good place. Rory has done a great job and he’s handing off a really strong brand to John. And John has a lot of luxury experience,” he said. “Just a really, really sharp individual.”
