The history of General Motors is fascinating when you consider that the marque has had so many hits and simultaneously so many misses. One of those hits was the criminally underappreciated Chevy Volt, a shining example of a fantastic plug-in hybrid that was overshadowed by flashy EVs. Yet, somehow, General Motors managed to screw up the concept of the Volt when it tried to make a flagship hybrid for Cadillac. In 2014, the Cadillac ELR was a sexy luxury hybrid flagship, but its performance didn’t match the looks – or its $76,000 price, more than double the Volt’s MSRP in 2014. GM accidentally repeated the Cimarron.
Before I continue, I must admit that given a few more dollar signs in my bank account, I’d buy a Cadillac ELR in a heartbeat. I don’t care how the ELR performs when it looks like a Cadillac-badged fighter jet. A used ELR today can be had for under $15,000, an 80% cut from its original price. Still, it’s hard to ignore what GM tried to do but ultimately failed.
The early 2010s were an enthralling time for automotive technology nerds. Countless automakers both small and large were cranking out alluring electric cars and hybrids. Tesla followed up its incredible Roadster with the game-changing Model S, Toyota introduced a line of Prii consisting of the Prius, Prius C, and Prius V, while startups sprouted from the Earth with their own flavors of green technology. The Fisker Karma entered and ended production in the early 2010s, as did the Th!nk City EV. Fiat made its 500e while Smart produced multiple generations of its Electric Drive, which has the unfortunate abbreviation of ED.
The domestic establishment also showed a lot of promise. Chrysler’s brands spent the 2000s teasing such vehicles as the Dodge Circuit EV while putting hybrid powertrains in oddballs like the Chrysler Aspen. Ford trotted out its C-Max Hybrid, Focus Electric, hybrid variations of the Fusion, and more.
Over at General Motors, buyers had a flurry of choices from as small as the Chevy Spark EV to as large as the Silverado 1500 Hybrid. General Motors was once called the brand that killed the electric car, but it showed commitment to electrifying a number of vehicles in its lineup.
Arguably the coolest vehicle in all of GM’s 2010s efforts was the Volt. It still looks like the future and the original model provided 35 miles of all-electric range before a gasoline engine kicked in to keep the party going. Many Volt owners will happily tell you how awesome it is to do the work commute on just battery but have the engine there in case you want to do a road trip. One Volt owner I’ve met told me they drove 1,000 miles before needing to use the gas engine for extra range.
The problem was when it came time to give Cadillac an electrified luxury coupe flagship. The Cadillac ELR looked the business but was a businessman with a book of bad checks. In some ways, the ELR was proof that GM hadn’t learned its lesson from the embarrassment that was the Cimarron.
The Polished Cavalier
Let’s set the stage. It’s the early 1980s and America’s car industry is embroiled in what we now call the Malaise Era today. What were once roaring V8s were dialed down to a whimper. Automakers traded power for efficiency as fuel economy was in vogue and reducing emissions was the mission. At the same time, the land yachts of the prior decades lost girth, becoming closer to dinghies.
Cadillac needed a cheaper, smaller vehicle to help pad its fuel economy numbers and also to attract the youth. Maybe those buyers couldn’t afford a thirsty V8, but what if Cadillac had something a young person could buy now and trade in for a bigger Cadillac at a later date? As Hemmings writes, the seeds of what would become the Cimarron were planted in the late 1970s when Cadillac wanted a sedan to deal damage against European imports. At the time, Cadillac had the smaller Seville, but that was more expensive than larger Caddies and not much better at the pump.
Cadillac’s wish would be made a reality with the General Motors J platform. Development of the platform began in 1976 and by November 1979, Cadillac was slated to get its car from the platform. Unfortunately for Cadillac, coming in late to the program meant engineers didn’t have the time to differentiate the Cadillac from the lesser Chevrolet Cavalier, Buick Skyhawk, Oldsmobile Firenza, and, Pontiac J2000. As a result, when the Cimarron hit the road in 1982, it bore the roof, doors, fenders, quarters, and hood of a Cavalier. Cadillac’s designers had to do their best work with the car’s face, rear, and interior.
What buyers got was more or less a Cavalier with leather seats that called itself a Cadillac. Oof. You still got a base 1.8-liter four making just 88 HP and the top engine was a 2.8-liter V6 that made 130 HP in its best spec. Period reviews didn’t exactly shower the car with praise, but it wasn’t destroyed by the press, either. Going against the Cimarron was its $12,181 price, a hefty rise from a four-door Cavalier, which was $8,137. Despite that, Cadillac managed to sell 132,499 copies.
Even though those sales numbers equated to about 20,000 units sold each year, that was below GM’s expectations. Cadillac also managed to lose market share during the period the Cimarron was on sale. Eventually, GM brass voted 9 to 1 to discontinue the Cimarron to focus on redesigns for the Cadillac Eldorado, de Ville, and Fleetwood models. In the years since the Cimarron failed to breathe fresh life into Cadillac, the car has been used as an example of GM’s unapologetic badge engineering and the cheapening of a brand that was once known as “The Standard Of The World.” In the modern day, the Cimarron routinely makes worst lists.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Cimarron is how period reviews didn’t mention issues such as the fact that overheating during regular operation wasn’t just a possibility, but was expected. Take this paragraph from a review in Automobile magazine from 2012:
“The cooling system may temporarily overheat during severe operating conditions,” warns the manual. Such conditions are defined as “climbing a long hill on a hot day, stopping after high-speed driving, or idling for long periods in traffic.” Stopping after high-speed driving? Am I expected to do cool-down laps every time I pull into a rest-stop Burger King?
That’s right, A V6-equipped Cimarron can overheat in traffic or just fresh off of the highway and according to GM, that’s normal! In many ways, the Cimarron deserves the mockery it continues to get today. So, you’d think GM would try its best not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
One Of GM’s Best Cars
General Motors gets a lot of flak in the motoring world for its missteps, but I think it doesn’t get enough credit when it hits a home run. The Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky are future classics and the Corvette holds its own at doing what it can to try to beat the world. Don’t forget that one of the greatest modern diesel trucks wears a Chevrolet bowtie and this was a company that was happy to give Americans Australian muscle.
One of the underappreciated GM gems out there is the Chevrolet Volt.
As Wired explains, the idea for the Volt came from none other than Bob Lutz, who grew tired of hearing the truckloads of praise being dumped on the Toyota Prius. This was also 2005, when a little startup known as Tesla was making waves with its promises of a hot electric sports car. Reportedly, Lutz believed that Toyota didn’t deserve green cred because it touted the Prius as a car to help save the world as Toyota moved to compete with the Big Three on trucks and SUVs.
Of course, GM already had some scars from the cancelation of the EV1, but Lutz wanted to prove that GM could still build a world-class electric car. At first, GM’s board shot him down. Then, Lutz grabbed GM veterans, including those who worked on the EV1, produced a white paper on the idea for a new GM electric car called the iCar, and presented it to GM’s Automotive Strategy Board in 2006. This time, Lutz got the green light.
What proceeded was an incredible development program. GM didn’t just have to create a new vehicle, but an entirely new powertrain to power that vehicle. And they had to put it together as a concept car that would be ready to roll for the 2007 Detroit auto show. Designers had 9 or 10 months to make it happen. Soon after, GM tapped EV1 veteran Tony Posawatz.
As the book “Why GM Matters” explains, the Volt’s development was pretty wild at first, GM assembled a team of some brilliant minds at the company, then told them ‘Try to find a way to displace petroleum.’ Lutz wanted a pure electric car, but engineers pushed back. Further, even the engineers couldn’t agree on what was really the future. Reportedly, the engineers debated about whether the future was diesel, E85, fuel cell, hydrogen, methanol, some sort of hybrid, or pure EV.
Engineers started by tearing down what they felt was wrong with the EV1. Those came down to the fact that the car had just two seats, used bespoke parts, was powered by lead-acid batteries, and required homeowners to rewire their electrical systems to charge the thing. The engineers also debated about how many miles the new car needed to go on a charge. Eventually, they landed on 40 miles, because most Americans cover less than that distance during their commutes. However, the engineers would do a step better by giving the car a gas engine. The engine would never power the wheels, instead acting as a generator to extend range beyond 300 miles.
It was Posawatz who figured out how to reel in the engineers by coming up with the E-Flex architecture that would later be named Voltec. The idea behind E-Flex was to standardize an architecture and thus future-proof GM’s future alternative fuel vehicle. Should diesel turn out to be the future, that wasn’t going to be a problem because, with the E-Flex architecture, the gas engine could be swapped out for a diesel. Maybe you like fuel cells? Sure, just toss out the engine generator and plop the fuel cell in its place. That way, all of the engineers got something they wanted in case their chosen technology won out in the future.
For example, GM’s concept images for the Volt include what the platform would look like with a fuel cell:
By November of 2006, before GM even had the chance to display a concept car in Detroit, development on what would become the Chevrolet Volt began in earnest. The history of the Volt is ridiculously long. If you’re interested in getting down to the very nuts and bolts, Professor Dariush Rafinejad from San Francisco’s Presidio Graduate School wrote a 29-page study sponsored by GM. There’s so much good stuff in there, from this piece:
Volt software (SW) has 10 million lines of code to operate 100 electronic controllers. In contrast, a Boeing 787 has 6.5 million lines of code23 and an average GM car in 1990 used one million lines of code (Ref. 2.) Developing defect-free software was a challenging undertaking. In SW development, it is the rule of thumb that there will be 0.1 to 1 software defects per 1,000 lines of code (not counting comments) and the cost of fixing bugs rises exponentially in subsequent phases of product development.
Volt’s rapid product development was enabled by deploying a model-based design approach and automatic code
generation. Nearly 100 percent of software was generated automatically which is believed to have improved SW engineers’ efficiency by 30%. In the model based design approach engineers model the system dynamics and control algorithm, including diagnostics, while the hardware is being developed, instead of waiting for completion of the hardware design and prototyping of new components and technologies.
And how the battery is made:
The 16 kWh LiOn battery pack comprises 288 cells that must work flawlessly because failure of one cell can cause
failure of the entire pack. A large design-of-experiments study was carried out to gather data for battery management calibration and to develop a battery life model.The battery cell temperature is actively controlled by a liquid cooling/heating system which is integrated in the battery pack with the thermal management and power control subsystem. The 5.5-feet long, 140 dm3 (~1/2 meter cube) battery pack weighs 198.1 kg and supplies energy to the 111 kW (149 hp) electric drive unit. The T-shaped housing of the battery pack serves as a semi-structural member of the car and is secured properly to eliminate any movement of the batteries during shock, vibration and impact.
The LiOn battery cells, liquid thermal management and battery pack assembly posed the biggest technical risks of the program and presented many R&D and manufacturing challenges including cell chemistry stability (for safety and efficiency) and cost. When the program started, there was extensive battery research at leading universities and companies in Japan, U.S., France, Germany, Korea and China. Taking advantage of these research activities, GM’s battery team conducted an exhaustive analysis of two dozen battery cell chemistries and suppliers and selected the Korean company LG Chem for its advanced technology, responsiveness and manufacturing capabilities. LG Chem battery cell electrolyte used nano-phosphate, a benign and ultra stable compound instead of cobalt that was used in LiOn batteries of computers and portable devices.
Compact Power, Inc. (CPI), a U.S. subsidiary of LG Chem was contracted to build the battery pack and thermal management system. The development of battery cells by Korean engineers and design of the battery pack by CPI and GM engineers were tightly integrated. They worked very hard to overcome the technology and integration issues on the tight project schedule. The initial manufacturing cost of the batteries was estimated to be $10,000 and it was expected to go down to $5,000 (or $312/kWh) at 40,000 cumulative production units.
To say that engineering the Volt was a global effort would be an understatement. The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science says that the research on what would become the Volt’s batteries began in the late 1990s, when California was still expecting automakers to sell EVs in the state.
The Volt’s development also hit some roadblocks. The design of the slick concept car didn’t fit the platform and its required energy efficiency. So, designers went back to the drawing board and created the still awesome shape the Volt ended up being. And while GM insisted the Volt was an electric car with a range extender, the Volt’s engine was able to drive the front wheels in some situations. GM even claimed an incredible 230 mpg, even though the real EPA result was 35 miles on battery, 37 mpg when running the gas engine, and 60 mpg when you math it all up.
Still, even though the Volt’s development was fraught with weird advertising, delays, and the infamous GM bailout, what came out of the other end was an excellent car. At launch, the 2011 Volt got a 16 kWh battery pack, which fed two motors making 149 HP and 273 lb-ft of torque. The range extender was a 1.4-liter four generating 84 HP. The EV-only range was 35 miles, but up to 379 miles once the engine kicked on. GM used to say that the engine would never drive the wheels, but later, it was revealed that the engine can assist the electric motors when the vehicle is above 70 mph and in charge-sustaining mode.
As I said before, while these cars had just 35 miles of EV-only range at launch, and were later upgraded to 38 miles as the battery got slightly larger. I’ve talked to people who have gone so many miles on EV power alone that the only time the engine runs is to make sure the gas in the tank doesn’t get all rotten.
History Repeats Itself
Before the Volt even hit the road in production form, GM was already thinking about what it could do with the Voltec platform. In 2009, Cadillac presented the Converj concept to the auto show circuit. Both crowds and automotive media were wowed, but then things got weird.
In 2009, it was reported that the Converj was going into production. However, GM fired back, stating “The status of the Cadillac Converj concept has not changed – it’s still a concept vehicle undergoing a review that has not yet concluded.” Reportedly, the Converj was then shelved and then revived when those who opposed the Converj left GM. Bob Lutz was a champion of the Converj, thinking a high-tech coupe would boost Cadillac’s image. In 2010, the green light was given to the Converj, then taken away that same year. Finally, in 2011, GM rebooted the Converj, called it the Cadillac ELR, and said it would cost less than the Tesla Model S, which was priced at $57,400 back then.
The first Cadillac ELRs hit the road in 2013 for the 2014 model year. At first glance, Cadillac knocked it out of the park. The ELR looks like the Converj but as a production car. The interior is also a sight to behold with leather, sueded microfiber, chrome, real wood, and carbon fiber trim. It’s befitting of a vehicle that’s positioned as a flagship coupe. Technically, the ELR has four seats, but the rear seats are best for kids or the shortest folks in your entourage.
Things start falling apart when you look into what’s under the hood. The Voltec architecture made it over, with the same 1.4-liter four making 84 HP and working mostly as a generator. The electric motors make a return, but in this case, they’re pumping out 217 HP and 295 lb-ft of torque. The battery is a 16.5 kWh unit, also carried over from the 2014 Volt.
Something I noticed from reviews from 2014 is that none of them praised the ELR for its speed, but for its fuel efficiency and exclusivity. Take what Motor Trend wrote:
OK, no Cadillac ELR owner will care about how easily they’ll be trounced by a 6000-pound luxury SUV in a stoplight-to-stoplight race, but as with other plug-in hybrids and electric cars, the coupe has more juice from a stop than you’d expect. The sudden whoosh of acceleration tapers off before long, and on the track the ELR hit 60 mph in 7.8 seconds — add about a second to that if you’re in full electric mode. The ELR is clearly not in its element through the quarter mile, with a time of 16.2 seconds at 87.1 mph (the 2015 Escalade ESV gets the job done in 14.6 seconds at 95.2 mph). The ability to accelerate at a decent pace without waking up a gas engine is what makes the ELR special.
The 2014 Cadillac ELR test car was no lightweight, with 61 percent of its 4036 pounds over the front axle. Not surprisingly, a 3767-pound 2012 Chevrolet Volt (the car on which the ELR is based) had the same front-to-rear weight distribution, and our long-term Tesla Model S weighs 4731 pounds, with a 46:54 front-to-rear weight distribution. On the road, the ELR is mostly quiet, though you may hear the four-cylinder gas engine (and occasionally feel it through the brake pedal immediately after it turns on). The ride on the ELR’s standard 20-inch wheels is far from cushy, but it’s more than tolerable. The backseat can fit passengers as long as both the front and rear passengers aren’t especially tall.
Car and Driver was less kind when describing the ELR’s performance, stating that the ELR completes a quarter mile in 16.5 seconds at 87 mph, or about what a $16,000 Honda Fit was able to do.
Still, the ELR did improve on the Volt’s handling thanks to GM HiPer Strut technology up front, a Watt’s linkage in the rear, variable dampers, and sharp power steering. It’s noted that while the ELR shares the Volt’s powertrain, floorpan, and firewall, the rest is all Caddy.
Most reviews of the ELR were positive, complimenting the ELR’s luxurious interior, drop-dead gorgeous looks, and frugal powertrain. The 2016 model benefits from a 17.1 kWh battery offering 39 miles of electric-only range and total power uprated to 233 HP and 373 lb-ft of torque, good enough to slice acceleration to 60 mph down 1.5 seconds.
Cadillac expected to sell 2,000 to 4,000 ELRs in 2014. However, a grand total of 2,958 ELRs were built over just two model years, 2014 and 2016.
You might wonder what happened, and it starts with what I noted earlier. The ELR was supposed to cost less than a base Tesla Model S. Instead, it came out with a high price of $75,995, or about twice the cost of the Volt that birthed it. Cadillac attempted to rectify this by dropping the price $10,000 for the 2016 model year, but not even that was enough to bring people into showrooms. Autoblog‘s review illustrated what could have been part of the problem:
Even though we had started on a good note, in the end, the Cadillac ELR left me frustrated and disheartened. While its sleek sheetmetal and luxurious appointments had my heart racing, its lack of innovation where eyes don’t peer is inexcusable in the premium segment.
There are many impressive pure electric and hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles on the market today (the Tesla Model S and Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid, for instance), and just around the corner (the Audi A3 e-tron comes immediately to mind), but the ELR isn’t one of them. GM’s misstep is that the company is peddling the Chevrolet Volt’s five-year-old E-REV technology in its brand-new 2014 Cadillac ELR, and then asking $75,995 for the privilege. The company is clearly hoping the coupe’s exquisite styling will overshadow its uninspired powertrain, but in this case, its beauty is only skin deep.
Perhaps, like the Cimarron of old, the constant comparisons to the Volt didn’t do the Caddy any favors. The fact that the original ELR wasn’t much faster than the lowly Volt didn’t help, either. Remember, the ELR was supposed to be a flagship, so you want to give buyers a flagship experience. At the very least, the ELR does have a unique body, so GM didn’t make exactly the same mistakes as the Cimarron.
Green Car Reports gives its own explanation, concluding (among other things) that the ELR didn’t deliver enough value to back its high price; wasn’t in the same league as the Tesla Model S; and GM had made a sales-hindering mistake by slotting a $76,000 car into the compact two-door coupe market.
Either way, Cadillac quietly killed off the ELR, marking Cadillac’s first PHEV as a really cool car, but still an Unholy Fail. It’s a shame because if this car had the performance to back up its looks or a much lower price, I bet Cadillac could have hit its sales target.
The good news is that time cures the ELR’s biggest problem. Now, it’s not hard to find one of these cars for sale for around $20,000 and under. That’s still much more expensive than a used first-generation Volt, but is much easier on the pocketbook than $75,995. The other good news is that the ELR’s design has aged incredibly well, and only car enthusiasts will know you’re driving a decade-old car. Fail or not, this is a car that would look great in anyone’s fleet, and it’s something I seek to own one day.
I question if GM really intended to succeed with the Voltec powertrain. Leadership must have noticed how buyers were gravitating towards crossovers and they should have immediately commissioned the Voltec be used for a small Equinox sized crossover as was once rumored. There is no reason why the Voltec couldn’t have continued to be improved with modern versions of it powering Equinox’s and Traverses by now.
https://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/chevrolet/chevrolet-concepts/2010-chevrolet-volt-mpv5-concept/
Instead, GM wasted it on an attractive but overpriced PHEV coupe without bothering to add power or capability to give it a Cadillac halo-vehicle worthy performance, only serving to muddy up the brand they’d spend decades and $$$ to finally get right.
It’s even sillier when you realize the Volt was based on the Delta platform, which already had compact CUV applications!
The mistake GM made wasn’t the ELR per say, but putting out the Volt as a Chevrolet instead as a Volt. Volt could have been its own division and been where they introduced all the hybrid and electric technology at a price premium before it trickled down to the the legacy divisions. But we were in mid Carpocalypse, so they had to be seen as doing something for Joe Lunchbox, even if Joe Lunchbox wasn’t going to buy a Volt because it was weird.
The last thing GM needed or needs is another brand.
Could/should it have been a saturn, had they not gotten the axe? Probably. Once it had proven itself there it could have been made into a saab. After that the platform would then be introduced in crossover form as a chevy and gmc, as alternatives to the equinox and terrain (ideally a smidge smaller as those were already the largest in their “compact” class). Then finally have a performance model as a cadillac in the vein of the ELR but with AWD via a standalone electric motor in the rear – necessitating its coupe design, and with a long cargo area under the liftback hatch for two sets of golf clubs. It would also need different-enough gas and electric motors so folks wouldn’t see it as a typical gm rewrapped badge-engineering job (then again that doesn’t seem to stop folks now… Maybe slap a Northstar badge on it, I dunno. Heck, name the car Northstar instead of the moronic alphabet soup baloney and have it be the halo model of the brand.
Hybrid/electric was at the time different – and niche – enough that its own branding would have worked the same way Saturn did before Roger Smith retired and the division was badge-engineered into a fine paste. An evolution of the EV1 with newer tech could have been the flagship or co-flagship with the Volt or the ELR.
Other than the price and probably carrying the same engine as the Volt, the car was perfectly fine. I have a close friend with one, and he loves the thing, he even has a Lucid but refuse to sell the ELR. The first time I was on the passenger seat I was amazed by the design, materials, how everything felt.
If GM continued with the Voltec architecture they will be crushing Toyota on the hybrids side. Instead they gave us BEV2 aka Bolt, one of the examples of GM making a good product at the end and then killing it. Ultium has been a disaster from a launching perspective. No one wants +60K electric cars right now, people that wanted one they already got it.
I saw an old Volt on CL for under 6 grand, a photo of the IP showed it had like 27 miles of EV range capacity left. That would save a lot of gas on my 32-mile (one way), stop-and-go commute.
When the Volt concept was revealed, I was ready to empty my bank account to buy one. I was so disappointed when the production version appeared. I still have trust issues because of that. But the ELR looked so good, GM redeemed themselves a little bit in my eyes.
When I was five I called the Cadillac Cimmaron the Cadillac Cinnamon.
That’s ok, when I was 5 we had to shelter because of a tornado warning and I envisioned a giant tomato in the sky.
> GM even claimed an incredible 230 mpg
How do you go from 60 mpg (real) to 230?
averaged over a week of commuting only on the battery, plugging it in at night, and doing one slightly longer trip on the weekend where the generator gets kicked on?
Which highlights one of the problems with PHEVs. Real world fuel economy/environmental impact is VERY subject to operator behavior – more so than traditional ICE-only, hybrid, or BEV vehicles.
They had hired Joe Isuzu back to head up the marketing dept.
Basically, “for every 230 miles you drive, 37 of them will be on gas at 37mpg and 193 of them will be on electric, burning no gas”. Which.. is kind if a weird metric. Combined MPGe is better, since it doesn’t consider the electricity to be “free”.
I think the problems are two fold.
1: It’s a lot of money for something that just looks like an ATS inside.
2: it looks like someone drew a CTS Coupe backwards.
I do think it’s a nicer interior than the ATS, though is does bear strong similarities
This looks much better than the CTS though, in spite of being smaller.
Heck, just the fact that it doesn’t have the center-exhaust “anus” of the CTS puts it ahead.
You’re not wrong about it not being all that special, though. It definitely feels mass-market inside, not really luxurious.
It’s an unloved Cadillac.
…
I waunt it.
Yeah, I don’t really get the hate. Were they the coolest things in the world? No. But there was one always parked in the EV charging of a parking garage I frequented and I always looked at it. It was pretty cool looking, the interior seemed pretty cool too. Was $75k too much? Probably. But to throw it in with the Cimarron just seems ludacris.
The article even states most of it was Cadillac exclusive, which is the opposite of the Cimarron. The only crime this car committed was being priced comically high.
I really wanted them to do it as on the Gen 2 platform, but it never made it there. I would definitely have enjoyed that.
These are rare/unique and very likely to appreciate in value. While not a dream car of mine, if I had the space I’d buy one in great shape just to store it and sell it at a profit later.
I respectfully disagree.
They may hold their value somewhat, but other than being a landmark along the evolutionary road of modern alternative-fuel vehicles, it doesn’t blip the radar in the slightest beyond being a fancier volt. Compared to, say, an EV1, Electric Ranger, RAV4 EV, Mirai, VW XL1, etc.
It’s looks neat, yes (best-looking production caddy since the middle of the last century), but it’s not luxurious.
It’s not fast.
It doesn’t have any superior capabilities or features that set it apart.
The tech is pretty dated, and I’m not sure how DIY-friendly it is, even with its commonality with the volt.
It has the damning rarity and uniqueness of the XLR with less curb appeal. I had a customer bend a wheel on his and it was almost a grand to replace – and that’s when they were still in production! (Anecdotally he replaced it with a Volvo V60 T8 PHEV which he still has; as a taller guy he misses the big doors of the ELR, and the opposite behavior of gas engine use, but he rarely goes beyond electric range much anyway. His wife got a Polestar 2 shortly before he got rid of the elr).
Vehicle investments rarely pay off unless you’re in the bigger leagues (which seem more like barely-legal money laundering nowadays) and with very specific commodities. Climate-control led storage, insurance, property taxes, etc., it adds up. A seemingly surer bet is apparently a low-mile barely-used Lincoln Town Car that you can get for as closed to used taxicab money and flip, if that article from a bit ago is any sign. I actually had one come intoy work this week and I’m sorely tempted, as it has under 30K miles, but it’d cost probably $13-14K to purchase it, update the tires and other rubber bits that probably need attention, TTL, and then having to go through the effort of listing it and hoping for the right buyer. Or just invest the money instead, ha.
I’m thinking it will be 20-30 years from now that investing in one will pay off. It has a level of rarity comparable to a supercar, and a very unique and striking appearance to it.
Not really my type of car though. For that kind of money, I could almost get an Alfa Romeo 4C or Lotus Elise. Too bad neither come as electric cars(albeit, the Tesla Roadster is based on an Elise and shares some components in common).
Design-wise perhaps, but there’d need to be solutions for allowing it to be a usable automobile rather than a museum piece. Yes, batteries will be more energy dense by then, and with enough money and effort just about any battery or electrical system can be replaced with newer components. Without looking it up if the 1.4L in the voltec vehicles is the same as the 1.4L in the Daewoo cars (spark, sonic, trax, Encore, cruze, etc.) then there’s some possibilities for keeping that engine around for a while just from sheer numbers.
I just don’t see a future collector seeing one of these with the required level of appeal. It’d have to be a perfect storm of the individual, wealth, buying window, and them wanting the car for emotional reasons and/or as a symptom of nostalgia. For instance if it was one of their parents’ last cars before they met an untimely end, and the buyer’s best memories of the deceased parent were going for a drive using just the battery power, and how it felt like something out of science fiction to them or something. Even then that type of collector usually wants the same color and trimmings as the car of their memories. Granted the ELR had a very limited color palette, so the chance of hitting that mix is higher than many other vehicles, but still risky.
I wanted to buy one of those last-left-on-the-lots svelte beauties when they got all the way down to the mid-30’s, but even at that price I still couldn’t afford one. That was alright, as I was still amazed with my then recent purchase of a like-new 4-year-old 2012 Volt with just 40,000 miles on it for $11,500.
It was so painful to watch GM do their thing and just unload both barrels directly into their kneecap. The ELR is spectacular in person and has a really great interior. But, considering how few people even knew what a Volt was at the time, even fewer were going to be interested in a fancier version that cost twice as much.
Not helping things was Tesla. The Model S interior at that time was nowhere near the level of the ELR, but that didn’t matter because it had that big-ass vertical screen parked in the center of the dash and the absolutely wtf-acceleration anyone outside of NHRA drivers got to experience. Also, their customer service was near-unbelievably good (it was a different time).
A lawyer my company was working for back then bought a really early Model S (one of the first in the Midwest) and when he had problems, Tesla flew a tech out to his house. After fixing the issue with the door handle, said lawyer was asked about his general thoughts on the vehicle. He mentioned how he thought the heater-control layout on the screen could be different/better and described how he would prefer it to be setup. Supposedly he received an email from Tesla the next morning – they had updated the interface based on his suggestions, the new layout was already implemented, and they hoped he was happy with their service.
GM offered OnStar. Sadly, at that time and price, the ELR never had a chance.
Never heard about the Converj or ELR, but I find them beautiful. Should I have known & had the money, I would’ve bought them. Well, the Converj definitely.
The stunningly smug advertising didn’t help. That commercial with Neal McDonough basically saying “work hard, buy expensive crap, ‘murica!, vacation is for pussies” was so bad at first I thought it was satire. It came across like he was auditioning for the role of evil CEO in a 80s cop movie.
Then they priced it almost $20k more than a model S. It was a bold strategy Cotton, but we see how it worked out for them.
Ugh, yeah. Those commercials sucked.
I do not want to hustlebro grind my Cadillac. I want to be wafted away in quiet luxury.
I liked those commercials. They were funny. Too many people took them too seriously.
Maybe people were afraid GM was going to CRUSH them
That’s exactly what happened to the EV1s, but those were never sold, only leased.
I have thought about getting one in the past, but their anemic numbers were a bit of a turn-f1, and I worry about the longevity of the batteries.
Whenever I see the first gen Volt and/or its concept, I’m hit with genuine sadness that GM just gave up on that styling language. I thought it was chic, handsome, and cohesive
Honestly I look at these every so often and think about it… a more efficient commuter to have around, use for the winter etc. if they were a little cheaper I’d pull the trigger. They just look so so good
I tend to think that GM had the right idea in building electric cars that could leverage their instant torque sufficiently to get out of their own way, but not so excessively as to cut into battery range, cause aggressive tire wear, or just generally encourage stupid driver behavior. The Volt and the ELR were sensible, civilized, high-tech cars. I certainly wouldn’t kick one out of my garage.
The raw acceleration arms race perpetrated by Tesla and other luxe EV builders is great for making an impression, but we really don’t need yet another hyper-accelerating luxury car. We need practical EVs and plug-in hybrids that don’t cost an arm and a leg, manage their batteries for long life, and just go about their business in traffic safely – which doesn’t rule out crisp handling and plenty of pickup when you need it. It just doesn’t have to be the dominant feature of the car.
oh boy, a fancy pontiac g6!
Closer to a Cruze. The Voltec platform was shared with a Cruze. Those backseats are *tiny*
noted! *the more you know* gif.
This powertrain setup actually still exists today in the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. It might be the most slept-on vehicle currently in production. As far as I can tell Mitsubishi has no interest in advertising it even in the “year of the hybrid”. Enthusiasts seem to skip it because of the association with Nissan’s powertrains even though the PHEV ditches the CVT for a single-speed reduction gear and uses an old NA Mitsubishi engine.
Anyway I think the Voltec powertrain is super cool and more manufacturers should go for the EV -> Series Hybrid -> Parallel Hybrid approach.
The PHEV Outlander was everywhere when I was in Vancouver last fall, had at least two (old and new one) for Lyfts – so almost like they’re being concentrated more on the west coast. I think enthusiasts just still skip Mitsu in general even though the new Outlander is vastly improved. Doesn’t it still use CHAdeMO though? I could see that being part of it, Mitsu doesn’t want to be too pushy about it since it’s “old” until they change that out.
It looks like the Chademo port is only available on top trims. Honestly I doubt it would even get used in a PHEV. Are there any other PHEVs out there with DC fast charge?
I was thinking that too, on a PHEV and its typical use it probably isn’t as much a concern the way would be on a full EV, like the Leaf.
They are available. For instance Mercedes models, most have had it at least as an option in EU. Now more manufacturers are coming with 25 kWh batteries (advertised 100 km range), so it is more relevant. VW has started with the facelifts of Passat, Tiguan, Golf for instance. Volvo as well I beliece. Then again, the battery sizes are about the same as the Leaf had originally.
Interesting! Makes sense as battery packs get larger even in PHEVs. I’ll admit my comments were US-centric. One interesting thing I see in Mitsubishi’s documentation on their PHEV setup is the V2H (that is, larger load) capability of the Chademo port. AFAIK that’s not common among the CCS/NACS vehicles.
I gave it a cursory glance when it came out, but there’s one Mitsubishi dealership anywhere nearby me (35-ish miles IIRC), and they’re at least 4-6 weeks out on most service visits. That’s just to get in, doesn’t include repair times.
It’s not the car, it’s the network.
I want one of these as I think they are genuinely gorgeous. But what I want to do is strip the battery weight and the anemic engine and drop something useful like a built Ecotec in there.
Full disclosure – for the right price I’d drive one as-is.
This neatly encapsulates and exemplifies why the manufacturer is sometimes called Generic Motors.
(That is not a compliment.)
We call them “Generally Mediocre” in my shop.
I kinda like this for $20 grand.
“Cadillac also managed to lose market share during the period the Cimarron was on sale.”
A non-insignificant part of that loss was due to the influx and popularity of Japanese cars, and also the myriad of protests aimed at GM as a whole for doing business in Apartheid South Africa and in Iran.
The irony in all that was that Iran had switched all their heavy industry and government contracts to the Japanese brands. And in South Africa, GM was making measurable strides integrating their plants, building schools, providing low interest loans to their black employees to buy/repair homes, building parks and stadiums for recreation in the poorest areas of Port Elizabeth and Jo-Burg, etc. All this was technically illegal in SA, but they did it anyway. The Government (Botha, DeKlerk et al.) let it slide because they were too chicken shit to change the laws themselves first.
Americans protested anyway at shareholder meetings and ran smear campaigns against GM, and bought Japanese and Euro cars that were also selling in those countries, and doing shit all helping the citizens there. Pretty typical, actually.
I think the ELR is more like the first generation Seville, built on the same basic platform as a Chevy, but modified quite extensively so that the two cars looked nothing like each other and the Caddy was a demonstrable step up in luxe.
Unlike the Seville, the ELR didn’t look premium, thanks to those snub nosed FWD proportions, and, unlike the Seville, the ELR was a total disaster in on the marketplace
I agree with the first, but have to differ on the second. I do think it looks luxe in a way few other cars of the era could have – it basically got concept car looks just on the road.