Cadillac's new president says that the luxury brand can't successfully go electric by copying Tesla

Cadillac

Cadillac president Steve Carlisle reveals the new Cadillac XT6 at the 2019 Detroit auto show.

• Cadillac president Steve Carlisle will oversee the luxury division's repositioning as General Motors' lead electric brand.
• He admires Tesla's impact - but he doesn't want GM or Cadillac to win by copying anyone.
• Cadillac is in the midst of product shift, selling more crossovers and moving away from traditional luxury sedans.

Last year, General Motors shook up its Cadillac brand.

Then-president Johan de Nysschen - who had overseen a move to New York from Detroit and a "Dare greatly" advertising campaign that sought to revive luxury awareness of the 116-year-old marque - departed. GM's product guru, Mark Reuss, took over supervision of the brand and company veteran Steve Carlisle was moved in to run the divisions, after successfully reviving GM's Canada business.

But the shakeup wasn't over. On the eve of the 2019 Detroit auto show earlier this month, GM held a conference for investors and announced that Cadillac would become GM's main electric brand, taking on US market leader Tesla.

"We have to fix it," Reuss told Business Insider at the time, speaking of Cadillac's struggles in the hyper-competitive luxury market.

Read more: Cadillac revealed a futuristic electric SUV concept that will rival Tesla's Model X - and it looks awesome

Some of the fixing is already underway. Cadillac has the Escalade full-size SUV, which has long been a sales and profit stalwart. But the big guy has come under pressure of late with Ford's successful rollout of a redesigned Lincoln Navigator.

A full lineup of crossover SUVs

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

The New Cadillac XT4.

A new Escalade should arrive once GM's Chevy and GMC brands have completed launches of new pickup trucks. In the meantime, Caddy finally has a complete lineup up crossovers to take on Audi, BMW, and Mercedes. The unveiling of new XT6 in Detroit added a three-row SUV to the compact XT4 that landed last year and the mid-size XT5 that went on sale in 2016.

Prior to the crossover onslaught, Cadillac was hamstrung with a portfolio of superb yet slow-selling passenger cars.

Carlisle talked to Business Insider in Detroit about Caddy's past, present, and future.

"There's work left to do for sure," he said. "But we're confident in the products. We're positioning ourselves for the future. We all know what we're working toward."

Rather than dismiss "Dare greatly" and the New York relocation - now reversed as Caddy is coming home to Motown - Carlisle said that the time spent in the Big Apple was invaluable.

"It was not a mistake, for sure," he said. "It repositioned the brand in the minds of people."

With a redesigned Escalade "just over the horizon," he said, Cadillac is "obsessed with storytelling for vehicles we're launching now."

The view in the industry is that after languishing with a portfolio that lacked the crossovers US buyers now demand, Cadillac is finally flush with product that matches the market. The divisions also don't need to lean as hard on the heritage of the brand as it has for the past few years.

"It starts with product," Carlisle said. "Product moments become brand moments - not the other way around."

Cadillac goes electric

Cadillac

A new Cadillac EV platform concept.

As far as Cadillac going electric and bearing that responsibility for GM, a company that currently has the only true long-range, mass-market EV available for purchase in the Chevy Bolt EV, Carlisle isn't ignoring Tesla, the current luxury leader. But he isn't overly preoccupied with CEO Elon Musk's' California upstart.

"You never win by replicating what somebody else is doing," he said, arguing that over time, the entire auto industry could likely go electric, "so at some point, we're competing with everybody."

He acknowledged Tesla's impact, but he added that the composition of the EV market isn't yet clear.

"We have to wait a few years, even for the Tesla story," he said.

Targeting luxury EV customers is critical, however.

"Reaching back to the past, Cadillac has been at its best when it was leading innovation," he said. Now that the "next big pivot for the industry" has arrived, in terms of electrification and also autonomous vehicles, a luxury play makes sense.

"The consumer has the means, but also the sensibility," he said, characterizing buyers as people who are interested in technology and potentially receptive to a strong statement from Cadillac. After all, the brand currently has the only fully hands-free highway self-driving system on offer in its Super Cruise tech, an option for the CT6.

"It's not a clear shot," Carlisle said. "It's not free margin. But the customer can help."

Cadillac will need additional assistance from its dealer network - a group now facing some challenges to its historic business model.

"They won't be doing as many oil changes," Carlisle said. (Electric vehicles are mechanically simpler than gas-powered cars and require less maintenance.)

"What other revenue streams and sources of value do we see?" Carlisle asked. "How can we maintain the value of the dealer franchise? We have to recognize that we're going through some transitions, and there are some profound questions we have to answer."

Ultimately, Carlisle wants Cadillac to deliver three wins: for its customers, for its dealers, and for the brand. Those objectives do in some ways revisit the "Dare greatly" promise.

"We want to reposition ourselves as the pinnacle of luxury mobility," he said.

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