Cadillac's New Small SUV Is Four Years Away

Cadillac has been on fire lately with new vehicles like theEscalade , CTS and ATS , but a big void in its lineup just so happens to be one of the faster-growing segments: small premium utility vehicles. 

Even worse, Reuters is quoting Cadillac president Johan de Nysschen as saying that the automaker is still at least four years away from bringing such a vehicle to market.

These small, luxury crossovers are extremely popular right now in key global markets that include the U.S., China and Europe, and just about all luxury automakers – including Lincoln – have recently introduced such a product such as the 2015 Lexus NX , 2015 Mercedes-Benz GLA-Class , 2016 BMW X1 and 2015 Lincoln MKC . 

Based on Cadillac’s new naming structure, the small utility vehicle will likely wear the XT3 moniker, slotting beneath the third-generation SRX, which is expected to go into production later this year possibly called the XT5.

There is no word as to what platform Cadillac would use to underpin this new utility vehicle, but between the rear-drive ATS and a new rear-drive subcompact sedan under the ATS, there is a pretty good chance that the sub-SRX utility vehicle could be rear-drive based. 

If that’s the case, then it just might be worth waiting for, as most other competitors in this segment are based on front-drive platforms. 

As far as pricing goes, there is also plenty of room beneath the current SRX’s $37,605 starting price to position it competitively in the market.

Some good news for Cadillac is that once it gets this new utility vehicle onto the market, it should be able to compete on a global scale right out of the gate. Having come from Audi(before his short stint at Infiniti ), de Nysschen knows the importance of diesels in Europe and was quoted as saying "if you want to play in Europe, you better have some diesels.” The report says that Cadillac will begin offering diesel engines in its new models starting in 2019, which seems to match up with de Nysschen’s four-year timeline.

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Cadillac Confirms Sub-ATS Sedan And Compact Crossover

With both Audi and Mercedes-Benz doing quite well in the image department after bringing small, front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive sedans to the United States, it seems that Cadillac wants to follow suit and introduce an even smaller sedan than the CTS. Not only that, but the alleged smaller sedan may also be complemented by a compact crossover, just so the Audi Q3, Mercedes-Benz GLA and BMW X1 don’t feel lonely in their segment. The information above has been confirmed by Johan de Nysschen, who recently spoke with Autoblog about the matter at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. 

Part of a rather ambitious offensive of new models that is expected to finally turn around the American carmaker, the two aforementioned models would be likely based on GM’s Alpha platform, therefore sharing quite a lot of parts with the ATS and CTS. According toAutoblog, which is quoting Nysschen, the compact sedan is scheduled to arrive in 2017, while the compact crossover should be launched a year later.

In terms of market segment, the sub-ATS sedan should battle with the likes of Mercedes-Benz CLA , Audi A3 sedan and the upcoming BMW 1 Series sedan , all of which use a front-wheel-drive-based architecture.The compact crossover may be either small enough to step on the toes of the Mercedes -Benz GLA, Audi Q3 and BMW X1 or a little bit larger and occupy the segment right above. Either way, these are only two of the cars with no direct predecessor that Cadillac aims to unveil in the upcoming five years.

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