Cadillac Plans to Price Its Future Celestiq EV Around $300,000

June 24, 2022

Cadillac plans to price a future electric sedan at around $300,000, according to people familiar with the matter, testing the cachet of General Motors Co.’s luxury brand.

GM is set to reveal later this summer a prototype of the car, named the Celestiq. The company has said the sedan will be Cadillac’s premier offering and custom-built at its engineering center near Detroit. It hasn’t disclosed pricing.

The auto maker intends to build fewer than 500 Celestiqs annually as a way to showcase its technology and generate buzz for Cadillac, the people said. Elements will include customized wood trim in the cabin and the latest version of GM’s hands-free assisted-driving system, called Ultra Cruise, they said.

The Celestiq price tag could run well beyond $300,000 depending on added features, and the car is scheduled to go into production by late 2023, the people said.

Cadillac is among a number of premium car brands that intend to fully transition their vehicle portfolios to electric at a faster pace than the broader industry. Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Rolls-Royce, Cadillac and GM’s Buick all have said they plan to sell EVs exclusively by 2030.

Luxury car brands are better positioned to make the switch from internal-combustion models because they have more flexibility to set higher prices to offset the high cost of the large batteries needed to power EVs, analysts say.

GM has said Cadillac will lead the way in the auto maker’s transition to EVs, which includes plans to offer a few dozen electric models in North America across GM’s four brands by mid-decade, up from four today. GM has said it can quickly build scale in EVs by using a common system of battery cells, motors and other in-house components to underpin each new entry.

Cadillac, founded in 1902, recently began rolling out its first-ever electric model, the Lyriq, a midsize SUV that GM is building at a plant in Tennessee. The Celestiq is expected to be among several new Cadillac EVs in coming years.

The Celestiq price would put the car in a category of high-end sedans from luxury makers such as Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Cadillac has said the car will feature a low-slung profile, a glass roof and four-wheel steering for better maneuverability.

GM’s all-electric push for Cadillac is the latest revitalization effort for a brand that once dominated the luxury-car market.

For decades, Cadillac dueled with Ford’s Lincoln brand for status as the nation’s top-selling automotive luxury brand. Starting in the late 1990s, both were overtaken by German and Asian luxury names, including BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Lexus.

Cadillac’s U.S. market share has stabilized in recent years, at around 1% of the overall U.S. vehicle market, amid several efforts at an image reboot.

Cadillac has revamped its vehicle lineup away from large, cushy sedans to focus on sporty driving, a bid to better compete with the German luxury players. Since the early 2000s it has sold a line of racetrack-oriented cars, the Cadillac V-Series models.

Still, past efforts by Cadillac to burnish its image through so-called flagship vehicles have been mixed.

In 2016 it introduced the CT6, a large, powerful sedan, and phased it out in the U.S. four years later. In 2013, it launched a nearly $80,000 plug-in hybrid car, the ELR, but it also was discontinued amid weak sales.

Cadillac has had success with its Escalade SUV, which routinely sells for more than $100,000 and is popular among professional athletes and celebrities.

Scott Allen, owner of Crestview Cadillac, a dealership near Los Angeles, said he is hopeful the push into electrics will improve Cadillac’s image and boost sales. He said the Celestiq can help create interest in the brand even if the car is produced in small numbers.

“Cadillac needs that bling to show people, ‘This is what we can do,’” he said.

Cadillac keeps teasing the Celestiq, and the latest pictures reveal more glimpses of the zero-emission luxury cruiser, accompanied by the official unveiling date.
9 photos

Yep, we finally know when it will debut, and that will be next week. GM’s premium car brand says that it will be shown to the world on July 22, at 9:00 a.m. EST (3:00 p.m. CET). Pricing and availability will be announced at a later date, though it has been reported that it will sit in the six-digit zone.

“Every Celestiq will be instantly identifiable as one of a kind, giving each client a personal connection to Cadillac’s newest flagship,” said the model’s design director, Erin Crossley. “With Cadillac reimagining the future of American luxury, we are entering an era of limitless possibilities, and the future of design.”

The latest teaser pics released by Caddy put the spotlight on the exterior and interior of the car. It has futuristic looks on the outside, with sharp and soft lines, LED lighting, and roofline that arches all the way back. The cockpit is a tech-festooned extravaganza, with a plethora of screens. There is a massive display on the dashboard, which in this case reveals that the model needs 10 minutes to charge up from 80 to 100%, another one between the front seat occupants, a third one separating the individual rear seats, and two more on the back of the front seats.

Cadillac will build the Celestiq on the Ultium architecture, which is shared with the GMC Hummer EV for one, and will be used by General Motors on future electric vehicles. Production will kick off at the automotive giant’s Warren Tech Center, and even though they haven’t said anything about the total number of cars that will be put together, it is said that fewer than 500 copies will ever see the light of day. In terms of direct rivals, it will challenge the likes of the Mercedes-Benz EQS, Audi e-tron GT, BMW i7, and Tesla Model S.

Cadillac decided that we’ve been waiting long enough to see the Celestiq EV and have released images and some specs for a pre-production model, or show car, as they like to call it. We’re pretty sure the final product will look very similar, if not nearly identical.
8 photos

Once it does break cover in series production guise, the Celestiq will instantly become Cadillac’s most advanced vehicle ever, and concurrently the brand’s battery-electric flagship.

For the styling of the Celestiq, Cadillac designers drew inspiration from classic architecture such as various mid-centry masterpieces, but also iconic American designs, hence the somewhat timeless aesthetic of this show car. It really looks like a design that’s unaffected by increased entropy, which is a nerdy way of saying that time doesn’t seem to pass it by.

The carmaker’s design and engineering teams also immersed themselves in early Cadillac designs such as that of bespoke V16-powered coaches of the pre-war era, or the hand-built 1957 Eldorado Brougham.

“Those vehicles represented the pinnacle of luxury in their respective eras, and helped make Cadillac the standard of the world,” explained the company’s chief engineer, Tony Roma. “The Celestiq show car – also a sedan, because the configuration offers the very best luxury experience – builds on that pedigree and captures the spirit of arrival they expressed.”

Its interior is perhaps even more spectacular than the exterior, featuring highlights such as a 55-inch advanced LED display (with active privacy technology), a variable-transmission Smart Glass Roof and Ultra Cruise. The latter is simply GM’s next evolution of its available hands-free driver assistance technology, which will absolutely make its way onto the production version of the Celestiq.


As for the Smart Glass Roof, it comes with something called Suspended Particle Device (SPD) technology, which allows for four zones of variable lighting, meaning each passenger can fine-tune their experience inside from a comfort and visibility standpoint.

“The Celestiq show car is the purest expression of Cadillac,” added Magalie Debellis, manager, Cadillac Advanced Design. “It brings to life the most integrated expressions of design and innovation in the brand’s history, coalescing in a defining statement of a true Cadillac flagship.”

Additional information regarding the production variant of the Celestiq will be announced later this year.

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you know that Cadillac's slogan once upon a time was "Standard of the World." And you probably also know that the brand has struggled living up to that famous title, despite many attempts at it. The brand is going after it once again, perhaps more earnestly than ever with the 2024 Cadillac Celestiq. The simple fact is that if you were to build a Cadillac for the 21st century that would truly rival the world's greatest luxury brands with cutting-edge technology and an eye on styling of the past, present and future, you'd probably end up with something not far off from Celestiq.

The proportions of the Celestiq will grab you every single time. It's roughly 18 feet long, slightly longer than the regular Cadillac Escalade. But the roof is lower than that of the CT5. It has a remarkably long nose, particularly for an EV. And then the midsection is, well, also really long. And that trails off into a long tail that seems almost cantilevered off the rear wheels.



The shape is a bit familiar, since the Lyriq already launched with very similar lines. According to Cadillac, though, the Celestiq was penned first, and it initially was planned to launch first. But higher-ups determined that they needed a more mass-market EV sooner, and they were able to push up the Lyriq. Despite the familiarity, it's still gorgeous. The body is smooth and clean, which is countered by nifty detailing in the aluminum grille panel, the futuristic fin-style taillights with Cadillac badge etchings and real aluminum exterior trim. The rear is most striking with the sweptback roof and long overhang combine to give it a beautiful boat tail. The whole thing also sits on enormous 23-inch forged wheels, the same size as those on the almost identical-looking concept.

Underneath that body, much of which is made from carbon fiber and composite panels, is some nifty technology, particularly in regards to manufacturing. The chassis is based on Ultium electric car tech, but the Celestiq's version is very much its own, not shared with other GM products. The lower sections are made of six giant aluminum castings, the molds of which were created with 3D-printed components. There are also components, particularly for brackets and some other smaller, under-the-skin parts, built with something GM calls "Flex Fab." The company has a machine at a facility up in Pontiac, Mich., that can take flat sheetmetal and bend it, fold it, cut it and pierce it to create a part, without having to create special stampings or other machinery. There are 3D-printed aluminum parts in the interior such as the decorations on the steering wheel and even the seatbelt guide loop.



That interior is another real showstopper. It's quite minimalist in design, and maximalist with screens. A pair of screens measuring 55 inches across both make up the instrument, infotainment and passenger entertainment displays. They have a pixel density on par with an 8K TV. And the passenger side features a screen blocker that activates to block the image from the driver when the car is in motion and the passenger is watching something on it. In the center stack, there's an 11-inch touchscreen for handling some infotainment features, and there's a crystal control knob below that for additional functions. In the back, passengers each get a 12.6-inch entertainment screen, and an 8-inch control touchscreen sits between them.

The technology goes beyond just screens. All four seats get the same level of adjustments, and comfort features including heating, cooling and ventilation. They all even get air vents just behind the neck for warming or cooling and heated armrests. And, naturally, with that level of adjustment, there's individual climate settings for each position. The roof features "Suspended Particle Device" technology so that the tint level can be raised or lowered. It can range from 1%, which is virtually opaque, to 20%, which is comparable to most sunroof tints. It also has ambient lighting and decorative patterns based on the Cadillac crest. The interior also features a 38-speaker AKG sound system. There are even three more speakers on the outside broadcasting a unique safety noise tailored to the Celestiq.



Similar to the outside, the inside is covered in high-end materials with leather on almost every surface. If it looks like metal, it's metal. If it looks like carbon fiber, it's carbon fiber. But it doesn't have to be, say, carbon fiber. Celestiq buyers will get a purchase experience like that from Rolls-Royce or Bentley, where they will have the ability to choose virtually any color or material they want, anywhere in the car, as long as they're willing to pay for it. Cadillac is happy to do special color matching or even incorporate personal items into the interior.

An ultra-luxury car deserves high-end mechanical parts, too. The Celestiq will be equipped with a pair of motors sending 600 horsepower and 640 pound-feet of torque to all four wheels. Cadillac estimates the Celestiq will be able to hit 60 mph in 3.8 seconds. Electricity is supplied via a 111-kWh battery pack. That pack is an Ultium unit, but the cells in the packs have been laid flat instead of vertical. This was done to help get the low-profile body. It supports DC fast charging and has a solid peak of 200-kW, but that's still lower than what's possible in Hyundai and Kia products with the E-GMP underpinnings.

Arguably as exciting as any of the powertrain goodies are the suspension and steering components. The Celestiq has five-link independent suspension front and rear backed by air springs and magnetorheological shocks. It's further enhanced by Cadillac's first implementation of active anti-roll bars. And to manage the car's prodigious length, it has four-wheel steering (no, it doesn't have Crab Walk). On the topic of steering, the Celestiq gets the same electric power steering used on the Cadillac Blackwings, just tuned for Celestiq. Considering how much we love those cars and basically every magnetic suspension to roll out of GM, we have a feeling the Celestiq will be a pretty magical drive.



There is technology for people who don't necessarily enjoy driving as much, too. The Celestiq features a robust suite of sensors that are supposed to be sufficient for GM's promised Ultra Cruise. Ultra Cruise is said to be a start-to-finish, hands-free, supervised driving function. It will not be ready at launch. Cadillac says it will eventually come via over-the-air updates. We expect it will be able to do everything that Super Cruise does now, so hands-off supervised highway driving, and Cadillac said it will gradually add additional capability as it becomes available. The details on this rollout were very slim, so we're thinking that full Ultra Cruise functionality is not coming anytime soon. But, hey, Super Cruise is still impressive. And while it's not quite self-driving, Cadillac did also mention that the car will be able to self-park with the driver out of the car. That could be particularly helpful considering how huge the car is.

Prospective buyers will need to be prepared to pay plenty. Cadillac confirmed the base price will start above $300,000. And of course, the more the car is customized, the more expensive it will be. Production of the car begins in December next year. Each car will be built at the GM Technical Center in Warren, Mich. They will feature significant hand-assembly, and the company won't be rushing production. Cadillac representatives said that, once production is fully under way, they'll be able to complete about two cars per day. And like almost everything else, customers will be able to customize the delivery experience to be wherever they want.