After a single generation, the Cadillac XT4 will bow out in a couple months.
It’s almost like we’ve heard this tale before. Rather than merely pause production of the entry-level Cadillac XT4 crossover, General Motors confirmed this week that it will actually drop the model from its lineup entirely in January 2025, after a six-year run and a single generation.
Six months ago, the automaker confirmed the demise of the long-running Malibu, after initially suggesting it would simply pause production at its Fairfax assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas to retool for the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt. Now the same story is playing out with the Cadillac XT4, completely clearing the way for the Bolt, and only the Bolt, to come from Fairfax Assembly in 2026.
“General Motors is confident in our strong ICE and EV portfolio and will lean into growth opportunities guided by customer demand,” a company spokesperson told Automotive News. As a result, the Fairfax plant will go offline for nearly all of the next calendar year, as it invests an earlier announced $391 million into tooling and staffing updates so the facility will “play a critical role in GM’s future with the new Chevrolet Bolt EV.”
Although the Cadillac XT4’s sales did pick up by nearly 7% in the past quarter, it hasn’t been the brand’s strongest seller over the past six years. With GM’s new electric platform also the main focus of Cadillac’s development — including record-breaking Lyriq sales as well as announcements of the Escalade IQ, Optiq and Vistiq — we more or less expect Cadillac to phase out certain ‘XT’-branded models as time goes on. The XT4’s strongest sales year was 2019, the first model year it went on sale, with 31,987 units finding buyers.
Want a small Cadillac SUV? “Buy an Optiq” is the brand’s game plan.
With the XT4’s departure, the more affordable end of Cadillac’s lineup will instead be occupied by the small Optiq crossover. You can actually configure one right now, though they have not arrived at showrooms just yet. Instead of the company using the Fairfax assembly to build this model, American-market Optiqs are built at its Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico. The Optiq is also built in China, though those models are specifically for the Chinese market (and couldn’t feasibly be imported here anyway, thanks to a 100% tariff levied against Chinese-built EVs as of September).
