Pitch to present GM’s top drawer marque as premium electric will see it distanced from the Chevrolet sales network.

CADILLAC is coming back to New Zealand - initially with a single electric product that will be represented by General Motors, but not via its existing national speciality vehicles’ dealer network.

The Lyriq, a high-end large sports utility, will come into the market in 2024, price as yet undisclosed, and will avail via a single bespoke outlet, called an ‘Experience Centre’, in Auckland, though on-line purchase also seems planned.

General Motors already has seven GMSV - for Speciality Vehicles - outlets in New Zealand, from Auckland to the lower South Island, all selling Chevrolets - the Corvette and the Silverado pick up.

However, a spokesman made clear today that the intent is to represent Cadillac as something more special. The Experience Centre will be a GM effort, rather than GMSV, thus making its the parent brand’s first direct involvement here since Holden was closed down.

It seems an extreme measure, given all the effort - and expenditure - put into establishing GMSV.

Cadillac has Audi, BMW, Tesla and Mercedes Benz in its sights. Even so, the Lyriq will very likely be the same price band as GMSV’s biggest dollar car, the Corvette, which starts just under $200,000 and peaks at $346k.

So does this come down to issue of pedigree? Notwithstanding how much Kiwis pay for Chevys, in America that marque is emphatically a working man class brand, whereas Cadillac is of higher pedigree.

In America, blue collar and blue blood stand apart. In NZ? Whether Kiwis can ever make that distinction is going to be interesting. With the highest-profile Caddies held here being 1950s’-era hot rods and the bullet-spattered car, in the Southward Museum, once owned by mobster Mickey Cohen, might our memory bank be Blues Brothers-fuelled?

“We believe this is the right model for the size and shape of our Cadillac EV business in Australia and New Zealand, to enable us to deliver a luxury customer experience at exclusive volumes,” the spokesman said from Melbourne, where Cadillac announced its plans.

“As is the case with most automotive companies, there is a separation between mainstream and luxury brands and the associated customer experiences and facilities.”

In announcing that New Zealand and Australia are set to be the very first right-hand-drive markets for the car, Jess Bala - the managing director GM for Australasia - indicated other Cadillacs are set to follow.

While those products were not named, it is widely known that the the Optiq mid-size sports utility, the Celestiq sedan, Escalade IQ full-size SUV and a future model known as the Vistiq are all set for global distribution.

Those vehicles, and Lyriq, were detailed by MotoringNZ.com last month, in a story previewing high probability of Cadillac officially coming back after a 50 year break.

Cadillac’s apparent play to establish as an exclusive brand also affects how it will present in Australia. 

Our neighbour is to get just two Experience Centres, one in Melbourne and the other in Sydney.

GMSV’s business largely relies on Silverado and on petrolhead passion, as all its products currently run 6.2-litre petrol V8 engines - and in maintaining that allegiance, cop an increasing cost from the Clean Car Standard, a CO2 penalty system that is wholly separate to the Clean Car Discount the incoming Government intends to curtail.

The Silverado/Corvette V8 emits up to 320 grams of CO2, which makes it a big cost engine under CCS. Electric powertrains achieve optimal low CO2 credits under CCS; when brands work together, these can be used to ease the CCS penalty pain.

If Cadillac and Chevrolet operated as a combined entity, conceivably the EV credits would be used to ease the penalties, which are severe and set to grow annually. GMSV at present has to buy credits to ease its CCS penalty pain - or pass that imposition, which adds thousands of dollars to every vehicle it brings in, on to customers. With Cadillac credits, that scenario would conceivably be assuaged, to buyer benefit.

Next year Corvette goes to a hybrid, marrying that eight-cylinder to an electric assist. In the long term, an all-electric Corvette is planned. In 2025, GMSV will add the Denali eight-seater sports utility, which derives from Silverado, again in petrol V8. Overall, then, it will remain a big target for CCS imposition.

Lyriq will come here with a 102kWh battery and 388kW/610Nm dual motor AWD. Charging speeds and range are yet to be certified for our market.

Rumours that Cadillac was planning to build its cars in right-hand drive have been building for some time. Likewise talk that it wanted to deliver several electric models to key right-hand-drive markets.

In October New Zealand was cited as one of those countries, along with Australia and the United Kingdom. That tip came from ‘GM Authority’, a website in the United States, which often seems to act as a independent portal for the maker, ahead of it offering any direct comment.

The site recently quoted company insiders as saying the right-hook project have confirmed the project is focused on EVs and will not include petrol-fed models.

Cadillac’s electric-pure position poleaxes performance sedans like the CT5 Blackwing but its three battery-dedicated sports utilities are ultimately more important to the US make’s future.

Lyriq, Escalade IQ and the Optiq are developed atop the Ultium platform, a flexible architecture GM has developed for a wide range of electric cars, from everyday passenger models to hefty commercials, plus SUVs including one already in production, the GMC Hummer EV. 

Optiq is expected to make its official world debut in the second half of the year in China, where the market launch is likely to take place before the end of the year. 

The Optiq will be built in China under a joint venture between GM and SAIC, formerly called Shanghai Automotive. It’s China’s largest car maker; SAIC’s products here already sit behind the LDC badge.

GM filed a trademark application for the Lyriq name in Australia in December 2022 and a right-hand-drive Lyriq prototype was spotted testing across the Tasman earlier this year.

In July GM also filed Aussie trademarks for the Optiq and Escalade IQ.

Cadillac represented in NZ is the early part of last century and was an one-and-off presence until 1969.

It re-emerged on the NZ scene in 2007 with the second-generation CTS, but not in official capacity. That car was represented as a grey import, being sold by Holden dealers in Hamilton and Christchurch who had bought a job lot of right-hand-drive examples that were originally destined to sell in Australia, only for the plug to be pulled at the last minute.

GM high-ups atrending the Melbourne event have told Australian media planning to get Cadillac electrics here began in 2015, five years before its primary presence, Holden, was finally closed up.

When the CTS was proposed for official sale, the idea was it would be represented by the country’s Holden Special Vehicles’ dealers; a network that at peak ran to 13 national outlets.