Joseph White

DETROIT, (Reuters) – General Motors Co.’s Cadillac brand plans to take on Tesla (NASDAQ) Inc. with a brand new electric utility vehicle. It will also have nearly 40% fewer U.S. retailers than the 2018 model. This is according to the global brand chief.

Cadillac is now largely done with restructuring its U.S. dealers network. It expects to have 560 dealers at the end of 2012, as opposed to 920 in three years ago. Rory Harvey (head of global Cadillac brand) said that.

GM has booked $274 million total in 2020-2021 costs related to its effort to purchase Cadillac dealers that were unwilling to spend $200,000-$500,000 per store on equipment and training in support of the brand’s transition to all-electric vehicles. This is in addition to the $200,000 – $500,000 cost for the dealerships.

Cadillac will continue to have more U.S. dealerships than any other luxury brand, and it has also opened show rooms in New York City and Beverly Hills as well as San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco, and Atlanta.

Harvey stated that China is the marque’s biggest market and it hasn’t had to restructure its retail operations there. For the first nine months, Cadillac’s China sales increased 20% to close to 181,000 vehicles. The United States saw Cadillac sell nearly 96,000 cars in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 11%.

Tesla Inc is the leader in electric vehicles and has no dealers. It sells directly to its customers. Others EV startup like Rivian and Lucid are also selling cars online.

Cadillac Live has an online showroom, Harvey says that Cadillac is seeing more inquiries. Cadillac will sell and service its vehicles via dealers.

Cadillac will launch its first wave of electric cars next summer. Its compact utility vehicle, the Lyriq, is the starting point. Harvey indicated that Cadillac had received expressions interest from more than 216,000 customers for the Lyriq.

He said, “It far exceeded all our expectations.” Cadillac will need to know how many of these “handraisers” will end up being buyers. Harvey stated that 10%-15% of those who express interest in internal combustion vehicles ultimately purchase one.