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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:

Jeep Twitter account hacked, bad language, poor grammar and some hilarity ensue

Just a day after Burger King's Twitter account was compromised by "unauthorized users," Jeep's social media feed has been similarly hacked. Both instances of digital incursion share some similarities - the BK hackers changed the company's logo for McDonald's familiar golden arches, saying a sale had occurred, while the Jeep miscreants have replaced Jeep's branding with that of General Motors property Cadillac.
The resulting tweets from the damaged Jeep account have been a pretty brutal, to put it bluntly. Most of the content coming from the hacked account is unpublishable here, using language that is peppered with racial epithets, and poorly worded "shout outs."
In addition to the defamatory tweets themselves, the hackers have significantly altered the layout of the page. Jeep's header image now features a picture of the Cadillac ATS to go along with the Wreath and Crest, some language calling out that car as winning the 2013 North American Car of the Year award, and this gem: "The official Twitter handle for the Jeep(R) - Just Empty Every Pocket, Sold To Cadillac =[" Also, perhaps in an ode to yesterday's Burger King heist, the background image for the page now features a McDonald's-themed donk. The devil's in the details, we guess.

Cadillac XT6 SUV will be revealed in Detroit in January

Cadillac will hold an event on Jan. 13 on the eve of the Detroit Auto Show to reveal its long-awaited new XT6 three-row crossover, Automotive News reports. The XT6 is seen as a critical product for Cadillac, which has been caught flatfooted with a lineup heavy on sedans amid the boom in crossovers and SUVs. It'll slot between the midsize XT5 crossover, and the full-size Escalade luxury SUV. Cadillac recently started selling the smaller XT4 crossover as well. The XT6 is expected to arrive in showrooms around mid-2019. We've seen several spy shots of the XT6 cloaked in heavy camouflage, including some views of the uncovered dashboard and console layout earlier this week that showed a wide, sweeping dash and elements seemingly borrowed from the CT6 sedan. Cadillac is also reportedly working on a "master brand" campaign strategy expected to be unveiled early next year, with plans to make Cadillac GM's technology leader for self-driving and electric-vehicle systems, with plans to bring Super Cruise to its entire lineup. The GM luxury brand plans to launch a new or redesigned vehicle every six months for the next three years. Related Video: