I’m going to single out Cadillac in today’s Morning Dump because I like the brand and, generally, think it does a good job. The GM luxury unit makes Blackwings, and any organization that creates Blackwings can be forgiven many sins. What was Cadillac’s sin? Optimism.
A lot of my own framing over the EV head fake has been that companies saw a mix of government regulations and Tesla-like profit margins and mistakenly thought it couldn’t be that hard to go full EV. Another way to look at it is that maybe some people at these car companies believed it would be a healthier and better world if everyone just drove EVs, and thought society could move in lockstep to transition.
I’ll take the softer view of Cadillac, which is now contending with the fact that it canceled a bunch of ICE platforms and now has Escalade-sized holes in its lineup. The same is happening at Volvo, and Volvo’s solution is a light refresh of an old car. The initial China Shock benefited Germany; the second one might doom it. Germany’s problem? Hubris.
Was it overconfidence that led the Sec. of Transportation to take a swipe at Ford? Maybe. The company was surprised and the White House seems to be walking it back as fast the critiques as fast as it can.
Cadillac Is Backtracking On its All-EV Strategy And It’s Going To Suck For A Bit
GM, in general, has been the traditional American OEM that’s gone hardest into EVs and probably has the most to show for it. At the same time, the company believed its own hype about electrification, and in doing so canceled a bunch of vehicles due to the faulty assumption that it wouldn’t need both a gas and an electric vehicle in the most popular categories.
This is how the brand finds itself with no non-EV subcompact luxury crossover after canceling the XT4, no non-EV three-row luxury SUV after getting rid of the XT6, and no entry-level luxury sedan of any kind after it stops making the CT4. Instead, there’s the EV Lyriq, Optiq, and Vistiq to try and plug those holes. Cadillac, at least, was able to find a way to keep making the XT5 and CT5, so there’s that, but that’s not enough.
As Automotive News points out in this article on the company’s lineup, it’s not happy fun times if you’re a Cadillac dealer or a customer who doesn’t want an EV:
Dealers are in an “awkward interim period without the right vehicle for a significant portion of luxury buyers,” said Paul Waatti, director of industry analysis at AutoPacific.
“Those aren’t insignificant holes, either,” he said. “Compact, midsize and three-row crossovers are at the heart of the luxury market.”
The compact XT4 and three-row XT6 used to generate a combined 40,000 sales annually in the U.S. But until dealers get direct replacements, and with the EV market a fraction of what GM had expected by now, customers shopping those types of vehicles are likely to look at other brands, Waatti said.
You can just hear the folks at Genesis rubbing their hands together as they try to snake Cadillac customers.
Sales have been down this year and, with the drop in EV sales in Q3, those numbers are probably going to get worse. I like the new Cadillac EVs I’ve driven, so it’s not like there aren’t customers for those vehicles, but it sure would be nice to have a hybrid.
Volvo Will Keep Making The XC40 As It Waits For The EX50
Volvo finds itself in the same position as Cadillac, having gotten over its skis in pursuit of an EV-only lineup back when that seemed like the cool thing to do. The Swedish brand has dropped a bunch of great vehicles, including sedans and wagons, and either didn’t replace them or gave us EVs instead.
The XC40 was a vehicle probably on the way out, though the market had other ideas. The EX40 (formerly the XC40 Recharge) EV will be discontinued in the United States, whereas the XC40 will live on with the light refresh you can see in the photo above. If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like what Volvo did with the XC60, you’re correct.
Technically, the XC40 is a mild hybrid, but what’s important to consumers and dealers is that it’s something that costs under $45,000 that can be sold to people who used to own S60s and other vehicles, and don’t want to stretch their budgets to buy an XC60 or XC90.
There Was ‘A Great Deal Of Arrogance’ In Germany
It’s basically conventional wisdom at this point that Germany was a double winner in the initial China Shock, as it was able to sell the machines and processes to China that the country’s manufacturers used to flood America with cheap products and then sell cars to China’s growing middle class.
Economist Brad Setser is calling what’s currently happening to German industry, and especially the car industry, China Shock 2.0. He did an interview with Manager Magazin that has a lot of juicy quotes, including this:
SPIEGEL: Beijing issued its “Made in China 2025” strategy more than ten years ago. How is it that the West – especially Germany – failed to recognize what was coming?
Setser: There was a great deal of arrogance, especially in German industry. Market leaders often tend to be like that. We may be seeing something similar in the US right now, which, due to its strong position in semiconductors and AI technology, is prone to a certain complacency. Added to this was the now largely vanished notion that China’s approach was too heavily state-controlled. It was thought that it couldn’t succeed outside of a distorted Chinese domestic market.
Fun times.
What Was Duffy Thinking?
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy went on a tirade against Ford yesterday for its ties to China, which is a thing basically every automaker has at this point. Why did Duffy do it? According to reporting from the Detroit Free Press, no one but Duffy seems to know:
“We were very surprised and this is not in keeping with the very positive rapport we have with the White House and the rest of the administration around the White House,” Steve Croley, Ford’s chief policy officer and general counsel told the Detroit Free Press on Sept. 9.
Ford has reason to be confused considering the mixed messages Ford is receiving from the Trump administration.
Before Tuesday, the administration had sung Ford’s praises. In fact, in December 2025, Farley stood next to Duffy in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump proposed drastically scaling back mile-per-gallon standards for new cars and light-duty trucks put in place by former President Joe Biden and rewriting how those standards are developed.
Curiously, the official press office X/Twitter account just posted that “Ford is a GREAT American company” that’s done a “tremendous job.”
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
My daughter is learning to play “Beat It” by Michael Jackson on the bass, which means I’ve heard that iconic riff roughly 9,000 times. You can hear it, too.
The Big Question
What car canceled in the last ten years or so would you most like back? I know what I want.
Top photo: Cadillac
Bought my Focus ST new in 2016, and the year after they stopped making them, I got a call (at my desk at work which… how did they get that number) from the dealership I’d bought it from asking me to trade it in for a good deal on a new Ford. I replied that they didn’t make anything I’d ever be interested in and hung up the phone.
So the Focus ST is what I’d bring back. It has been a great car in the decade since, and I’d easily buy another one if I could, or even bump up to the RS.
Focus ST has my vote. I would not be in a mk8 GTI if the current gen euro ST was available in the US
The mk7 was on the short list for when I bought the ST. Don’t know what I’ll do when this one finally dies, and parts are getting harder to find as the years go on since it doesn’t seem like a ton of Focuses are still on the road compared to how many were sold.
Shame too, I thought the Focus ST, post-facelift at least, was the best looking of the sporty/hot hatches of the mid 2010s, and probably the most fun-per-dollar of the type too.
The only car I’d say was more fun/$ was the Fiesta ST. That thing had so much more bite than the Focus ST (which is a very high bar!). I miss both so much. I too was ready to buy the new FoST before it got canceled for US.
From a purely whippin’-it while driving standpoint, I think I agree, the FiST tends to drive a bit better and that fun/$ edges it out.
That said, I think the FoST wins out overall as a car that you can use as a car and not as a toy. And, since I bought mine like a year after my first real job after college, I wasn’t in “car purchases that aren’t mostly practical” mode yet.
That little bit more size going up to a compact meant that if you wanted, you could daily it like it was a regular car without the drawbacks of having a true subcompact, haul some stuff, or even people, without being squished. The FiST being a subcompact made it real difficult to, say, do a road trip with 5 adults+bags, or haul home a couch that barely fit in the FoST but definitely not the FiST.
I partially agree. My biggest disagreement was the reason I didn’t buy the then current FoST. I HATE HATE HATED the IP/console area. That monstrosity was so awful. I did a trip from Ann Arbor to Pictured Rocks in the UP of Michigan and my knees were killing me because that stupid console and shape of the IP was intruding on my comfortable position. Since then, I had sworn off that car. Ironically, the Fiesta, with the super low consolette, had such good knee splay zones, my 6’8″ roommate could comfortably sit in the car. Trunk though? Ya tiny ha
Suppose we’ll have to chalk that one up to different anatomy then. I’ve never had an issue with that, and even find wider cars I’ve had rentals in (lookin’ at you, Chrysler 300) to be uncomfortable explicitly because it didn’t have that to rest upon.
Ha very true!
The best thing about used police cars is they don’t have that center console thing.
Golf Sportwagen, Camaro, CT4, CT6, WRX STi, Focus, Fiesta
The list could go on
My TBQ was going to be STi hatch. Really any WRX hatchback tbh…
Strong chance the next WRX is a hatch, all other Subaru sedans are dead and only their hatch versions remain
My heart says Chevy SS, but deep down I know it would cost at least $60k in today’s money so I still couldn’t afford to buy one. Realistic answer is Fiesta ST and Focus ST/RS. They got another generation over in Europe, I would currently be driving one If they kept them in the US market. When I worked at the blue oval, it had already been a few years since they ended US production, so instead of buying my companies car, I bought a new Civic Si to fill my sporty Econobox with a manual transmission desire in 2021.
Any kind of sport sedan from the big 3, priced for your average Joe, seems to be a tall order these days. Ditto on the Focus ST
I wouldn’t want to defend any of “those people”, but there are plenty of times I’ve told someone, “I don’t like what you’re doing about X, but I think you’re doing a great job about Y.”
In 2016 you could still buy a stickshift Mazda CX-5, and I kinda wish I had.
You can’t have nuance in the modern age. Either you are for the correct side 100% of the time or you are the enemy.
Any article on EVs and United States needs to start with a paragraph approximating the following:
In taking marching orders from his petroleum industry donors, President Trump immediately attacked and kneecapped all aspects of Biden’s IRA Act, completely destroying the EV and renewable energy industries. This act completely set back the country, which will now play catch up, if ever.
I could have used harsher words to describe the situation…
Yeah, the US seems to be unique in deciding we need more ICE-powered vehicles. And we collectively assume that fuel prices will somehow drop?
And the delicious irony is that because he’s a greedy bastard out to enrich himself, he tried to steal a bunch of oil from the wrong country and in the process is making EVs great again.
There’s a cautionary tale here about allying yourself with a narcissist…
^^^^^this
As a potential fan of the deepest depreciation curves since the Phaeton, I for one am angry that the prices of used Ionic 5’s and 6’s are now going up because a certain BSBPT* started a war that pushed up gasoline prices that slowed down, maybe even reversed that delicious curve. GRRR
*BabyShitBrownPaintedTwit
Listen. The reason why buyers aren’t buying Cadillac EVs is because of the lack of CarPlay/AA. There are sooo many EV enthusiasts who like what GM/Cadillac is doing, but refuse to reward anti-consumer behavior.
RIght? A Cadillac buyer shouldn’t have to go to an Acura ZDX with the half baked screens just to get the same as a Lyriq with car-play, reverse lights that don’t turn on at random, and (probably?) yellow turn signals. At least the Prologue has yellow turn signals. I’ll have to check next time I’m behind a turning ZDX.
The Lyriq has always had Carplay and still does for 2027.
Cool!
The Lyriq does have Carplay.
“My daughter is learning to play “Beat It” by Michael Jackson on the bass, which means I’ve heard that iconic riff roughly 9,000 times. You can hear it, too.”
These gentlemen could share a word or two with you and her about ALL of that!
https://toto-music-band.fandom.com/wiki/Toto
Hey, as someone who took up the bass less than a year ago, as my first instrument ever (on a self-taught journey), playing something over and over again is how you learn.
God yes, and the greats make it look so easy! 🙁
“What Was Duffy Thinking?”
THINKING? LOL. None of the dipshits in the Trump administration do any real thinking. They merely react.
“What car canceled in the last ten years or so would you most like back? “
Ford Focus 4 door hatchback… only bring it back as a hybrid/plug-in-hybrid… using the same hybrid system used in the Escape.
would you rather have the danger turtle, or instead an SUV variant of the Mav? I could see the mav nose on the sport bronco with the Hybrid drivetrain.
I’d rather have a car instead of an SUV… thanks.
“Thinking” is a bit of a stretch for this administration.
And, yes, the Focus hatch. Doesn’t even need to be the RS, or the long-roof, but both of those would be awesome.
TBQ (for US market):
Manual Transmission Smart Car
Hand Crank Window and manual lock Jeep Wranglers
The Wrangler 4XE (Should have been updated with an interior high wattage 120v inverter). Would buy a 2 door one tomorrow
BMW i3s REX
Chevy Volt
2nd gen Nissan Leaf (just give it NACS and make it cheaper as a “3rd gen”
Etc.
TBQ: Ford Flex, but with a requirement for a raptor edition
The Flex had so many bugs still to be worked out…the slurpee of doom, the failing latches on the back seats, tank-like visibility, and worse fuel economy than the last-generation Sienna.
But damn, were they comfy and good-looking…
Was the slurpee of doom really the flex’s fault though? That was a problem for that whole family of engines ford used from what I recall
I believe so, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t affect the Flexes…
I would still count a particular engine family problem as within the purview of “problems specific to a given car” but that’s a tangential discussion, I think.
The latch to fold the 60 side of our back seat forward broke once under warranty (so the seat couldn’t be folded flat or forward), once after warranty ($700 at the dealership), and then again later. We left it broken for the rest of the time until we got the slurpee at ~180k.
Apparently the latch problem was unsolved for the whole run.
Anyway, I am, of course, discounting the “fun” factor of the turbo engine since my family’s didn’t have it. So I understand the draw. Fantastic middle row legroom, too.
“There Was ‘A Great Deal Of Arrogance’ In Germany”
Very on brand for there, since like forever, amirite?
In my mind, it’s still the early Aughts. So we need to bring back the Roadmaster Wagon, which was canceled less than 10 years ago.
In all seriousness, in the pursuit of fuel economy, why haven’t any manufacturers tried to drop a wagon body on one of their truck frames? A wagon with towing capacity!
When Ford rolled out the PowerBoost F150 and Lightning I thought for sure they’d do a Crown Vic or Wagon on it.
I was dead wrong.
Don’t you own a prime example of what you’re asking for?
What after all, is an Excursion but a wagon body on a Super Duty frame?
It’s a truck with a permanent bed cap. It’s literally an F250 from the B pillar forward.
I want WAGON. Low to the ground, sedan profile body. Make it slippery.
Drop one on a midsize chassis, then offer a sedan and a Ute version.
I don’t think the buying public will see much of a difference.
1 Trucks/SUVs sell better than cars now
2 If ICE powered, fuel economy regs still penalize Cars worse than Trucks.
3 No automaker (except Stellantis) is dumb enough to base program decisions on which admin is currently making the rules.
4 Any regs that have been relaxed at the drop of a hat, can be reinstated just as fast.
TBQ: V70R or V60 recharge
Seconding the V60 recharge (especially in a normie trim, not just polestar engineered)
When it was time to replace my last car in 2020, I seriously considered looking for a V70R. I grew up riding around in my mom’s V70 T5, and got to spend a decent amount of time behind the wheel of it when I got my license. I loved driving it and to this day, I have yet to find more comfortable seats in a car.
I ultimately went with a Jetta Sportwagen TDI, since it came with the Dieselgate powertrain warranty, and was much newer. Plus the aftermarket support for the MKVI (and MKV) generation of VWs is insane.
“There Was ‘A Gread Deal Of Arrogance’ In Germany”
Better touch up that header. In quotes, it’s rough.
Googled Gread, and the headline could sort of mean something,
Cadillac honestly baffled me when they canceled the XT4. It was arguably one of their better SUV offerings and when we were shopping for a replacement to my wife’s SRX, we chose the XT4 over the XT5. Some of that was because it used physical buttons instead of those god awful capacitive touch controls. The other big plus was just that it was a smidge smaller.
We’ve had that car for about 6 years now and I honest love it. Drives great, comfortable, good power… I guess my only real complaint is how loud the engine is when cold.
Funny how opinions on the same car can vary so much.
I had an XT4 as a rental and I hated it. It felt every bit like the cheap Chevy it is underneath.
I actually came away from it thinking it’s exactly why Cadillac isn’t doing well. Having something like the XT4 in the lineup cheapens the entire brand and makes them look uncompetitive vs. true luxury options.
It should always have been a Chevy and maybe a Buick.
I get that. Coming from a SRX my perception of Cadillac wasn’t particularly high so the XT4 was improving on a trend from my perspective. Or in other words, my bar for Cadillac was pretty low to start with.
TBQ: My knee-jerk response was 2nd gen Chevy Volt but I think we already kinda got that in the latest Prius Prime. So I’m going to say Mazda 5 but with a range extended EV drive train yielding 50-60 miles of EV range with an additional 500 on regular gas.
Honda Fit!!!
Preach!
Agreed!
Honda Fit still exists… just not in North America.
You can get yourself a nice 2026 Honda Fit for yourself… you just have to wait until 2051 to get it… LOL
I say a prayer every day that mine will be safe.
Definitely. Not only should Honda bring it back but give us an Si version 🙂
I’m sure the Fit is a good car but I’m a bit bitter that one rear ended and totaled my 2010 Matrix 5 speed manual. If it had been a typical behemoth truck or SUV I probably wouldn’t have walked away unscathed, so lucky I guess?
TBQ: I would like to farther back because the last 10 years were banal. I want big, bad BOF sedans. For now, the closest to them are pickups and big SUVs.
Safety standards might be an issue for those.
Ban the big trucks and suvs, level the field, and watch safety data improve.
God I WISH!
Just ban crashes, problem solved.
No prize for guessing mine.
The Dodge Dart! right? Or was it the Chrysler 200?
The 300 is actually pretty high on my list, we need cars like that.
The 300 was the first one that came to my mind. I miss getting those on the rental aisle.
Oh man, I shopped some SRT8 300s on the used market.
Dramatically reveals tarot cards:
“The One-Liter”
“The Crossover”
and
“The Turbo Hybrid”
We all know about your fettish for the Toyota iQ.
Bristol Fighter?
“non-EV three-row luxury SUV after getting rid of the XT6”
Calling the XT6 luxury is a stretch.
GM not having a hybrid system makes them kind of irrelevant. We have had three friends looking at new larger SUV’s, and they all went hybrid. With gas at $5.50 a gallon, can you blame them.
I felt a little dirty doing it, but I looked at Buick for about 30 seconds, realized they had no hybrids, and closed the browser tab. Bought a lightly used 2026 Prius PHEV. Who the hell buys a car and trades it in 2 months later? Thanks strange people for taking the nearly $7k depreciation hit.
Someone who couldn’t make the payments.
They traded it in to a Mercedes dealer. *shrug*
Someone who bought the wrong badge for their spoiled brat then.
Or spoiled trophy wife.
A spoiled trophy wife is just another type of spoiled brat.
This comment so fits your user name.
1 big internet point to you my good sir.
In the immortal words of Walter White/Heisenberg:
You’re goddamned right!
Some people buy cars for their spouses without consulting them. When it works, they look good. When it doesn’t there may be losses on the trade-in for what they really want. Also, tastes change. My family was fine with budget cars until health issues quickly made luxury cars more attractive.
Another situation: buyer dies. No one in the family wants it or can’t afford it.
Also, sometimes fleets place orders and the business needs change.
Pretty sure it went down something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcEylCwkSxE
Yes! Definitely!
Volvo V90
Call me a heretic, but for me, the best part of Beat It is Eddie Van Halen’s righteous guitar solo.
Apparently, he actually made changes to what Jackson had in mind, and was worried Jackson would be furious; instead, Jackson loved it and thanked him for making the song better. Jackson was a complex guy with a lot of unsavoriness, but I love that tale for his recognizing craftsmanship for what it was.
I heard that EVH just showed up and tossed it off, and that for him, it was just a quick, forgettable, throwaway session. I’ll have to see if I can find that quote/clip.
He also refused to take credit and payment for doing it.
He certainly recognized the greatness of Bob Fossie:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1LE_TYTxRxg
Steve Lukather from Toto plays all the rest of guitar on the track, including the bass.
He originally laid down a killer solo for it as well, but Quincy could tell that it was going to be huge hit and would be even bigger as a massive crossover hit if he could get the most famous and popular rock guitar player on the planet at that time to put his own solo in there instead of Lukather’s, who despite his incredible talent and achievements has never been really well known by his name alone.
He wasn’t wrong, and Lukather wasn’t mad. He and EVH were great, close friends.
Literally, everybody won on that that deal. Quincy really was a fucking genius.
I didn’t win. I have never understood why anyone liked Michael Jackson. There was very little way to escape it at the time.
Sorry to hear that. Different strokes, I guess.
As a bass player, I highly recommend introducing your daughter to Billie Jean, which has one of the greatest bass lines of all time… in spite of the fact that it wasn’t actually played on a bass. Easy one of my favorite ones to jam.
I’d second this, but from the perspective of repetition; a lot of cool licks can be learned, but playing them over and over and over for four solid minutes will knock a lot of scrubs off the mountain.
You got that right. My first ever band did Twilight Zone by Golden Earring. That’s test your endurance.
TBQ: Manual Golf Wagon. I bought a Mk7.5 Golf Sportwagen 4Motion new and loved it despite being scared of long-term VW reliability. It was so good that I would have bought another if it was available in Mk8 guise. I get why it was killed, mine was over 20% off MSRP because it sat at the dealer for 6 months before I bought it.
Chevy Volt, thank you very much.
And Cadillac EVs are way better in general than what they had before with ICE.
I legitimately like the Lyriq as a luxury commuter. So much so that I nearly leased one back in January. The design language speaks to me in a way that makes it more than “An Car”.
I tend to look twice at the Lyriq as well. How are the sight lines in that thing? (I’m weird and still like to use my eyes and my neck while driving.)
Not great, honestly. The small rearview is not as big a problem as I thought it would be, but the c pillar view is pretty bad and I have to trust the blind spot sensor more than I would like. But I love the car in general.
To be fair, even my mom’s small Lexus UX300h has pretty large blind spots. Modern hatchbacks seem to suffer that problem. When these cars all have the same 12″ wiper, you know how little the designers expect you to use any windows behind your ear.
I always thought it would make a great 2 door Ute.
EVs have markedly improved Cadillac’s lineup.