Why the Cadillac of Electric Cars Is Being Killed

Screen shot via Cadillac/YouTubeThat famous Cadillac ELR commercial.Cadillac is ditching its premium luxury hybrid – the ELR.

Powered by the same internals as the Chevrolet Volt, which has a sticker price starting around $33,000, the Cadillac ELR had a starting retail price of $65,000.

At the same time, only a little over half of all Cadillac dealers were willing to sell the thing- and GM’s ad campaign to promote the vehicle seemed to go out of its way to piss people off.

That’s why Cadillac CEO Johan de Nysschen told Automotive News the ELR isn’t long for this world. At that event, the forthright president said, “I plan to continue admiring it as one of the most lovely cars on four wheels” but “we don’t plan further investment” when speaking of the ELR.

This story is making the rounds but the quote is not substantially different from one given by de Nysschen previous year. The Detroit News reported in January that plug-in versions of Cadillac’s CT6 flagship sedan will be produced in China.

Cadillac only sold 1,024 ELRs in 2015 and that was after a $10,000 price reduction from the previous model year.

The slow-selling plug-in hybrid ELR will not live past its current generation, the automaker has confirmed. “It is now available as a 2016 model, and there is no change to that status”. In response, Cadillac upped power and dropped pricing but it didn’t help.