The 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ first drive: 460 miles on a single charge

The Escalade embodies the American luxury car ideal, and now it's gone electric.

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[yurdle]

This ... proves that GM is a great EV maker...

Does it?

 

[jandrese]

I will give GM credit for looking at the luxury car segment and going "why don't we just put a giant ass battery in the vehicles?" The Silverado EV took the same approach and really opened up the towing capability of that vehicle.

 

[Drop table users;]

For those wondering why the author left the pricing out: this thing starts at $130k for the most basic model, and goes up from there. Way up.

Ars, can you start writing about cars that people can actually buy?

That doesn’t tell you why he left it out. That’s libelous, the author could just as easily be lazy or stupid. To simply assume that they are duplicitous is paranoid and frankly stupid.

Do you think anyone saw the Cadillac badge and “thought this will be a bargain”

Absolutely no one clicked the link expecting a reasonable cost who has been attention to vehicle prices in the last 5 years.

 

[evanTO]

This is why the Big Three [well two, Stellantis is literally Dutch-Italian lol] have largely abandoned the European market. There's no money in small cars. Chinese and Latin American tastes actually align well with ours though; Europe is very much the exception because it's much more constrained by premodern infrastructure.

There's money in small cars or else other manufacturers wouldn't step in. It's that there isn't enough margin in small cars for greedy American firms.

 

[Drop table users;]

Give the lack of cost / pricing in the article, this is clearly in "if you have to ask" territory.

Can we have some coverage of cars that the median person can buy?

This is such a strange ask.
The reason why the car is being reviewed is because it’s a technology site.

They review cheap electric cars as well.

There are sites dedicated to cheap vehicles.

It’s why I have a consumer reports subscription.

 

[Wanzerr]

A 9,000 pound consumer vehicle is disgusting, be it EV or ICE.

What a ludicrously inefficient usage of resources.

 

[Drop table users;]

I will give GM credit for looking at the luxury car segment and going "why don't we just put a giant ass battery in the vehicles?" The Silverado EV took the same approach and really opened up the towing capability of that vehicle.

It’s always been easy to just throw more horsepower at a problem.
See OpenAI

 

[Drop table users;]

A 9,000 pound consumer vehicle is disgusting, be it EV or ICE.

What a ludicrously inefficient usage of resources.

View: https://youtu.be/LasrD6SZkZk

 

[khoadley]

This is why the Big Three [well two, Stellantis is literally Dutch-Italian lol] have largely abandoned the European market. There's no money in small cars. Chinese and Latin American tastes actually align well with ours though; Europe is very much the exception because it's much more constrained by premodern infrastructure.

Your problem there is the phrase "Big Three" - it's outdated and US-centric.

Stellantis is French/Italian, with a slight awkward portfolio of American brands hanging off it.

So that leaves your "big two" ... only they're not that big, only 5th and 6th in the global pecking order.

 

[Drop table users;]

A full 205 kWh charge at home would cost me $31 CAD to go 740 km.

My Chevy Traverse, which is almost precisely the same size as this thing inside but has only 52% of the Cadillac's weight, burns 66 L of fuel ($90 CAD) to go 740 km.

It is truly remarkable just how inherently efficient a modern EV powertrain architecture like Ultium really is.

The tech is so efficient that GM feels justified in using it to deploy something that will, 90% of the time, be used as a one-person commuter car and yet also weighs more than a 30-foot cruising yacht.

I think it’s hilarious that you think GM considered efficiency at all.

The apes at GM saw a problem and just threw more power at it nothing more.

 

[jandrese]

It’s always been easy to just throw more horsepower at a problem.
See OpenAI

Yeah, but they are the only EV builder who thought of this. Everybody else sells 6 figure EVs with modest size batteries. Even the Cybertruck has a paltry battery size given the weight of the vehicle.

 

[peterford]

This is such a strange ask.
The reason why the car is being reviewed is because it’s a technology site.

They review cheap electric cars as well.

There are sites dedicated to cheap vehicles.

It’s why I have a consumer reports subscription.

Paraphrased:
Any idiot can build a bridge. It takes interesting technology to build one that's affordable.

 

[eukiwi]

Trump complains that Europeans don't buy American cars. Well, when they weigh some 4.5 tonnes and are the size of a European truck, the simple reason is they are far too big to fit our roads and parking spaces.

Saw an imported Escalade here the other day - it looks absolutely f**king moronic on EU roads. Same as the few idiots driving around in old Dodge Rams.

 

[Shiunbird]

Saw an imported Escalade here the other day - it looks absolutely f**king moronic on EU roads. Same as the few idiots driving around in old Dodge Rams.

It looks moronic on non-EU roads as well.

Last time I went to the US for work, I had a roller carry-on small suitcase. Hotel reception asked me if I needed a big car. I said no. A V8 Escalade showed up.

 

[peachpuff]

Soon you'll need a cdl to drive these

 

[autostop]

"Escala" is GMese for "I have a small"

Edcalade is technique in seige warfare using ladders to overcome fortifications.

Like the orcs against Helm's Deep.

Gives you an idea of the mindset of the people who designed the vehicle.

 

[Flipper35]

The occupants will be very safe from the things they hit. The things they hit, not so much.

Welcome to Trump's America.

I am in no way defending Trump, but this was in development long before January of this year.

We need to to start taxing vehicles by weight at registration. This thing is far more damaging to roads than your average car, will burn through tires (read: tire particles in our lungs and water), and will kill a bunch of pedestrians

I don't know about taxes, but registrations in many states is based partly on weight.

 

[jonah]

Truly the Canyonero of EVs.

Five tons of mass is frickin' crazy.

 

[Erbium68]

There are residential streets in the US with 6,000-pound weight limits where this won't be legal to drive or park without a permit from the city, and those permits are usually only good for a day or two and can cost $20-$100 each.

In London, there are car gates with cameras, and if you go through the bus lane instead you get fined. These gates are fixed at 2.1 metres absolute max and are just wide enough to clip wing mirrors on vehicles like 911s and Model Ys. The result is people holding everybody up as they have to fold mirrors to get through.
This Cadillac (and that weird vehicle the Aptera) can't get through at all.

 

[RamboIT]

Remember folks, GM's exclusion of android auto and carplay is specifically so they can monetize your in-car experience. Don't support this crap.

At $128k, that would be difficult anyway with an unknown future of charging network expansion.

 

[A Man A Plan A Canal Panama]

It's obscene.

 

[Eurynom0s]

There are residential streets in the US with 6,000-pound weight limits where this won't be legal to drive or park without a permit from the city, and those permits are usually only good for a day or two and can cost $20-$100 each.

US cities aren't enforcing this at all, just like they aren't enforcing even the most egregious traffic violations like driving around with no license plates and running red lights ever since the police got their feelings hurt in spring 2020.

 

[MMarsh]

27kWh/100km and 9L/100km respectively. My plug in hybrid mid-size 5-door car gets 13.7kWh/100km and 4.5l/100km. Despite statistically on average us both transporting the same number of people and goods both of those SUV's consume TWICE the amount energy in order to do it.

Your "plug in hybrid mid-size 5-door car" has much less interior volume than a Chevy Traverse, and cannot tow nearly as well.

Like most of my rural neighbours, I own multiple cars, and use the smallest / cheapest / most efficient one for the task. That Chevy minivan-SUV-crossover-thing only comes out when the total amount of people + stuff + animals + trailer is too much for the Mazda3.

Money is not infinite. We spent our emissions-reduction budget replacing an oil burner with a geothermal heat pump, saving 2000 litres of oil a year. The 500 litres a year that could be saved by replacing the ICE vehicle with the most efficient PHEV that can do the same job is not worth the $40,000 (after trade-in) we'd have to cough up for the upgrade.

Everyone needs to do that math for their own situation; there's no universal right answer.

 

[qazwart]

An ocean liner of middling build quality.

The Revenge of the Land Yachts!

 

[Eurynom0s]

There's money in small cars or else other manufacturers wouldn't step in. It's that there isn't enough margin in small cars for greedy American firms.

Well that and Americans don't want to buy reasonably-sized cars for fear for being crushed to death in a collision with a 9,000 lbs electric Hummer or Escalade.

 

[qitupx]

Or you could get a three-row Lucid Gravity, which weighs 2500 kg and also has 450 mile range, and is also American-built. It only needs a 112 kWh battery, though. It's actually faster - 0 - 100 km/h in 3.5 s. Fully equipped for $95K and reduced model for $75K. It also doesn't have that stormtrooper look!

Too bad 60% of the company is owned by Saudi Arabia. They are building a factory over there too right now. Will be interesting to see if they shift manufacturing over there or if it will be for just the European market.

 

[icwhatudidthere]

The only new Escalades I even see these days are used as limos. Why would any car service buy one of these?

 

[crockdaddy]

I think I understand the business model of producing a super appealing upscale over the top vehicle to gain brand visibility and appeal to a super narrow group of purchasers. However, I simply don't think this will work well for GM. GM was better off gaining market appeal with their low cost EV's along the lines of the Bolt. Something with modern tools customers desired (like Apple Car Play, Android Auto) ... safety / camera features. Solid interior design. Cool looking and a tad practical. This should be a GM brand. Otherwise I'd just look somewhere else for sex appeal.

 

[yoshi12]

This is slightly off topic, but to any of you charging your car at home, what is the typical effect on your electric bill? I know I can do the arithmetic for my assumptions on charging and driving, but I'm curious about real world usage/charging/cost numbers.

It depends on how much you drive. My power is ~$0.15 per kWh. A Chevy Equinox EV has a 86 kWh battery, and can go ~300 miles with it. Math tells me I can fill it up for $13, which is less than the seasonal variation on my power bill. Gas here is ~$3 per gallon, so the 10ish gallons it would take to drive the same distance is $30. Like, I don't care if I pay the gas station or the power company, it still saves me ~$20 every time I go 300 miles.

 

[J.C. Helios]

...front trunk that can feature an optional sliding tray rated at 175 pounds (80 kg) because the frunk stretches so far back from the huge front bumper.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdluQoaLVAQ

 

[cosmicjesus]

It depends on how much you drive. My power is ~$0.15 per kWh. A Chevy Equinox EV has a 86 kWh battery, and can go ~300 miles with it. Math tells me I can fill it up for $13, which is less than the seasonal variation on my power bill. Gas here is ~$3 per gallon, so the 10ish gallons it would take to drive the same distance is $30. Like, I don't care if I pay the gas station or the power company, it still saves me ~$20 every time I go 300 miles.

And it can be much less if your utility provides an off-peak discount. We just bought a used Bolt EUV and signed up for our utility's off-peak charging option. It drops our cost from about $0.15/kwh to about $0.075/kwh between midnight and 6am.

 

[Tonkaman]

Give the lack of cost / pricing in the article, this is clearly in "if you have to ask" territory.

Can we have some coverage of cars that the median person can buy?

It starts at $130k, which is pretty good all things considered. The 2025 ICE Escalade V starts at $160k.

 

[odikweos]

It's good to see top range coming up, though I want to see it via better tech instead of brute force. Still, moving the top number will help toward that.

 

[cyberfunk]

Still no Apple CarPlay on GM’s newer EVs, though.

Imagine paying this much for a car just to be locked out of the most useful experiences so the car seller can monetize you. Absolutely not. Fuck you GM. I won't buy cars that do this on purpose.

And before someone says "well Teslas sell great"... I wouldn't buy a Tesla either for other reasons, but at least they never supported it in the first place and were straightforward about it I guess. Also it sure helps that their OEM interface doesn't suck nearly as hard as legacy automaker's systems always do. Still don't like it, but it's far more livable.

 

[gregatron5]

Why does only one picture have a caption? What exactly are we looking at with that shot of the axle? Rear wheel steering?

And as this is a technology site, I'd like to see more words on… the technology. Tell me more (or at least link to an article) about the head unit, what it's made of, how it works. Especially if CarPlay/AA aren't available, because then you're stuck with what's there. What's the deal with the motors? Made in-house? Outsourced? Anything?

Not that I would buy this thing, but I read a technology website for technology reviews, not regular car reviews I could read from regular car outlets.

 

[ecorn]

Range anxiety because of tire life?

 

[cosmicjesus]

The only new Escalades I even see these days are used as limos. Why would any car service buy one of these?

IDK. I feel like the EV version makes sense over the ICE version for high-end car service. They operate mostly in metro areas so they'll have much higher efficiency/lower fuel costs for city driving, they tend to idle a lot, and they're high mileage so they'll save a ton on maintenance.

 

[jbattan]

It's really unfortunate that they have taken it out of contention by not providing Apple CarPlay like almost everyone else does.

 

[ColdWetDog]

Give the lack of cost / pricing in the article, this is clearly in "if you have to ask" territory.

Can we have some coverage of cars that the median person can buy?

Nah, these articles are fun and useful. Fun, because they are so bizarre. A good giggle is to be appreciated these days. Useful because we can see how fucking stupid American car manufacturers are. Spend your development money on low volume, high cost niche products and wonder why you don't sell many vehicles or why you can't compete with companies putting out products that interest that nice, fat middle part of the bell curve.