I'm sure Johan de Nysschen is licking his chops. Cadillac has an eye toward knocking one of the German brands down a peg, and it would seem that Audi was a natural target even before this (given their relative newcomer status as a huge luxury brand). As my annual household income depends a bit on GM's financial performance, I say burn them at the stake!
Living in Wisconsin, I don't have the first hand hate for people who drive German cars. Sure, you'll see Audi, VW and BMW around here, but they're the minority. It's the people driving the great big trucks from American manufacturers that get right up on your tail and buzz past bicyclists much too close. I have no love for GM. But I do like the look of a nice Cadillac.
I think many people find them too stark and aggressive. Personally, I think the V series are some of the hottest cars right now. Audi is the other extreme: plain and boring. It's funny that I live with one of Cadillac's exterior lead designers and I really don't have a clue as to what their next gen stuff will look like. It's like living with a military official who works on the joint terrorism task force or something. I hope that in their quest for higher sales that they don't lose their edge. Not all luxury cars can be boring. Lexus has raised their game in recent years, but I think that they have a little too much Tokyo Drift vibe for me with those super sharp lights. I at least respect them for trying.
I've always liked edges and acute angles. My first love was the Triumph TR-7, and the Lamborghini LP400 and Lancia Stratos remain absolute favorites. It broke my heart when I discovered I was too tall to drive a Lotus Esprit. Tell your wife that I'm almost to buying a CTS coupe, but I would never buy an ELR.
Yeah you and literally almost every other person in America. They sold like 900 of them through the first 6 months of 2014, which is the last time I looked. That was after dropping the price by $9,000 or something. Talk about waaaaaaay over priced. Most dealers refused to even keep them in the showroom....I would never buy an ELR.
Not anywhere near the same segment as the Tesla Roadster, so it's not really an apt comparison. The reason it didn't sell is because they were trying to make a luxury car based on fuel economy. That's a hard marketing job (because people who buy luxury cars don't give a fuck about fuel economy), and a niche that apparently doesn't need to be filled.
The Model S is a performance level toy. GM made the same mistake that you're making by comparing the two. Namely, thinking that rich people wanted an eco model. So, they made a really high end hybrid, because they know how to make hybrids. But if rich people wanted that then Lexus would have beat them to it like ten years ago. Lexus didn't do that, because they apparently are smart enough to understand that Tesla's success is in trading on the faux-eco brand with Mac-like coolness, while still offering a fuckload of horsepower and torque. They're not similar.