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Cadillac CT6 V-Sport wants to take prisoners with 550-hp 4.2L TT V8

With the refresh of the Cadillac CT6 for 2019, Cadillac welcomes the first CT6 V-Sport as well as a new trim strategy. The changes at the front for the CT6 lineup don't appear substantial viewed head-on, one needs a side view to appreciate the greater three-dimensionality. Thinner headlights and a thinner bumper above a slightly larger lower front intake emphasize the mesh grille, and the vertical LED DRLs make more dramatic statements thanks to those narrower headlights. By angling the main units back toward the rear of the sedan, the CT6 now has a certified, sculpted snout. The rework appears to add substantial overhang, but overall length only increases by a tenth of an inch, to 204.1 inches. What's under the V-Sport's probing hood is just as interesting as the redesign and the sporting thrust: A clean-sheet design of a 4.2-liter DOHC twin-turbo V8. In the V-Sport, the engine produces 550 horsepower and a Bentley-esque 627 pound-feet of torque. As an optional engine elsewhere in the CT6 range, the same engine produces 500 hp and 553 lb-ft. The displacement, specs, plus the fact that "each engine will be hand-built at the Performance Build Center in Bowling Green, Kentucky" indicate this was one of the rumored powerplants for the mid-engine Corvette. The coming sports car was tipped to get a 4.2-liter and 5.5-liter DOHC twin-turbo V8. Based on the position of the turbos in this engine vs. their positions in the previous CAD drawings, we assume the drawings represented the 5.5-liter. (Note: Cadillac said Corvette will not get the new 4.2-liter twin-turbo engine.) The 4.2-liter item features an aluminum block, heads, and pistons, direct injection with a 9.8:1 compression ratio, cylinder deactivation, cylinder oil jets, and a variable-pressure oil system. The twin-scroll turbochargers capable of 20 pounds of boost sit in the 90-degree vee, working alongside twin water-to-air intercoolers, twin throttle bodies, and twin electric wastegates. Cadillac says 90 percent of torque arrives at 2,000 rpm and loiters through 5,200 rpm. Power gets sent through GM's 10L90 ten-speed automatic transmission and on to the standard all-wheel-drive system. Cadillac didn't list 0-to-60-mph times in its press release, but engineers have track-worthy alacrity in mind for the CT6 V-Sport.

Cadillac says it made CUE infotainment a lot better

We've never been huge fans of CUE, the Cadillac User Experience infotainment interface. It's been around a few years now, and the best thing we can say for it is that it now supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, making it easy enough to replace most of the interface with a familiar smartphone-based system. Now Cadillac has made some big upgrades to the system that should address at least some of our concerns. First and foremost, the system is claimed to be more intuitive, with a more logical interface design. Cadillac has added a Summary View that gives an overview of the climate, media, navigation, and phone all at the same time. The system will also be able to receive over-the-air updates, allowing Cadillac to make improvements more often and push them out to owners' cars, mush like Tesla and other automakers already do. The 4G LTE connection will also be used to connect the car with the cloud, where drivers can store and modify their own personalized set of settings. This My Driver Preferences profile will include things like contacts, navigation preferences, and recent destinations, and will also follow them from one car equipped with the system to another. That should come in handy for anyone subscribing to the $1,500-a-month Book by Cadillac vehicle subscription service, which allows participants to swap between cars when they choose. The cloud connection will also carry over to a new available navigation function, which Cadillac claims has a more intuitive, smartphone-like interface. It uses its data connection to provide current destination info and is supposed to learn a driver's habits, such as their preferred routes and frequent destinations, which the system will then attempt to offer up predictively – so the car should be able to know that you're heading home at 5:00. Additional apps for the system will be available through Cadillac's new Collection app store. And it's still compatible with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. One sore spot that appears to have been improved is the digital gauge package, although Cadillac hasn't offered details on that extension of the system. The current iteration's ability to over-customize the interface (our personal favorite is the option to display a total of four speedometers between the head-up display and the gauge screen; see video below) and unintuitive controls make it difficult to use and learn, while the simulated gauges don't look particularly realistic.

GM moving international sales HQ to Singapore from Shanghai

General Motors has announced that it will be moving its international headquarters from Shanghai to Singapore, a move that will see 120 employees working from the city-state by the time business opens in 2014. Meanwhile, 250 to 300 of the employees at the Shanghai office will remain in China, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The shuffle is part of a bigger reorganization that will see GM isolate its operations in the People's Republic from its broader international efforts. This sort of divide-and-conquer strategy will allow GM to still react to emerging markets while, according to the WSJ, providing a dedicated management team for the Chinese market. The team in Singapore will be responsible for operations in Africa, southeast Asia, Australia, India, South Korea and the Middle East, on top of managing Chevrolet and Cadillac in Europe, according to a statement from GM.
The shift to Singapore "will help us to create a renewed identity for CIO (Consolidated International Operations) and lead GM's umbrella strategy for the region," said GM Executive Vice President of CIO, Stefan Jacoby.