Cadillac boss: global strategy prioritizes China

Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen's first move was escaping the General Motors' umbrella by moving the 112-year-old luxury GM segment's headquarters to New York. His second move is to set sights on China.

Eventually, he sees Cadillac's sales in China exceeding those in the United States, but not within the next 10 year time frame. "We have a large customer base here, very high brand recognition, and as we expand the product portfolio to address the gaps in our lineup, we can expect to see strong growth in the U.S. market over the next ten years as well."

"It doesn't matter to me where the dollar comes from, from Beijing or from New York, it doesn't matter. It comes to me, right? " he told reporters at the 2015 North American International Auto Show on Tuesday. "Our priority in terms of the sequence of events has got to be China."

"China is the area where we can generate the most rapid return on investments in our new products as we generate economies of scale to help us set them up in the first place," he said.

De Nysschen announced on Dec. 5 at the Shanghai Auto Show that Cadillac will build more than 95 percent of its cars locally in China by 2018, as part of its strategy to make the country a key market for the premium brand alongside the United States.

Company data revealed Cadillac sales in China rose 51 percent to more than 64,00 units in the first 11 months of 2014.

De Nysschen saw continued growth during 2015 in the Chinese market. "Our expectation is that the luxury market in China will grow about 6 percent," he said. Cadillac also has plans to keep up with the Chinese government's national plan for electric cars.

"Cadillac will ensure we have full power train capability to keep us in full compliance with the requirements in China," he said. "The 12 billion dollar investment plan that I announced also covers the power-train requirements for Cadillac which must include a whole plethora of alternative power trains, like plug ins, HEVs, PHEVs, and full battery electrics."

"The timeline for the Chinese market is defined by the compliance curve, Cadillac will remain 100 percent compliant to what Chinese regulations are," he said.