The Cadillac Celestiq’s Performance Belies Its Proportions
Its $340,000 starting price is the first clue that the Celestiq four-door hatchback is no ordinary Cadillac. The hand-built EV shares more of a design ethos with, say, a Fabergé egg, than it does with its siblings produced on an assembly line. Its designers say that the Celestiq’s closest forebear is the 1957 Eldorado Brougham, an emblem of American luxury and the last hand-built Cadillac.
“For the time, the Brougham was more expensive than most cars and had more technology, more features, and more customization,” Michael Simcoe, Cadillac’s vice president of global design, tells Robb Report before handing over the keys to a bright blue Celestiq on a sunny spring day in Los Angeles. “We don’t want to wallow in the heritage, but we understand what made Cadillacs great and how American they were, how individual they were, and how special.” Nearly 70 years later, Cadillac hopes the Celestiq will capitalize on the brand’s legacy while catapulting the automaker into the future.
The all-electric Cadillac Celestiq, the marque’s first hand-built production car since the 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham.
David Westphal, courtesy of Cadillac
Design
When you purchase a Celestiq, you aren’t merely choosing a paint color or technology package. Instead, you will sit down with GM designers—often over many months—and together mine more than 350,000 combinations for embroidered upholstery, embossed family crests, and even more trim than a single imagination can conceive. Needless to say, it’s highly unlikely that any two examples of the Celestiq will be identical—a clear value proposition for the car’s target customer.
The Celestiq’s fastback profile is low-slung, but its wheelbase exceeds that of an Escalade. With its exaggerated proportions, the EV exudes a brash demeanor nearly guaranteed to draw rubberneckers, even in Tinseltown.
The Celestiq presents a low-slung fastback profile paired with a mid-century modern aesthetic.
David Westphal, courtesy of Cadillac
Power Train and Hardware
The 655 hp, bespoke EV travels 303 miles on a full charge and can add 75 miles of range in 10 minutes. It zips from zero to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds using a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive setup, which is on par with the class.
But that’s where the similarities to other EVs end. At GM’s Tech Center in Warren, Mich., Cadillac can build just two Celestiqs per day. The facility eschews an assembly line in favor of a small team of highly specialized builders trained in all aspects of the car’s construction.
Performance
During our test drive, the Celestiq felt surprisingly nimble given its size and weight, more akin to Cadillac’s high-performance, V-8-powered CT5-V Blackwing luxury sports sedan than one of its lumbering SUVs. Yet the Celestiq achieves this performance without sacrificing serenity. Its engineers claim that the car is the quietest Cadillac ever measured, thanks to extensive acoustic treatment that handily hushed the commuter-clogged 101 freeway.
With 655 hp and 646 ft lbs of torque, the car covers zero to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds and has a top speed of 130 mph.
David Westphal, courtesy of Cadillac
On the road, the car evokes a sense of mid-century pageantry, putting on parade the American ethos of bigger is better. The Celestiq embodies America’s “very optimistic, very strident view of the world” in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, according to Simcoe—even if its stately width is harrowing to navigate in rush-hour traffic.
Is It Worth It?
Of course, with leather floors, eucalyptus-fiber mats, and options aplenty, such customization can push the Celestiq’s price even further beyond what’s expected from the marque, begging the question: Is the EV worth it?
Despite its hand-built origins story, the Celestiq is the automaker’s most technologically advanced vehicle. It uses additive manufacturing for certain components—the steering-wheel casing is the largest 3-D-printed part GM has ever produced—while others, like the console’s aluminum controls, are polished by hand.
The interior features a 3-D-printed steering-wheel casing, hand-polished aluminum controls, and options that include leather floors and eucalyptus-fiber mats.
David Westphal, courtesy of Cadillac
“We use this medical-grade laser that pulses in the order of, like, 20 nanoseconds, so that you don’t get any heat-affected zone around the graphics,” says Tony Roma, executive chief engineer. “And then they’re backlit, so when you’re driving at night, they light up.”
The Celestiq is Cadillac’s most technologically advanced production vehicle to date, which factors into the car’s next-level pricing compared to others in the automaker’s model line.
David Westphal, courtesy of Cadillac
Other firsts include a smart-glass roof featuring four quadrants for passengers to control opacity, and electronic shutters that obscure screen content while driving and can be controlled remotely via a QR code on the phone. GM hopes these innovations will find their way into its mass-market EV lineup while hoping to somehow make Cadillac the best-selling luxury EV brand in the U.S. this year—one Celestiq at a time. As for the latter goal, only time will tell if that becomes reality or just another example of “very optimistic” thinking.
Specifications
Vehicle Type
In Production Since
Power Train
- Dual-motor, all-wheel-drive electric power train, 655 hp, 646 ft lbs of torque
- 111 kWh lithium-ion battery pack
Performance
- Zero to 60 mph: 3.7 seconds (claimed)
- Top Speed: 130 mph (claimed)
Price as Tested
- Starts at $340,000, though price as tested was undisclosed
Click here for more photos of the Cadillac Celestiq.
Driving the all-electric Cadillac Celestiq.
David Westphal, courtesy of Cadillac
