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Cadillac president de Nysschen says electrification coming 'across the spectrum'

We like to pick on new Cadillac president Johan de Nysschen for his insistence, many years ago, when he was president of Audi of America, that plug-in vehicles are for idiots. Listening to him give the keynote address at the Washington Auto Show today, you wouldn't know he ever said anything negative about an electric vehicle. Instead, he sounds something like a EV-angelist. De Nysschen said that Cadillac will be able to benefit from GM's considerable expertise in plug-in technology, which he said would be "applied across the spectrum of our portfolio." GM's electric committment will help in "making electrification commonplace." With the plug-in ELR already on the road, de Nysschen said that the company's next step in advancing powertrains will be the introduction of stop/start technology – which de Nysschen called an "important system to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions" – into a Cadillac for the first time later this year. Without giving any specific details, de Nysschen said that Cadillac will introduce eight new models (not necessarily plug-ins) by the end of this decade, including five that "will take Cadillac into market segments where the brand is not even present today." These new vehicles will likely be much lighter than today's vehicles, de Nysschen said, because "weight reduction today is critical to automotive design, it helps to improve fuel efficiency and contributes to desireable vehicle dynamics." The key is to reduce weight without compromising safety or comfort and to use the right material – steel, aluminum, carbon fiber – in the right place at the right time. It was a not-so-subtle jab at Ford and its new aluminum F-150. "In the pursuit of weight reduction, some manufacturers have also opted for abandoning steel and have gone for an all-aluminum approach," he said. "At Cadillac, we believe that different materials each present particular advantages in specific applications. There is no single material that represents the optimum balance of the conflicting objectives of every single application." Related video:

Cadillac toned down ATS Coupe design due to customer feedback [w/poll]

Automakers always face a difficult decision when it comes to styling their cars. Design them too blandly and nobody will get excited about them. But style them too aggressively and they'll often end up turning off potential buyers.
Cadillac, for its part, is no stranger to aggressive design, but when it came to the new ATS Coupe, it elected to tone things down a bit. Speaking with The Detroit News in a wide-ranging interview, Cadillac design director Bob Boniface revealed that the original design for its compact coupe was edgier - closer to that of the CTS Coupe - with a wedgier profile, a more steeply raked beltline and a more severe grille. But potential customers surveyed in clinics apparently didn't like it. They found it looked heavy, inefficient and not fun to drive. So Boniface and his team literally went back to the drawing board and "took as much visual mass out of the car as [they] could." The resulting coupe, while handsome, looks far more similar to its four-door companion than did Cadillac's CTS.
What do you think, does the new ATS Coupe look just right, or is it too conservative? Voice your opinion in our quick online poll.

Cadillac exec realizes ELR pricing was stupid high

At least one Cadillac exec has finally started to come to terms with something we knew all along: the initial $75,000 price for the ELR plug-in hybrid was way too high. The bad decision in part led to the model selling just over 1,000 units last year. Company marketing boss Uwe Ellinghaus recently gave an interview to Bloomberg where he discussed what went wrong. "The MSRP was, indeed, a mouthful," Ellinghaus said to Bloomberg. "We overestimated that customers would realize our competitors were naked at that price." People balked at the ELR's price from the very start, and dealers were receiving $5,000 at one point just for getting customers to test drive the PHEV. Later, some incentives for buyers were as high as $14,000. Cadillac planners saw a conundrum when it came to the ELR's price. Too low of a figure was thought to bring the model close to the Chevrolet Volt, and $75,000 was also believed to signal Caddy's PHEV as something special. "We just wanted to make this a statement for the brand of how progressive we are," Ellinghaus said to Bloomberg. Cadillac is now working to rehabilitate the ELR's reputation with a host of updates for 2016. Buyers get a 25-percent boost in powertrain output, additional standard features, and the whole package comes with a $9,000 drop in price. The tweaks should help the luxurious PHEV make a better second impression. Related Video: