Cadillac are getting serious about China, the luxury segment seems to be the only hot segment with growth far outstripping the demand for regular cars. Audi, BMW and Mercedes already have a strong foothold in the Chinese market, but Cadillac are begining to show signs of putting up a fight. Aside from the aging SLS, the rest of the Caddy range is produced in the USA and imported into the Chinese market which makes them less than competitive against locally made German cars, add on the recent anti dumping taxes on American made cars which have engines over 2.5L in size and you have a business case to produce cars in China.

The XTS, CTS and ATX are to be produced in China in the coming months according to media reports. The XTS is likely to be the first one made with production starting in the last quarter of 2012 with the CTS and ATX following up in the second quarter of 2013. Cadillac’s are produced via the Shanghai-GM joint venture but in relatively small numbers due to the SLS looking rather out of date when compared with its contemporary Germanic rivals.