As handsome the sheetmetal is shaping the 2016 Cadillac ELR, its good looks are not enough to save the car from Johan de Nysschen’s chopping block. The brand’s president announced the ELR would not see a second generation after the current car rides out its final production years.
“I plan to continue admiring it as one of the most beautiful cars on four wheels” de Nysschen told Automotive News. “But we don’t plan further investment.”
Instead, we’ve reported Cadillac plans to make a plug-in option available for nearly every future Cadillac vehicle, foregoing the need for a dedicated PHEV.
The Cadillac ELR was a bit of a hiccup from the start, with Uwe Ellinghaus, Cadillac CMO, condemning its exorbitantly high price tag and calling the car “a big disappointment.” The Cadillac ELR went on sale with a $75,995 MSRP, but the brand slashed the price by $10,000 for the 2016 model year, which includes a host of improvements, too.
de Nysschen stated the ELR will stick around for as long as people continue to buy it, even if that is in small droves. Last year, only 1,024 ELRs found homes.
Comments
Disappointing although not unexpected.
Priced way to high with not enough to differentiate it from it’s lesser Volt sibling.
Cadillac should have invested a little more and put 2 electric motors in the back powering the rear wheels and made it a performance AWD model.
They should have done anything but what they did and the way that they did it. If the best minds at Cadillac couldn’t see this disaster in the making, Cadillac is in big trouble.
I know some of the decisions of how to do the ELR were cost driven and they put all their hopes into doing a really good looking car but you are right that this vehicle was DOA.
To bad because it looks really good.
This was dead from the very beginning. The people who thought this was a good idea should be fired right after several sessions of intense flagellation.
Funny, I saw one driving down the street yesterday and I live in Orlando, Florida.
I would say the Gen 2 CTS-V coupe and the ELR will go down in history as two of the best looking cars ever created by Cadillac.
In 20-30 years, we’ll see how my prediction pans out. But I think those 2 will be timeless designs.
Agree that both cars really are stunning. A neighbor has an ELR and it really looks good. Better than the pictures of it.
That’s to bad because it is a cool looking car . There were just to many things going against it . The marketing of it was horrible when it launched , the public seen it as nothing but a Volt with Cadillac clothing , gas prices continuing to fall and the super hot SUV / CUV market . Those are huge head winds to make it feasible to bring out that second gen. .
People will buy up the rest of these and tuck’em away for a decade or so and sell them at Mecum for a huge profit .
Cadillac shot themselves in the foot as the ELR was a repeat of the Cimarron as it was a leather clad 2-door Volt and if you’re going to price your the ELR for $65K, the ELR needed to deliver what is expected of every modern luxury car which is performance as Cadillac didn’t do enough to make it different from the Volt as larger engines to offer similar acceleration to a base ATS or CTS would have help.
Add to the fact that Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen wasn’t a fan of the ELR spelled the car’s doom.
The ELR is gorgeous. Just Bolt it.
They should have made a gas powered version of it to increase the volume of sales. Would have been cool if a Stingray V8 fit under it’s hood. Even a turbo 6 would have been a slick quick ride.
Well to understand this whole deal you have to take into context the time and what all was going on when they did this car.
Cadillac at the time did not have the time or money for this program as they were working on other models we have today including the CT6 hybrid and the new Volt.
This was mainly an idea to take a cool looking show car and leverage it with the Volt platform. For what all they did it cost were small here so there was little financial risk but it was in the long run more a PR problem they suffered.
This car while cool looking is poorly packaged because it was a show car and not really sorted out. This is why so often show cars not intended for production are not built. If you have ever been in the back seat here you would understand.
It is time to let this die and move on as Cadillac is not in the same place it was when this car was done and we have much better things coming with the better funding and right now we have time to let them develop them as what product we have not while not where Cadillac wants to be will suit them fine till they get the product they are working on now hence the delay in new product.
Cadillac should’ve waited until they had the money, then benchmarked the Model S chassis and powertrain. The ELR could’ve been Cadillac’s halo car if it had standard RWD and dual electric motors. If it drove the way it looks, the ELR would be quite desirable.
Cadillac doesn’t need the ELR given that they can use the basic technology from the Volt/ELR to create hybrid versions of every vehicle in the Cadillac lineup from the ATS to the upcoming CT6 Hybrid.