Lincoln Nautilus Fully Defeated Its Chief Rival, The Cadillac XT5

The Lincoln Nautilus has been on a roll lately. The luxury crossover has found favor among consumers, racking up accolades like the U.S. APEAL award and being recognized as the 2025 Motor Trend SUV of the Year. The Nautilus has been eating into rivals’ sales for a while, but now it’s landed a big one, outselling its chief rival, the Cadillac XT5, in the U.S.

For years, the Cadillac XT5 had the Lincoln Nautilus solidly in its rearview. In 2018, the gap seemed insurmountable when the XTu5 outsold the Nautilus by almost 32,000 units. But the Nautilus quickly began closing the gap, cutting the deficit to 18,168 units in 2019, then to 12,481 in 2020, and fewer than 4,000 in 2021.

After a brief stumble in 2022, the Nautilus fired back in 2023, finishing just 2,474 units shy of the XT5. And in 2024, it finally pulled ahead, outselling its longtime rival by a whopping 10,112 units – and it’s poised to do the same this year, if the first half of 2025 is any indication. Through the first six months of 2025, the Lincoln Nautilus sold 18,533 to the Cadillac XT5’s 12,727 deliveries, outperforming the Caddy by 5,806 units.

The Cadillac XT5 has been hanging on by a thread. In fact, the XT5 wasn’t expected to make it beyond the 2025 model year, but a reevaluation of consumer interest in electric vehicles (fueled by the Trump administration’s decision to kill off the federal EV tax credit incentive) prompted General Motors to keep the gasoline-burning luxury crossover around for a little while longer. In fact, GM is considering bringing the second-generation XT5 – which was originally released in China, not the U.S. – to North America, signaling that the nameplate might still have some life left.

But even if the Cadillac XT5 does stick around, it’s got some ground to make up if it wants to lunge ahead of the Lincoln Nautilus once more.  Moreover, as reported by our sister publication, GM Authority, production of the XT5 will be idled throughout all of December, meaning that even fewer examples of the luxury crossover will be produced while the Nautilus continues to roll off the assembly line in droves.