If you want to understand Cadillac’s predicament, start with two numbers: 100,000 and 26.
The first is cause for celebration. Cadillac recently surpassed 100,000 EV sales in the United States, and now account for 28% of its sales, a figure that would have seemed as likely ten years ago as finding a vegan buffet at a Texas cattle auction. The second number is less encouraging. Cadillac’s sales dropped 26% during the first quarter of 2026.
Welcome to modern luxury car manufacturing, where success and failure frequently occupy the same quarterly earnings report.
CADILLAC SEDAN SALES ARE MEAGER
Dig deeper and things become even stranger.
The Cadillac CT4, a sedan many people assumed had already been discontinued and forgotten, somehow managed to increase sales 27% to 1,547 units despite an unchanged design that dates to 2020. The larger CT5 declined 13% to 3,451 sales despite receiving a design update last year. Combined, Cadillac’s entire sedan lineup sold fewer than 5,000 cars during the quarter.
That’s not a market segment. That’s a Cars & Coffee gathering. Naturally, both cars are heading toward extinction. The CT4 will disappear first, followed shortly by the CT5.
CADILLAC AIMS AT ENTHUSIASTS
For years, enthusiasts begged General Motors to build world-class sports sedans. Cadillac finally did. The automotive press showered them with awards. Then hardly anyone bought them. Turns out the people demanding manual-transmission, supercharged V8 sport sedans on internet forums are often the same people buying used ones three owners later.
Their demise is particularly ironic because the CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing are arguably the best vehicles Cadillac builds. Yet the company is discontinuing the very sedans that established its enthusiast credentials while simultaneously launching a global racing program. And that brings us to Formula One.
CADILLAC HEADS TO THE TRACK
On the surface, Cadillac’s decision to spend a fortune entering Formula One seems detached from reality. The company is discontinuing the very sedans that established its enthusiast credentials while simultaneously launching a global racing program.
Yet the move makes perfect sense when you understand Cadillac’s real problem: status.
For decades Cadillac has been trying to convince luxury buyers that it belongs in the same conversation as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, and increasingly Tesla. The problem is that luxury buyers don’t simply purchase transportation. They purchase heritage. BMW has driving dynamics. Mercedes-Benz has prestige. Porsche has motorsports. Tesla has technology. Cadillac? Hmmmm.
Formula One is an attempt to change that equation.
Whether the team wins races is almost beside the point. The goal is to place Cadillac’s crest on television screens from Monaco to Singapore and convince affluent buyers that the brand belongs on a global stage rather than exclusively in suburban Escalade driveways.
CADILLAC RETURNS TO ITS PROPER MARKET
Then there’s the Celestiq, Cadiilac’s return to a part of the new car market it once dominated, and then walked away from as it traded class production for mass production. Priced at roughly $350,000 and assembled largely by hand, Cadillac will build only 150 annually. It will contribute almost nothing to sales volume. Most Cadillac’s 700+ dealers will probably never see one.
GM has not revealed how many have been sold, although the website GM Authority places the number at about 25-30. Part of the reason is its design, which looks more like an old Citroen than a Cadillac. That makes sense. Its Lead Exterior Designer Magalie Debellis came to GM from Citroen. This is why, according to a former Cadillac designer, the Celestiq doesn’t look like a car that’s worth $350,000, particularly because it’s a hatchback. Another retired Cadillac designer confided that he had heard that the cars are riddled with issues.
But the Celestiq isn’t intended to make money. Cadillac is using it to convince wealthy buyers that it can compete with Bentley and Rolls-Royce like it once did. Whether customers agree remains an open question, but nobody can accuse Cadillac of lacking ambition.
QUALITY REMAINS A PROBLEM
Unfortunately, Cadillac’s problem has never been dreaming big. It’s execution.
A close friend of mine recently leased a new Vistiq after years of driving Lexus and Infiniti products. Within the first two months, the Cadillac made three return trips to the dealership. Not for exotic EV problems or cutting-edge software glitches. But for things like a dashboard that sagged in the middle and a leather-wrapped steering wheel that began unwrapping itself. Oh, and the dealer refused to supply a loaner car during service. Refused.
Think about that for a moment.
This is a vehicle that costs roughly $90,000. At that price, the dashboard should not be drooping. The steering wheel should not be shedding its upholstery. For ninety grand, the interior should remain assembled even if the owner spends weekends competing in Baja. The dealer should treat the customer bringing his car in for service within the first month of ownership with a scintilla of kindness. Instead, Cadillac delivered a luxury SUV whose craftsmanship seems to have been supervised by a committee of raccoons with staple guns.
THE UPSHOT
This is the challenge Cadillac can’t solve with a Formula One team, a hand-built flagship, or a marketing campaign. Prestige is easy. Quality is hard, especially for a company where accountants seem to make the decisions.
Anybody can build a concept car for an auto show. Anybody can sponsor a race team. Convincing a customer that every switch, every stitch, every panel, and every piece of trim will still be exactly where it belongs long after the new car smell has worn off, that’s luxury.
And that’s where Cadillac still has work to do. The company knows how it wants to be perceived. The question is whether it can consistently deliver products that support that perception.
The jury is still out.
Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a column that first appeared on The Car Collective Substack. To subscribe to The Car Collective, click here.
