I think calling Elixir "just syntactic sugar" is a gross and unfair oversimplification. While friendly syntax is one of its welcoming qualities, Elixir is its own language. It doesn't "transpile" into Erlang. It compiles down to bytecode.
Elixir creates an AST which is transformed into Erlang Abstract Format (http://erlang.org/doc/apps/erts/absform.html) which is then compiled into Erlang bytecode by Erlang compiler.
Erlang VM's bytecode is largely undocumented (except for third-party attempts like http://erlangonxen.org/more/beam and http://beam-wisdoms.clau.se/en/latest/). So all languages on the Erlang VM either create and compile Erlang Abstract Format or transpile to Core Erlang (https://8thlight.com/blog/kofi-gumbs/2017/05/02/core-erlang....)
Eventually I try to do something with Elixir. Then suddenly everything is so good.
The whole experience how I create a new project with `mix`, get dependencies, build, compile, run `repl` was so much better than rebar.
To me, `mix` is the greatest tool. I don't see something like mix in other languages, except Clojure and Leiningen.
The community around Elixir is awesome too. It's very different from Erlang type. I have a hard time to find library and stuff in Erlang before. I don't have a central place to look for that. Elixir brough me hex.pm.
I personally like Erlang syntax, I think it's short and concise. But I end up like Elixir much more than Erlang.