Review | 2014 Cadillac ELR
Cadillac makes good on the promise of Art & Science.
By Tom Voelk/Driven on Publish Date May 9, 2014. Watch in Times Video »LOS ANGELES — In explaining the new ELR plug-in hybrid, a Cadillac spokesman offered this rationale: “Mercedes-Benz doesn’t have anything like this.”
So true. As a corporate statement in the 21st century, the ELR makes a certain amount of sense. It’s unique, beautiful, efficient, serenely comfortable and electronically avant-garde. At $75,995 (the base price), or $82,135 as tested, it’s also bracingly expensive. A $7,500 federal tax credit, state and local incentives and, for early buyers, a free 240-volt charging system installed in their garages at Cadillac’s expense, will help to soothe the sticker shock, but for the average green-car shopper, the price is still quite a jolt.
The expense seems even higher when one realizes that beneath its lovely, high-cheek-boned skin, sculpted under the watchful eye of Bob Boniface, Cadillac’s exterior design director, the ELR is a sister of the Chevrolet Volt.
This is Apollo’s own Volt, to be sure, with a thick, creamy layer of running-gear refinements, noise-absorbing touches, hand-crafted interior and a long list of luxury, safety and technology gizmos.
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A Shiny New Toy From Cadillac, Battery Included
CreditGeneral Motors
If the Chevy Volt is a four-wheel incarnation of, say, Ed Begley Jr., think of the ELR as an automotive George Clooney.
The ELR’s recalibrated electronic control unit extracts significantly more power from its Volt-spec hardware: a 16.5 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery, a primary electric-drive motor and a 1.4-liter gasoline-powered motor-generator. In E.V. mode, the ELR sends 157 horsepower to the front wheels, compared with 133 in the Volt. In extended-range mode, the gasoline motor-generator adds 24 more, for a total of 181 horsepower, versus the Volt’s 151.
With a full battery charge, the ELR has an E.P.A.-estimated driving range of 37 miles — roughly the average American round-trip commute — in all-electric mode. That charge takes from 12.5 to 18 hours with a standard 120-volt outlet, and about five hours at 240 volts.
When the battery is discharged, the gasoline engine fires up to keep the car humming. Car and Driver drove the ELR from a standstill to 60 miles per hour in 9 seconds in E.V. mode, clocked 8.1 seconds in gasoline-powered extended-range mode and reached a top speed of 107 m.p.h.
I experienced 30 to 35 miles of all-electric range in real-world (well, California) driving, and an average of 38 m.p.g. in gas-powered extended-range mode. Cadillac estimates total range — on batteries and the gas range extender — at 340 miles.
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To accomplish its 30-plus-mile electric-only range — essentially even with the lighter, more slippery Volt — the ELR software charges the battery to a higher state and allows it to discharge more deeply.
On 240 volts, the Volt can be fully charged in four hours. The ELR takes five hours, which means it is extracting as much as 25 percent more charge from the same battery. Could a current Volt produce an ELR level of power, and extract more charge — and thus more range — from its existing battery? As far as I can tell, yes, it could. And because the Volt is more aerodynamic and 274 pounds lighter, that hacked Volt would be considerably quicker than an ELR. Hackers: to your terminals!
With 295 pound-feet of torque on tap, the ELR performs swimmingly in the feeding frenzy of urban commuting. The Volt’s electric motor creates gratifying initial thrust, but loses steam quickly as speed increases. The ELR comes on stronger at first and keeps accelerating longer, with smoother overall power delivery.
The ELR is not fast compared with its gasoline-powered coupe competition. Or compared with the similarly priced all-electric Tesla Model S, which can accelerate to 60 m.p.h. in less than 5 seconds. But the ELR is sufficiently lively for almost all real-world driving, including an occasional uphill pass in the Santa Monica Mountains.
The ELR chassis uses G.M.’s HiPer Strut front suspension to reduce the torque steer that lurks in front-wheel-drive cars, and to align its wider, 20-inch-diameter wheels with the road. All four dampers adapt continuously to driving conditions and selectable driving modes. The ventilated front disc brakes are bigger than the Volt’s, to handle the ELR’s added weight and speed.
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The rear suspension shares the Volt’s twist-beam design, with a Watts link added to enhance lateral stability. This is an improvement, but even with its understeer-prone front-drive layout, the ELR can wag its tail in hard cornering if the front tires suddenly gain traction while turned.
With the standard electronic stability control engaged, this is not a problem. With the stability control switched off, it can be disconcerting. Is a typical luxury eco-coupe driver likely to throw her ELR down Latigo Canyon at the limits of adhesion? Probably not. The ELR is more capable of going quickly over a twisty road than most of its drivers ever will be, or most of its passengers will ever allow.
The ZF Servoelectric power steering is programmed to raise steering effort when the driver selects Sport mode, and to increase effort and on-center feel with increasing speed and cornering force. It works so well one wonders why the Volt’s steering, which uses the same system, is so lifeless. Hackers, while you’re at it ...
My test car’s interior was a rich combination of leather, olive wood, carbon fiber and Alcantara. To exploit the silence of the electric powertrain, the ELR has hydraulic suspension bushings, thick window glass and ample sound-damping insulation. Bose’s active-noise-canceling technology helps to keep the cabin calm when the gasoline engine fires up, but the increase in ambient noise is still pronounced. At freeway speeds, the generator sound is largely masked by the muted road and wind noise that slips through the ELR’s soundproofing armor, but at slower speeds and at stoplights the thrum of the genset under the hood is more intrusive.
Front-seat room is ample, but the cramped rear seats, with their limited headroom and leg space, are best reserved for the young and the restless. The front-seat shoulder belts are a significant obstacle to rear-seat access.
Standard safety equipment includes frontal-collision and lane-departure warning systems. The Safety Alert Seat vibrates through the left, right or forward seat bolsters if you drift from your lane or come up quickly behind another car. It feels vaguely as if you’re running over Botts’ dots — or as though you’ve found that long-lost cellphone.
The Cadillac ELR is an intriguing engineering effort and a striking piece of modern automotive art. Whether it inspires buyers remains to be seen. Is there a significant group of well-heeled drivers who crave the efficiency and subtle environmental cachet of a long-range plug-in hybrid, and who are willing to pay far more than they would ever save in energy costs?
Cadillac has run a TV spot that likens its CTS to the Apollo moon mission. A 2014 Cadillac CTS Coupe, with 23 m.p.g. average fuel economy and a base price around $40,000, could be driven more than 240,000 miles on $4-a-gallon gas before its total cost hit the $82,135 price of my ELR test car. In other words, the distance from the earth to the moon.