Posted on 03/10/2014 9:09:24 AM PDT by jazusamo
General Motors continues to double down on plug-in electric vehicles, now offering the Cadillac ELR, which is a gussied up version of the Chevy Volt at twice the price. The latest Cadillac ELR ad has stirred up a lot of debate regarding its pro-American capitalism message as General Motors spent roughly $100,000 for each of the commercials that it ran during the Sochi Olympics.
Although the commercial garnered much attention, the heavy ad spending resulted in just 58 of the tax-subsidized (each affluent buyer gets a $7,500 federal tax credit) Cadillac ELRs being sold in February, three months into the car's launch. The debate about the ELR ad seems to be omitting the most obvious question which is, why is GM wasting shareholder's money advertising a car that has no chance of having widespread market appeal?
I'm sure GM apologists will have some explanation for the wasted marketing dollars that resulted in embarrassingly low sales. The same old sources that hyped the failed Chevy Volt (sales down over 25% in February to only 1,210 sold) can be seen speculating about the Cadillac version of the Volt competing with Tesla. The same deceptive excuses for the low initial sales figures for the Volt will likely be used for the Cadillac ELR. "Supply can't keep up with demand." "It is too early in the launch." Maybe we'll even hear of a right-wing conspiracy to hurt sales, like we did with the Volt.
There is also the philosophy that the Cadillac ELR will excite people so much that they will rush to showrooms in droves only to be sold a different Cadillac model. Sorry, but that doesn't seem to be working either. Cadillac overall sales were down 3% in February, more than the total drop of 1% for GM.
It is hard for GM to justify spending so much money advertising a vehicle that sells in such limited numbers but, like our government, GM has been supplied with an abundance of taxpayer money to do with as they please. It appears that GM's Washington masters who supplied the money want the company to continue the money-losing quest to force "green" vehicles on the public. The problem is that consumers do not want the cars.
The politically-inspired management at GM just doesn't seem to get the basic premise that building better cars at the best value will lead to more sales. Spending millions of dollars on ads in an attempt to fool consumers won't work. Consider that you do not see Tesla spending heavily on TV ads, but the car sells on its own merits (along with lots of tax subsidies). Unfortunately GM vehicles, particularly the Cadillac ELR and Chevy Volt, do not have enough merits to negate the need for heavy ad spending which still can not persuade consumers to purchase the cars.
It was obvious to many of us that a Cadillac version of the Chevy Volt, at twice the price, was not going to be a roaring success and really give Tesla a run for the money . I do not know why any auto industry pundit would say differently unless GM's ad spending is buying the favorable coverage. The attempt to put very costly lipstick on the Cadillac ELR pig will not convince motorists to buy the vehicles, nor will thousands of dollars in subsidies. The only thing that GM is doing by spending millions of marketing dollars in an attempt to deceive the public into believing that the Cadillac ELR is a viable competitor to Tesla is to further lower management's credibility.
Mark Modica is an NLPC Associate Fellow.
Volt ?
Dolt !
This ELR should turn out to be the real Dolt, a fancy Volt for twice the price.
GM is owned by Obama. GM tries to conform to “green BS” standards so it comes with a lap dog car called the ELR. The ad for it gets criticized because it makes America look elitist and snobbish. The ad, none the less, creates a lot of buzz. They sell only 58. What can GM do to keep the king happy?
Whatever he says.
When the second bankruptcy comes I pray taxpayer dollars won’t bail the UAW out again.
Talk about believing one's own propaganda. A visit to any auto show will quickly show this "philosophy" to be false. GM places its hybrid cars in the high-traffic areas of the convention halls, but the crowds walk right past with barely a glance.
Fantastic commercials, not ready for prime time technology.
I read somewhere that replacement batteries for electric cars cost $43,000. This makes no economic sense. $43,000 can buy a lot of gas for a real car.
There’s been a couple of articles recently that GM dealers have quoted ridiculous numbers but in fact they either don’t know or won’t say.
For quite a while Volt replacement batteries were estimated at $8k to &10K and I’ve read that Tesla’s were estimated somewhere around $40K.
Then there’s the crowd that insist the price will come down dramatically with increased technology and higher production but I’m not too sure of either.
Or it can buy a real car (or two)!
Make your car with a conventional engine, but make it switchable between gasoline and CNG. For short runs around town, CNG is cheap and clean-burning; use it for that. For distance travel, gasoline has the energy density you can’t do without - use it for that.And just pretend that the CNG gets converted to electricity first. Or else actually use a generator to convert the power to electricity and dedicate an electric motor to each wheel. Instant electric car!!
I like the CNG idea. Some delivery companies have converted to CNG with their local delivery vans and smaller trucks. I talked to a driver awhile back about their switchover and he said it’s worked out well for them.
GM actually had it figured out, and then the Democrats screwed it all up. They built and sold cars for different aged people. Young people wanted small, fast sporty cars. Middle Age wanted bigger cars to haul kids and go on vacations. Retirees wanted big luxury cars. The mileage standards required by the government has really reduced the big luxury cars. So, GM tried to switch from large luxury cars to smaller sports sedans that were “like BMWs”. BMW owns that market. Let GM make big luxury cars again, without the UAW, and they’ll do fine.
Therein lies the hang-up, the UAW owns a sizable chunk of GM stock and doubtful they'll be ousted.
Survival sometimes demands sacrifice. There’s no law that says the UAW must exist. It used to be that a kid in the Midwest didn’t have to have a college degree to make a decent living. The UAW has killed that. The old guys in the UAW got what they wanted, but their Grandkid’s friends can’t make a decent living.
GM hasn’t made a real Caddy in decades. I owned three back in the day when they were the size of boats.
GM is a has-been washed up American relic of better days gone by. Detroit and Flint are monuments to GM’s epic decline.
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