Reuss Hints at New GM Van Offerings, High-End Cadillac Sedan

LOS ANGELES – General Motors is not alarmed that Nissan is entering the commercial-van segment but nor is it coasting, a top executive says.

“We’ve got other things that (can) broaden that portfolio and leverage it much better,” Mark Reuss, president-GM North America, tells WardsAuto in an interview here.

GM is the No.2 best-seller of commercial vans in the U.S., with 58,095 Chevy Express and 14,006 GMC Savana deliveries through October, WardsAuto data shows. Cargo vans make up the majority of those sales.

Ford leads the segment, with 74,875 Econoline cargo-van and 21,130 Club Wagon passenger-van deliveries in the period. Mercedes-Benz’s Sprinter and Nissan’s NV sold 13,937 and 3,976 units, respectively.

Reuss hints GM’s overseas offerings may be tapped to broaden its commercial-van portfolio. “You look around our European operations; you look around all of our operations, we’ve got things we don’t sell here.”

Ford has brought its European large commercial Transit van and more recently its small Transit Connect front-wheel-drive van to the U.S. Nissan will bring its similarly sized NV200 from Europe in 2013.

Ford says it plans to assemble the larger Transit model at its Kansas City, MO, plant next year, to supplement the Econoline.

Chrysler is debating two Fiat commercial vans for the U.S., including the fullsize Iveco Daily, slightly smaller Fiat Ducato and smaller- still Fiat Doblo.

In Europe and the U.K., GM offers under its Opel and Vauxhall brands the Combo, New Combo, Vivaro, Movano, Corsa Van and Astra Van.

Reuss stops short of confirming which European van GM may be considering bringing to the U.S. “I can’t really talk about it. It would ruin a lot of things,” he says.

Against this backdrop, GM is supplying the engine for a plug-in hybrid van from Indiana-based Bright, which has hinted its vehicle, the IDEA due as early as 2013, could feature the Chevrolet bowtie.

Meanwhile, Reuss says GM is mulling a Cadillac entry in the high-end luxury-car segment. “Do we need something that is a statement on a sedan basis for Cadillac that competes with some of the biggest and most-expensive cars? Yeah, we probably do in the long run. And so we’re looking at that.”

He sees the upcoming Cadillac ELR electric vehicle as a halo car from a technology standpoint and the new XTS as filling a void, but still not the summit. “We can go higher than the XTS for sure,” Reuss says.

Cadillac sales were up 5.6% through October, compared with year-ago, to 124,986 units, WardsAuto data shows.

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