The battle lines are being drawn being General Motors and Ford. In the increasingly competitive SUV market, GM’s Cadillac brand will start offering $10,000 discounts to some current customers. The offer is an attempt to keep them from jumping ship to Ford and its hot-selling Lincoln Navigator SUV.

This is the kind of thing that can happen when you have an established model like the Cadillac Escalade that’s trying to fend off a new model like the Lincoln Navigator. GM understands that on the surface, the Escalade is going to have a tough time keeping the Navigator at bay, especially when you consider that the latter is arriving as an all-new model. The Escalade, on the other hand, is starting to show its age, so any advantage it can have over the Navigator is important to keep it in front of the line.

Offering as much as $10,000 in discounts may sound steep, but it’s also necessary to keep Escalade owners in the family. LMC Automotive Jeff Schuster confirmed as much, telling Bloomberg that the Navigator is for real. If GM doesn’t protect the Escalade from the shiny new SUV in the market, it could potentially lose a lot of its customers to its rival.

As such, the discount offer is available on a nationwide basis and applies to lessees of all 2016 Escalades. Discounts typically start at $7,500, but that could increase to $10,000 depending on a number of considerations.

The good news is that even with the big discounts, the Escalade’s ability to generate outsized profits from its modest sales numbers will ensure that isn’t sabotaging its own margins just to move the SUV. “GM is willing to forgo a little profit to keep loyalty within the brand, but they’re still making money,” Schuster said. “The new Navigator has sent a signal to Cadillac that they need to be in front of this and be aggressive.”

It’s not helping GM’s cause that even if sales of its SUV have risen this year, the new Navigator is trending towards becoming a huge success for Lincoln and Ford. Sales of the SUV have risen 63 percent this year, and that covers the whole range of the SUV’s trim levels. The range-topping Black Label Navigators, for example, are selling out quickly, even with prices approaching $100,000.

So GM has to do what it has to do. The promotional offer on the Cadillac Escalade only runs through May 31, so if anybody’s in the market for a full-sized luxury SUV that comes with a heck of a discount, the Escalade is waiting to hear from you.

References

Read our full review on the 2018 Cadillac Escalade.

Read our full review on the 2018 Lincoln Navigator.

Read more Cadillac news.