Cadillac’s Celestiq is poised to recapture the standard of the world
Like countless other companies, automotive and not, Cadillac wants an electric vehicle to make its greatness known. Fresh from a visit to GM’s Design Dome in Warren, Michigan, we can vouch for one thing: This EV ain’t like the others.
For starters, it’s $300,000. At minimum. If you’re upset by that figure, you aren’t the target audience. The Celestiq is a made-in-Detroit statement of ten-figure money. Regular folks can’t even visualize their dreams on an online configurator, in part because there is no set list of paints, leathers, fabrics, or finishes: Each car will be bespoke, the result of one-on-one interaction between the automaker and the customer. Plenty of manufacturers above Cadillac’s price point offer online visualizers—see Pagani—and also accommodate the most particular of client wishes, so take Caddy’s statement of exclusivity at face value. Not for you.
Boy, will you want one.
The car is imposing, a low-slung four-door whose graceful, lift-back proportions belie its massive size. Take a gander at the wheel diameter: 23 inches, one inch larger than those on the Escalade SUV. Yet the Celestiq sits comfortably on the giant rims, which are shod in custom, Cadillac-commissioned Michelins, their sidewalls embossed with a Celestiq-specific design.
The fluid surfacing and the precise creases in the car’s body subtlety signal the great expense of its construction. From the beltline down, front to rear, the car’s structure is comprised of eight pieces of sand-cast aluminum, whose rigidity mimics that of die-cast metal. The hood is a single sheet of delicately creased carbon fiber draped over the fenders to the headlights. The doors hide a short-range radar system that allowed designers to dismiss handles entirely: Walk up to the vehicle with the key in your pocket, and the door will either swing fully open or “present” an edge to you, depending on the proximity of pillars, walls, and other cars.
Even the brightwork bits are wildly impractical statements of excess. The metal “eyebrow” spanning the front of the car starts as a sheet of billet aluminum as wide as the car itself and almost a foot deep: The whole piece is brushed to a satin finish, then the front edge polished to a contrasting, higher sheen. The brushed metal that forms the rocker panel trim is an exposed piece of warm-formed aluminum that belongs to the car’s inner assembly. Traditionally, this would have been stamped, requiring it to be broken into four individual sections. Cadillac’s designers and engineers said no.
The roof, each quadrant individually dimmable, is a single sheet of acoustically insulated glass. For it, Cadillac visited Peru, the site of the only foundry big enough to cast it in one piece. The Celestiq’s “grille” may not need to route air to a combustion engine, but Cadillac refused to spare expense: The blades that frame the headlights are stamped from aluminum, brushed, then accented with delicate polished texturing. The silver lines in the center section expose indium, the softest non-alkali metal chosen for its transparency to radar.
Peer inside—Cadillac isn’t yet allowing anyone to sit in this, its one and only prototype—and the show continues. The cabin is dominated by the car’s nearly flat waistline, a single contour that runs across the dash, continues through the doors, and sweeps behind the two rear chairs (there is no bulkhead) to meet the bottom of the liftgate’s glass. Designers and engineers suffered endless headaches to create it: “When we redid that speaker grille at the base of the A-pillar, we literally chased it all the way to the trunk,” says Tristan Murphy, Cadillac’s lead interior designer. Curved interior contours are useful in workaday cars because they disguise imperfections of line, but in the Celestiq’s linear cabin, there is no place to hide. Says the Celestiq’s lead engineer, Tony Roma: “The door pads have adjustability up, down, in, out in a way that I would get shot if I proposed doing it anywhere else. But we’re doing it here.”
Those speaker grilles are, the team reflects, the largest Cadillac has ever made. Stamped out of aluminum, their holes are acid-etched before the whole panel is anodized, creating a dark finish that a laser precisely removes to create a 3-D effect. That curved glass panel on the dash fits two screens behind a single sheet of carefully bent glass measuring over four and a half feet, corner to diagonal corner. The floors are upholstered in leather, the cupholders in suede.
Lucid’s triple-motor, 1200-hp Sapphire boasts twice the horsepower of this dual-motor Cadillac, but if you’re comparing the two, you’re already on the wrong foot. Think of Bentley, and its “adequate” power: No one driving or being chauffeured in a Celestiq wants anyone to mistake them for a Tesla-esque blur. The Celestiq’s job isn’t to be the first high-tech EV, or even the most customizable Cadillac: It is to be Cadillac’s Veyron, a superlative, new-world interpretation of old-school prestige.
For nearly 80 years, Cadillac has again and again fallen prey to its own lofty condemnation, failing to equal or to excel. With the Celestiq, Detroit once again risks the penalty of leadership. For that alone, Cadillac deserves to live.
Wow. All of the above, and… Who exactly is going to be impressed by a piece of billet aluminum for the front fascia when they probably don’t even know what that means? and please, at least START with a fundamentally appealing shape. if you have to throw all these goodies in there to impress, you’ve already failed. Finally, the bling, bling set likely to afford and want something like this will have no party room in the back!! two upright, (uptight) buckets? Although I am sure I’d be impressed with their head-snapping acceleration, I am fast losing interest in EVs if only for their weird styling ideas.
The hatchback idea is interesting…I kind of like it!
I notice many insulting comments about it being electric from many who seem to consider “woke” an insult. I suppose the opponents of “woke” all prefer to be unconscious – I’d rather stay conscious and alert, thanks.
I do think the front end, like most Cadillacs, and many other makes now, is pretty ugly. The edgy lines just don’t seem to have a theme or much coherence – simplicity and good taste doesn’t sell?
Ewwww. The rear end is a fail. Folks who want to be seen in this bejeweled cart could care less about all the sturm und drang that the general goes through to make it happen . EV….refrigerators…..gym shoes….fancy ones to oooh and ahh over.. Nein danke
I am a GM fan but not of this car.
I just find it a bit odd in a French design kind of way.
As for the EV gripes EV is coming to all the brands and you are going to need to deal with it.
EV is not just a GM or Mary thing it is the only way automakers are going to survive regulations that are coming.
Mary is not conjugate this to save trees.
I expect this Cadillac to make its goals as they numbers to be made are low. It is a showcase of tech.
I would not be surprised in two years it gets a different body like a coupe. It then will get the new tech that is ready by then.
HyperV6 is right and I am not a GM fan. Electic is what will be.
Beauty is subjective so while I don’t like the proportions of this car, you cant’ say that it is not something special. 300K special is for the buyer to decide. GM has a lot of good things going on but I do not think that Cadillac will be the standard of the world anymore, there are to many other asperational cars. I know that there always we’re, but todays buyer does not have the brand loyalty nor does the name Cadillac signify exlusivity. One thing also that pops out in this article, and I may be wrong, is that this car is a prototype. Lets see what comes to market.
This style does not evoke images of a $300K car in my view. It doesn’t conjure an image of class or distinction. Making a car expensive to build (hey, Cadillac, remember the Allanté?) doesn’t make it more desirable. I’d rather money be spent on adding items of value to the owner. Parts that are difficult to manufacture don’t mean a car is more valuable than another.
But the real problems here are: 1) this design looks like it could just as easily be a Hyundai, and it’s simply not pretty and 2) Cadillac is over-reaching. It needs to fill the gap between $100K and $300K before it creates a model like this. Cadillac is looking for a Rolls-Royce or Bentley customer to come in and get a soccer-mom dealership experience.
The rear end kind of feels like an updated Porsche 928/Panamerica. Seats look like they came out of a Kia Soul. The color is one you’ll get tired of looking at after 2 years. Can you imagine the depreciation in the first 2 years … bet its value drops 50%.
GM failed when it began to endorse EVs. This Caddy proves how out of step with common sense GM is. THIS–is going to improve air quality??? They must be kidding. Think of how much MORE fossil fuel will be expended JUST in the manufacture of this beast. Do car companies think that they are smart and that The People are just plain concrete dumb?
Wow an impossibly expensive one-off bespoke Cadillac halo car targeted at the Uber-rich to compete with Rolls Royce & Bentley. What an original thought that is. Will a selling point be that GM loses money on every example as they did with the 1957 & 1959 iterations of the Eldorado Brougham?
If GM would spend more time developing a wide-spread fast charging system that could replenish a battery in five minutes or less than on a vehicle that will not meet marketing expectations, then this would be a vehicle that would attract more attention and sales. This is rolling example of something that is aimed at the “more money than brains” minority who feel the need to display their wretched excess. The “standard of the world” used to mean value for money spent. Now, not so much.
FYI GM is invest heavily in a power dense silicone battery that is smaller lighter and cheaper. It will give 100 miles more to a charge and will accept the higher power chargers for faster charging.
Don’t assume you have seen everything.
The new batteries will also fit the new GM platforms when ready.
Let’s do a little history diving. Before the Benz Patent-Motorwagen was created, gasoline was available. When the first jet engines were put into use, kerosene and diesel fuel were available to burn in them. If we look back at early electric (battery powered) vehicles which came about in 1832, electric infrastructure was limited at best. Even though EV’s have been developed further, the technology to support them has been lagging to say the least. Yes, better batteries are coming, and more charging points are being built, but in this country, as large as it is, will the average ICE-powered owner be convinced to change? Nope. I’ll use this example: Los Angeles to Las Vegas, road distance 270 miles, city limit to city limit. With no other vehicles on the road, driving time is just over three and a half hours, one way. Real world, that distance is the same but driving time hovers around five hours. If it is warm outside, the A/C is on. If it is after sundown, the A/C and the lights are on. Especially the brake lights. With a 400 mile range, a new electric vehicle will be very low on remaining charge just as the vehicle passes Jean, Nevada, 31 miles from Vegas. Once in the city, a charger must be located quickly. How long must that vehicle operator wait in line before being able to plug in? And how long will the charge time be? Yes, it MAY get better, but most people live in the here and now, and tomorrow can’t help today.
I Hope RG brings back the Dodge Magnum, throws his teams updated styling on it, drops it on a skateboard, and sells it for 25% of GMs MSRP. Who needs the super rich the GM elites are aiming for?
I’ve observed the automotive press shift its focus to the electrics and to my horror, I feel I’m being left behind.
I don’t agree that this transition is similar to that of the horse and buggy to the horseless carriage. The transition is being forced, not because of a huge technical advantage but, a guilt trip.
At this point, the cars lack character. Sure…they claim to have performance but….let’s see, I’ll compare my first ride in a 70 LS6 powered Chevelle SS with the cowl door banging open at full throttle to any Tesla mongrel sprint to sub second 0-60; Saturn Five Rocket launch vs riding on a monorail at Disney.
As for technology and construction details… a tour de force.
As for styling and proportions… a tour de FARCE.
Overall rating… a major fail.
From the Sixteen… to THIS?!
Sort of Citroen SM or predecessors in concept and design. I believe the SM was priced similarly way above market. Definitely not your father’s Buick.
As it’s bespoke I hope that means that the buyer can opt for an optional rear end design. Truly ugly from 3/4 rear.