General Motors will begin U.S. sales in January of the Cadillac ELR luxury coupe, the automaker’s third application of its extended-range electric propulsion system, with a base price of $75,995.
The starting price includes a $995 destination charge and the car will be eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit established to help spur sales of electric vehicles. Unlike other EVs to come to market in select cities, the rollout of the ELR will be in metropolitan areas throughout the country.
“It will be offered nationwide within a luxury customer experience, with proven benefits and care extending from the shopping process all the way through the ownership experience,” Bob Ferguson, senior vice president-global Cadillac, says in a statement today.
For example, dealers specially trained and certified to sell and service the ELR also will back up the buying experience with the ELR Concierge Representative program, GM says. The concierge representative is another point of contact, over the telephone, for owners on information about battery care, home charging, service scheduling, news and updates.
The ELR also will feature the Cadillac Shield, a suite of vehicle maintenance and roadside assistance benefits. Ownership also includes a battery and propulsion system warranty of eight years or 100,000 miles (160,950 km), whichever comes first, and a 4-year or 50,000-mile (80,465 km) bumper-to-bumper limited warranty.
GM will offer a lease program for the car, although those details will come closer to the on-sale date after third-party experts establish the car’s residual value.
Like the Chevy Volt and Opel Ampera preceding it, the ELR travels about 35 miles (56 km) on battery power, depending on driving styles and environmental factors. Once the battery is depleted, an internal-combustion engine acts as a generator to provide a total of about 300 miles (483 km) of range. After that, the driver needs to plug in for more juice or refill the gas tank.
But the ELR represents GM’s first luxury application of the technology. It receives edgy exterior styling, an interior bathed in authentic wood, leather and metallic trim and tweaks to the propulsion system to make it sportier to drive.
It squarely targets the Tesla Model S, a sporty EV that sells for between $70,000 and $82,400 depending on the size of the battery. The ELR also will require a new marketing approach for Cadillac that much like the Model S targets individuals rather than broad consumer groups.
“With the ELR, we should take a bit of a different approach,” Ferguson recently told WardsAuto. “We’ve been a mass-market company and the ELR will take some more prescriptive marketing, reaching individual consumers.”
GM hopes the ELR attracts a new wave of buyers on top of the Volt, which has struggled recently despite a price cut on ’14 models. So far this year, GM has delivered 6,905 Volts, down 19.1% compared with year-ago.
GM will build the ELR alongside the Volt and Ampera at its Detroit/Hamtramck assembly plant, and export of the car will begin after the ’14 model year.
