Cadillac plans strategy for new captive

DETROIT — Cadillac, tapped as General Motors' lead electric-vehicle brand, will add a luxury touch to the vehicle financing process next year, just in time for the launch of the first EV in its next-generation portfolio.

GM's high-end brand plans to start Cadillac Financial next year. It will be backed by GM Financial, GM's captive finance arm, but the Cadillac badging goes beyond a rebrand, Rory Harvey, vice president of global Cadillac, told Automotive News.

Cadillac Financial will have a new website and other digital tools to improve the customer experience. And Cadillac-certified customer experience teams will be on hand to resolve customer issues faster.

Pilots of the concierge service will begin this month and in January. The official rollout is slated for April, Harvey said.

The rollout coincides with the launch of the Lyriq midsize crossover. The Lyriq will be powered by GM's proprietary Ultium battery. The brand plans to electrify its entire North America lineup by 2030.

Harvey, 54, spoke with Staff Reporter Hannah Lutz at Automotive News' headquarters here last month. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: The high-end brands of other automakers already have luxury-badged captives. Why is now the right time for Cadillac to establish its own captive?

A: We're at an inflection point in terms of where Cadillac is at the moment. We wanted a look at all of the elements that make up the marketing mix and say, "How do we make sure that we are aligned in terms of customer expectations going forward?"

If you look to the work that we've done with our dealer network to get them ready for [future Cadillac EVs], the work that we've done in terms of the transition with the dealer network, the work that we've done with the product portfolio, then you'd say, "Let's have a look at the customer experience from a Cadillac Financial or GM Financial perspective." We believe from that point of view that there were opportunities for us to be able to drive the customer experience forward by having a luxury captive.

How will Cadillac Financial be different from the broader GM Financial?

There's a whole series of differentiators, whether it be the way that customers are handled, whether it be the end-of-lease process, whether it be the call mechanisms that customers go through. There's a suite of changes that will be coming in that are much more adept to a luxury captive. This is definitely not just a rebranding. It's not GMF to Cadillac Financial. There is a whole series of underpinnings that go with it.

Give some examples of the underpinnings.

We are looking at doing changes in terms of the field force from a dealer's perspective. We are looking at having [more] people within the field to work with the dealers. In terms of Cadillac Financial, we're looking at having different escalation routes for the dealers. So it's not just the consumers, it's also the dealer network that we're looking to interact with differently vs. what we're doing today.

When will Cadillac Financial be finalized?

The rollout plan on this is April of next year in terms of the timing, so we're still dotting the I's and cross the T's on some of the exact details.

At the beginning of next year, we get the Lyriq production. At the beginning of next year, we get the EV readiness. At the of beginning of next year, we get Cadillac Financial, etc. Within a window of months, it all happens.