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About 150 Cadillac dealers would rather leave the brand than sell EVs

Dealerships might hamper GM’s plans to electrify its cars. Wall Street Journal tipsters claim that roughly 150 GM dealerships in the United States have decided to drop the Cadillac brand and accept a buyout (ranging from $300,000 to over $1 million) rather than spend about $200,000 to upgrade the dealerships with charging stations, repair hardware and other equipment needed to sell EVs. Many of these dealerships only sell a few Cadillacs per month versus more for Buick, Chevrolet and GMC, but itÂ’s still a significant blow when GM has 880 Cadillac dealers in the country. Cadillac brand leader Rory Harvey confirmed to the WSJ that GM was offering buyouts, but didnÂ’t say how many dealers took them or how much they were worth. The exodus underscores the challenges for conventional car brands as well as the potential advantages for alternatives like Tesla. As brands like GM are heavily dependent on dealerships, they have to please owners to have a chance of strong sales — and thatÂ’s difficult when theyÂ’re not certain about demand, even without the pandemic. Tesla and other direct-to-customer EV makers arenÂ’t bound by physical stores and already have the infrastructure in place for service centers. Dealers might not have much choice in the future. California is banning sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035, and that will likely force automakers to electrify no matter how dealership owners feel. The buyouts now arenÂ’t necessarily temporary, but we wouldnÂ’t rule out some shops having a change of heart as the effective EV deadline approaches. Related video:

2020 Cadillac CT5 prototype shows off more lighting details

The elusive 2020 Cadillac CT5 luxury sports sedan has once again been spotted by a spy photographer. This time, we get to see it from all angles, whereas last time we only saw it from the front. It still has quite a bit of fake body work, and it's very clear Cadillac still hopes you'll think this is a Charger, from the big hood scoop to the fake full-width taillights. Digging past those misdirects, we can find some new details about the car. First, the car's front lighting has developed further. There are production-ready headlights fitted that appear to have some sort of LED illumination. These production lights also fit the shape we saw on the last prototype, so they'll end high up on the body, extending slightly horizontally toward the grille. There's still a section that extends back along the fender, seeming to bridge the gap between current Cadillacs and the Escala concept from which this car takes inspiration. Another addition are the vertical LED accent lights. This is another trademark feature of both current Cadillacs and the Escala, but they were absent from the last prototype we saw. We also get a look at some of the grille's details. Instead of slats, this CT5 has a plastic mesh of small rectangles. The pattern is reminiscent of brickwork. These photos also give us our first look at the back of the CT5. It looks like a fairly typical Cadillac. It's much more conservative than the front end. There are some angular cutouts in the bumper to allow exhaust gases out. The taillights have the current Cadillac look with the top curving over the rear fender. We can't tell if there will be a horizontal element like on the Escala, due to the fake lights. We're expecting the CT5 to be shown sometime next year in time for the 2020 model year. Odds are it will use off-the-shelf Cadillac engines including the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder, naturally aspirated 3.6-liter V6, and the twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6. Now that Cadillac has revealed its twin-turbo 4.2-liter V8, we'll be interested to see if that shows up in a future CT5-V. Related Video: Featured Gallery Cadillac CT5 prototype spy shots View 23 Photos Image Credit: SpiedBilde Spy Photos Cadillac Luxury Sedan cadillac ct5 cadillac escala

Drive like a prince: Join us for a walk through Monaco's car collection

Small, crowded, and a royal pain in the trunk lid to drive into during rush hour, Monaco sounds like an improbable location for a huge car museum. And yet, this tiny city-state has been closely linked to car culture for over a century. It hosts two major racing events every year, many of its residents would qualify for a frequent shopper card if Rolls-Royce issued one, and Prince Rainier III began assembling a collection of cars in the late 1950s. He opened his collection to the public in 1993 and the museum quickly turned into a popular tourist attraction. The collection continued to grow after his death in April 2005; it moved to a new facility located right on Hercules Port in July 2022. Monaco being Monaco, you'd expect to walk into a room full of the latest, shiniest, and most powerful supercars ever to shred a tire. That's not the case: while there is no shortage of high-horsepower machines, the first cars you see after paying ˆ10 (approximately $11) to get in are pre-war models. In that era, the template for the car as we know it in 2023 hadn't been created, so an eclectic assortment of expensive and dauntingly experimental machines roamed whatever roads were available to them. One is the Leyat Helica, which was built in France in 1921 with a 1.2-liter air-cooled flat-twin sourced from the world of aviation. Fittingly, the two-cylinder spun a massive, plane-like propeller. Government vehicles get a special spot in the museum. They range from a Cadillac Series 6700 with an amusing blend of period-correct French-market yellow headlights and massive fins to a 2011 Lexus LS 600h with a custom-made transparent roof panel that was built by Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet for Prince Albert II's wedding. Here's where it all gets a little weird: you've got a 1952 Austin FX3, a Ghia-bodied 1959 Fiat 500 Jolly, a 1960 BMW Isetta, and a 1971 Lotus Seven. That has to be someone's idea of a perfect four-car garage.  One of the most significant cars in the collection lurks in the far corner of the main hall, which is located a level below the entrance. At first glance, it's a kitted-out Renault 4CV with auxiliary lights, a racing number on the front end, and a period-correct registration number issued in the Bouches-du-Rhone department of France. It doesn't look all that different than the later, unmodified 4CV parked right next to it. Here's what's special about it: this is one of the small handful of Type 1063 models built by Renault for competition.