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Cadillac Unveils Pricier Alternative To Tesla Model S
An anonymous reader writes "Cadillac has officially unveiled its Tesla S alternative, but at $5,000 more than the Tesla, it may not be the cheaper option you've been looking for. 'Cadillac is touting the ELR's 8-inch touchscreen powered by its CUE infotainment system — which two years in is still a buggy mess — along with a range of safety and convenience features, including lane departure warning, forward collision alert, and a 24-hour concierge service to answer questions. There's also a "regen on demand" feature that allows the driver to boost the brake regeneration, slowing the vehicle and recouping energy by pulling on the flappy paddles behind the steering wheel. GM's bean counters are quick to point out that depending on what federal and state tax incentives buyers are eligible for, the net pricing could be as low as $68,495, but that's still a tough sell considering you're basically getting a Volt with more presence and less practicality.'"
Since TFS doesn't give any detail worth noting, this thing has two doors (not four like the S), a laughable 35mi electric range before the gasoline engine kicks in for 300mi total (which is still fairly bad, especially when the S has 208-265mi range pure electric depending on the model), a smaller (8" vs 17" for the S) touchscreen with a poorer OS/UI, all that for $75k. Oh yeah, and it looks like a blockier Volt. In fact, it's pretty much a Volt with a few extra features at twice the price.
If this is the best GM can do, they better get back to the drawing board quick.
I'm Elon Musk and I approve this negative review of my competitor's product.
It looks like news outlets all over the place are comparing this to the Model S, but then like 2 sentences later point out how it is mechanically basically a Volt. How does that make it an alternative to the Model S at all? Doesn't that just make it an alternative to the Volt? Was the Volt an alternative to the Model S?
1) Subjective. I fail to see much difference, except I'd bet the dashboard seams in the Model S don't squeak after 5k miles like every GM product's dashboard, ever.
2) Subjective. The Model S is a beauty, and the Volt is not. This car is a boxier Volt, which makes it even uglier, IMO. Then again, I've never known GM to build anything that looks better than the average pile of animal feces.
3) Its battery life is pathetic, so it makes up for it with a mediocre ICE to charge with. Wake me when it has a range near 1000 miles, which is what a setup like this should be sporting.
4) A GM? Not likely. I have yet to see one last much beyond the warranty, and I've seen several that didn't last even that long. GM should be replacing Country Time any day now.
5) Where is GM from 10 years ago? Gone? Buyouts and bailouts are two different things, and GM was bought out. Meanwhile, Tesla paid back their loan nearly a decade early. And that loan wasn't part of a bailout or a buyout, it was an R&D loan for their electric vehicle technology.
6) Window dressing. Any idiot can bolt on more irrelevant crap, and GM hires the best idiots they can find to do exactly that.
No, the word remains "negotiation". The fact that GM was managed by incompetent, but sadly typical, executives who refused to take any notice of those "dirty hippies" and "tree huggers" who said things like "Uh, gasoline isn't always going to be cheap" and "Wait, isn't the middle east unstable these days? Shouldn't we develop some better, more fuel efficient, vehicles just in case the shit hits the fan", doesn't change the fact that the union and the crappy management did negotiate a deal that would have been perfectly fine had they, you know, produced decent vehicles.
BTW, isn't criticizing someone else's negotiation compensation "the politics of envy" and "class warfare", or does that only apply when it's criticism of executives who get obscene bonuses for running their companies into the ground?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.