Cadillac News: GM Offering Dealers $5,000 To Promote ELR Test Drives To Consumers

[William Maley]

Anyone want to take a gander at how many Cadillac ELRs are sitting on dealers? 100? 200? 500? Try 1,688 ELRs. According to Autodata, Cadillac dealers at the end of April had 1,688 ELRs or a 719 day supply.To help reduce the stock, Cadillac is offering their dealers a bit of an incentive.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Cadillac is offering dealers up to $5,000 for those who offer test drives of the ELR this and next month to consumers. To qualify, a ELR demo vehicle must have a minimum of 750 miles and be logged by a dealer. There's an added incentive of $2,000 for every ELR sold in July, and $1,000 in August.

"For many drivers, electrification is still foreign to them. The program gives dealers the freedom to give customers that experience. This [a plug-in hybrid] is also a different idea around our brand and we need to take our time with this. We are still in the early days," said Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell.

Consumers get a little of this incentive action on ELR as well. GM is offering $3,000 off the ELR's pricetag to spark demand.

Source: Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required)

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

View full article

[ocnblu]

*snicker*

Bribing dealers, what is next? SO STUPID.

[David]

Ocn, while I am not a supporter of Electric auto's I do believe the Volt system is far superior than many other systems out there and is given a shaft by many who have never actually sat in one, test drove it or even really checked it out. The Cadillac ELR might be over priced, but it is very clearly a different beast than the Volt having actually had time in one at the local Cadillac invite. While I myself have not had a chance to actually test drive one, I can say that there are many things on the ELR that make it very different than the VOLT.

In some ways, GM should have done the ELR first and then brought out the VOLT rather than the reverse order.

I challange you Ocn to go and actually check one out, and if possible test drive it and then report back your impressions.

[smk4565]

$5,000 isn't enough. I don't think I have ever heard of a 719 day supply, if they stop making them now it will still take 2 years to sell them off. And how big of a discount will they have to give in the spring of 2016 to sell a "new" 2014 ELR that has been on a lot for 2 years. Unless they put $20,000 off stickers on these ELRs they aren't going to sell. This car makes the XLR look like a sales success, and I think we all saw it coming except for GM.

[David]

$5,000 isn't enough. I don't think I have ever heard of a 719 day supply, if they stop making them now it will still take 2 years to sell them off. And how big of a discount will they have to give in the spring of 2016 to sell a "new" 2014 ELR that has been on a lot for 2 years. Unless they put $20,000 off stickers on these ELRs they aren't going to sell. This car makes the XLR look like a sales success, and I think we all saw it coming except for GM.

They could have charged this if they had done a mid size Luxury AWD CUV with the VOLT system. That would have been far better than a car.

[smk4565]

$75k for an electric SRX, that wouldn't sell either.