1999 Cadillac Deville Base Sedan 4-door 4.6l on 2040-cars

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2014 Cadillac CTS Vsport [w/video]

Bridging The Gap With Power And Poise
As you read these words, West Coast Editor Michael Harley is preparing to drive the brand-new 2014 Cadillac CTS along the gorgeous, sun-drenched roads of Southern California. And while I'll wait for Harley's full report before I put words in his mouth, I'm willing to bet he enjoys the hell out of Cadillac's new CTS. In fact, I'm sure of it.
I say this with confidence because, about a month ago, I spent the better part of a day flogging the new CTS Vsport around the 2.9-mile Milford Road Course - a challenging circuit laid out in the infield of an oval test track at GM's proving grounds in southeast Michigan. The MRC was built about a decade ago after Bob Lutz was lured out of retirement to work closely with GM's product development team, and thus, this circuit is known informally as the "Lutz Ring." The main objective of the MRC was to have an in-house facility for engineers to fine-tune vehicle dynamics, without having to constantly schlep cars over to Germany's infamous Nürburgring. (Of course, they still do.)

GM admits Cadillac ELR no real competition for Tesla Model S

Last year, then-CEO of General Motors, Dan Akerson, made it clear that the company lookouts at the Ren Cen had California automaker Tesla in their sights. "If you want to compete head-to-head with Tesla, and we ultimately will, you want to do it with a Cadillac," he said. So, given the fact that the Cadillac ELR has a plug and sells for roughly the same price at the Tesla Model S ($75,000 vs $69,900, before incentives) and that Cadillac doesn't have any other electric vehicle on the horizon, you'd be forgiven if you thought that the way that Akerson wanted to challenge Tesla's EV success was with the ELR. Well, you'd apparently be wrong. "The ELR is a different car, it's a different price point. It's way-different technology." - GM's Mark Reuss Speaking yesterday in Detroit, GM's head of global product development, Mark Reuss, admitted that the ELR is not the Tesla competitor that Akerson promised. "People like to say the ELR is [competition for the Model S], but it's really not. It's a different car, it's a different price point. It's way-different technology." So, if we follow that logic to conclusion with Akerson's quote from last year, then the only way that Cadillac can eventually compete with Tesla is with a pure electric car, and that seems an outside chance, at best, for the foreseeable future. Through the end of July, Cadillac has sold 578 ELRs since it went on sale earlier this year. Tesla doesn't break out monthly US sales, but has sold 15,114 Model S EVs around the world in the first six months of 2014. For his part, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has already said that GM is headed down the wrong path with plug-in hybrids like the ELR or the Chevy Volt. Speaking about the Volt last year, Musk said, Chevy "sort of created something that's a bit of amphibian," which resulted in a car that's, "Okay but not great."

Cadillac dealers get $5,000 incentive for ELR test drives

The 530 Cadillac dealers - out of 940 total dealers - that signed on to sell the brand's ELR for $75,000 or lease it for $699 per month have managed to move 247 of them in the last five months. That's a little less than two cars for each dealer more than two dealers for each car if you need help with the math. With inventories of the luxury plug-in hybrid building up - Automotive News reports a 725-day supply - General Motors has created the Demonstrator Allowance Program to billow the sails on that slow moving ship, giving dealers $5,000 to promote ELR test drives.
A dealer with one ELR in its test fleet that racks up 750 test driven miles between May 1 and June 2 earns the fifty Benjamins, a dealer with two ELRs in the test fleet will get one hundred Benjamins. That will be added to summer incentives for dealers that pay $2,000 for units sold in July and $1,000 for units sold in August, while on the customer side, Cadillac has put "customer discount certificates" worth $3,000 on the hood for buyers and lessees.
Cadillac suggests this is about raising awareness of the ELR, but the question is how much dealers will be able to do for a car that observers - and buyers, apparently - still consider highly overpriced.