Cadillac 13 Luxury Spoiler Sport Bose Onstar Traction Bluetooth on 2040-cars

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Cadillac's CEO on Apple CarPlay: ’extremely clunky’

In this new world of advanced in-car infotainment and connectivity, car and tech companies alike are creating interfaces with mixed success. Apparently one system has annoyed Cadillac CEO Johan de Nysschen enough he's openly griping about it. In an interview with our friends at Yahoo Finance, the CEO had a number of complaints about Apple CarPlay, a system that, along with Android Auto, is rapidly becoming a staple of automotive infotainment. Though he acknowledged the system's potential, de Nysschen said CarPlay "is extremely clunky." He highlighted issues he's had with Apple Maps reacting too slowly for turn-by-turn navigation on the highway, app transitions that weren't smooth, and some quirks he found when using voice commands. While we won't say Apple CarPlay is perfect by any means, we're also not so sure it's deserving of such high-profile criticism, particularly from Cadillac. This is because Cadillac's own infotainment system CUE, has not been loved by those of us at Autoblog. And while Cadillac has announced it has a new version of CUE that might fix our issues with it, it's not exactly rolling it out expediently. So before ripping on other infotainment, de Nysschen, maybe make sure your own system in order. Related Video:

Cadillac applies to trademark Symboliq, Optiq and Celestiq names

GM Authority found a General Motors trademark filing with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property for the phrase "Cadillac Symboliq" and the name "Symboliq." The documents submitted on July 22 were for the category of "Motorized land vehicles, namely automobiles.” It appears the Swiss action was GM following up on what it had done the day before in the U.S. On July 21, GM filed paperwork with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to secure three words and three phrases: Symboliq and Cadillac Symboliq, Optiq and Cadillac Optiq, and Celestiq and Cadillac Celestiq. Every name is listed for application to "Motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles." Cadillac recently explained its switch to model names that end in "iq," pronounced "ick," and the fact that the Celestiq name is among the recent trio leads us to believe the automaker has strong intent to use the other two on future products. We know the Celestiq — a large, hand-built, flagship sedan that will follow the Lyriq to market, predicted to retail for close to $200,000 whenever it goes on sale. We also know Cadillac has three more battery-electric products in the works after the XT5-sized Lyriq and "massive" Celestiq. As laid out in a 2019 GM Sustainability Report pitching 20 new electric vehicles across all brands by 2023, from Cadillac we're anticipating an XT4-sized crossover, an XT6-sized three-row crossover, and an electric take on the Escalade. Two of those three could get the Symboliq and Optiq names. The lineup, and more important, Cadillac's vision, will make more sense on August 6 when we finally get to see the Lyriq concept, with its single pane of 33-inch glass forming the instrument and infotainment display across the dash, tall taillights, and 22-inch wheels.   Related Video:

Cadillac's de Nysschen won't budge on raised pricing

According to new Cadillac boss Johan de Nysschen, it will take between 10 and 15 years to elevate GM's top brand, which was once hailed as "The Standard Of The World," back to prominence in the minds of American customers. And to hear the executive talk of it, the brand is going to have to be willing to see sales falter in the near-term before they recover:
"Either you have to bring your volume aspirations into alignment with reality and accept that you will sell fewer cars... Or you have to drop the price and continue to transact at the prices where you were historically... I think the logical conclusion is that it's better to build off a very solid base in terms of [product] credibility, charge a fair price for the car and realize you have to wait until the volume comes."
In other words, sales will fall before they rise, and the brand has to be okay with that. Notice, too, that de Nysschen speaks of "a fair price" for Cadillac cars and utility vehicles. In this case, "fair" means more than many of the brand's traditional buyers are accustomed to, and roughly in line with the brands and machines Cadillac believes it is competing against. For instance, the newly enlarged 2014 CTS carries a suggested retail price that is over $6,000 higher than it was in 2013, and some trim levels boast an even higher price premium over the models they replace.