In the same report that Cadillac Chief Marketing Officer Uwe Ellinghaus spilled that the 2017 XT5 may see four additional crossover siblings, he also made a few comments about Tesla’s brand strategy.
Currently, Tesla’s all-electric lineup has been a competitive advantage of sorts for the new automaker, especially in the earlier days when mass-market EVs were tough to come by. Ellinghaus thinks times and technology are changing rapidly, and a strategy like that will simply be obsolete due to vehicle electrification becoming “standard.”
“You will no longer be able to create an entire brand philosophy, like Tesla did, around electro-mobility,” Ellinghaus told Car and Driver, “because it will become something that is standard. All automotive manufacturers are working on it, or need to have it to meet the CAFE legislation. I think it will end up where all-wheel drive is today. Some [buyers] that want it tick the box.”
Ellinghaus also made quick points backing up colleague and Cadillac President, Johan de Nysschen, in saying that the brand will not develop standalone electric vehicles. Rather, plug-in variants will be seen throughout the entire Cadillac lineup.
Comments
make the CT8 and XT8 full electric plug-ins
The statements by Ellinghaus make sense.
As more and more manufacturers (Cadillac, BMW, MB, Audi, Lexus,etc.) offer a long range full electric luxury vehicles then Teslas becomes less and less special.
Also Tesla will be hard pressed to keep up once there is significantly more competition because it does not have the engineering power and the capital necessary to bring new models to market quickly.
Consider that they announced their Bolt competitor at the same time Chevrolet did and they will be at least a year behind GM to get it to production.
They already have a little bit of a reputation for delays and raising funds.
Couple all of that with a lack of infrastructure and they will be relegated back to niche player in the segment they started and popularized.
If Mr. Ellinghaus is so smart, why are Cadillac sales in the dumpster??????
Dumpster???
Sales are down YTD -0.3% or 392 units here in North America with 2 months left and up 4.5% worldwide. I hardly call that ‘in the dumpster ‘.
Also ATP’s are $7000 per unit higher than 2014 so even if they sold no more units for the remainder of the year Cadillac has still contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to GM’s bottom line.
Tesla is expecting to sell over 50,000 cars in 2015.
Cadillac’s competitor, the ELR, has only sold 765 YTD. http://bit.ly/1HoUCzA
The ELR is not a direct competitor to any single Tesla model.
All Teslas are full electric and not a hybrid type set up like the ELR.
Ellinghaus is the director of marketing. There is no amount of marketing will save the ELR.
Yes Tesla is on pace to have their best sales year so far bur they have no real direct competition right now. That is going to change soon as as some of the big luxury players join the fun reducing their profit margins.
Ellinghaus is Cadillac’s last, best and only hope of becoming a BMW equal. The brand must change. I even agree with him that Caddy design must take on a more global ethos (even though Mark Ruess wants to continue the current uniquely American design design philosophy).
All global brands, Ford is a great example, have taken on European and global design traits. To do more then simply compete against Lincoln, Cadillac must produce a global product.
Cadillac does not compete with Lincoln. It competes with the BMW and Benzes of the world. And it already has global product.
Tesla is not in the electric car market. It is in the superior car market, beating all competitors in horse power, acceleration, aerodynamics, fuel efficiency, seating capacity, luggage space, safety ratings, rollover resistance due to low center of gravity, infotainment electronics, dealership service, … i am a 100% Cadillac and GM loyalist, but so far I have not seen anything that can compete with Tesla, not from GM, not from BMW, not from Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, or anyone else. The Chevy Bolt is not bad, but it is not a Tesla competitor at all.
The Bolt will have a price that Tesla can only hope for. Cadillac will compete with Tesla and ultimately win.
The point is that Tesla will cease being superior when everyone else enters the currently low-volume EV game. And when that happens, I’m not sure Tesla will be able to kerp up in scale, product, or innovation. But yes, it does have a leg up at the present.
Well the Bolt will have a Tesla competitor called the Model 3 which was announced at the same auto show as the Bolt.
Tesla suggested a similar price point (after government rebates ) and pure electric range as well.
That is unofficially scheduled for production about a year after the Bolt barring any delays.
DOA.
With slow charging capabilities and no fast charging stations at strategic locations, all BEVs, besides Tesla, are relegated to city driving only.
Well the Model 3 has some real issues first.
#1 It may be a while for it to show up. Tesla is a couple years behind on the X model now and while they are stringing people along now many will have to wait 7 months to over a year to get theirs as production is not really what you call moving along.
#2 The model three still needs a lot of work and they also have announced they are looking to build it in China to contain cost. I know others are doing it but when they sold the S model as a good old made in America car this could hurt a little. Also if they are moving to China this means they are struggling with cost to keep them low.
#3 The Chevy will possibly be well into production 1-3 years ahead of the 3 model and the other advantage is they will have dealers everywhere. When something goes wrong it will be much easier to deal with vs. Tesla. They can afford to come out and truck your car to a repair shop at $30K like they do not at $130K.
The first thing with Musk is to believe only about 3/4 of his hype at best.
I do want Tesla to succeed as their failure would hurt the EV segment. But on the other hand they have been skating on thin ice and what could just hurt a larger company could sink Tesla.
Their other issue is they will need to update the S model soon as software updates are not going to be enough with growing competition.
Ya ya but can you charge up in a time similar to what it takes to fill a tank of Gas?
Can you recharge in Winesburg Ohio Or how about Grove City PA?
Until EV cars can do this not just Tesla they will remain a slow growth market. Luggage space and Acceleration mean little if you can not get from point A to B with out having to camp out while it charges if you can even find a charger.
All Tesla has done that the others can not or have not done is prove you can sell a EV Luxury car. Tesla holds no seceret technology that does anything different than what anyone else has. Selling at a high price has kept them alive but they still have a lot of work to do and can only sell so many carbon credits. They will need to become profitable at some point.
Merrill Lynch has recommended that they go into the supplier segment. Much more profit and much more ability to make a greater impact.
It would be like the 1849 Gold Rush. Few miners made money in the Gold rush as my Great Great, Great Grandfather did with mining gold. Most people who made the money were the ones who sold the supplies.
Tesla would sell a lot more batteries if they did not make a car too. Few MFG will deal with them as long as they have their own car. The others have their own tricks on batteries and they will not share the technology with a competitor.
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