The 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ Is The Ultimate Extra Large Battery Electric SUV

When it comes to American luxury, few brands carry that title better than a Cadillac. For the last 120 years, if you were looking for all things American and all things luxury, you were looking at this brand. Now, as the rest of the industry continues to move toward electrification, Cadillac is ready to move alongside with the introduction of their most important EV ever, the 2025 Escalade IQ. It's built on a dedicated Altium electric vehicle architecture. It offers up to 450 miles of range, up to 350 kilowatts of DC fast charging, and as you can see, it has a design that is bold and brash, exactly what you'd expect from a vehicle with the Escalade badge. So today, I'm actually out here in Spring Studios in New York City with the brand new 2025 Escalade IQ, and now that we finally have this vehicle in the sheet metal, let's go ahead and take a first look. Now, ever since Cadillac introduced the all-new Escalade about three years ago, they've been promising that an all-electric version will be coming, so now that we're finally seeing the electric version of the Escalade in the sheet metal, I have to say it definitely has the look that goes with the Escalade brand. What surprises me, however, is the fact that this is currently not or this is not built on the same architecture as the gas-powered Escalade. As you guys heard in the intro, this is actually built off of the dedicated EV architecture known as Altium, which is the same platform that underpins the GMC Hummer SUV and the truck. So starting at the front fascia of this Escalade IQ, you can see it has the latest design elements from the Cadillac brand. If you guys have seen the Lyric and, of course, the Celestic, it has the corporate face of Cadillac. It has, of course, an illuminated grille with the Crest logo. It doesn't have any actual openings because, as you guys know, this is an EV. It doesn't require that additional cooling and whatnot. You can see the LEDs have a beautiful animation. You have this kind of signature kind of evolution of their art and science design theme with these multiple LEDs for the LED headlights. You have these bold LED daytime running lights that kind of go along the almost the entire front end of the vehicle. The Cadillac logo also lights up. And overall, let me know what you guys think in the comments section below. This model here that I'm showing you is a Sport II trim. So this is going to be the higher trim of the vehicle. Cadillac says they'll offer a total of four different trims. You can distinguish this as a Sport trim because of the dark finishes that you're going to find throughout the vehicle. This color is also called Flare Metallic, which looks really good with all the dark trims. So let me know if you guys think this vehicle looks like an Escalade or if it looks like an entirely different vehicle. Now, moving around the side profile, you're going to notice this is a big vehicle. Now, as you guys know, with Escalades, Cadillac offers two different sizes. However, for the Escalade IQ, they're only going to offer one size. And its dimensions at 224 inches long is kind of close to what you find on the Escalade ESV. This is about a foot longer versus the standard Escalade. Its wheelbase is 136 inches long. That's around two inches shorter than the Escalade ESV. But again, it certainly has some presence to it. This car is going to come standard with four-corner air suspension, along with their fourth generation of their Magno-Rheological dampers. So the air suspension, Cadillac says, will be able to raise the vehicle up by two inches or drop it by two inches or raise it up by an inch. So the base ground clearance should be around seven inches, according to the spec sheet. Now, the wheels, how could we not talk about wheels on an Escalade? You can see these are a massive 24-inch wheel. As you guys saw, 24-inch wheel. I think the biggest wheel you can get on an Escalade, a gas-powered one, is a 22. It's riding on a 275 by 50R 24-inch tire. Of course, these wheels have kind of like an aerodynamic profile to it to help with the coefficient of drag. The rest of the vehicle, you can see, has a lot of aerodynamics here to kind of help manage the airflow, although it does have some conventional aspects. You can see conventional-looking door handles, although I suspect they're going to be a digital style. You can see the side mirror is huge, but I like how they're black-finished. You kind of have like a black two-tone design to the roof. This vehicle also comes standard with a panoramic glass roof, which we'll talk about later on when we move into the inside. And then looking at this profile here, you can see this is where this car doesn't really look like an Escalade to me. It kind of looks like a bigger version of the Lyric, perhaps, but the rear of the car is definitely a little bit more controversial in its design. But it also is instantly distinguishable as a Cadillac with the same kind of bold LED taillight design. That 1,000 e4 badge, I suspect, is probably the Newton meters of torque, where it's 1,000, and then the e4 will mean it comes standard with all-wheel drive and dual electric motors. And then, of course, the IQ that's moving forward going to show the IQ as the electric version of the Escalade. Now, I want to show you guys the trunk really quick. However, I'm not supposed to touch it because this is a very early prototype vehicle, so we're going to have a Cadillac spokesperson actually open up the trunk for us. And this is where the company actually already had some specs for us, which is surprising. Now, this is an Escalade, so you guys want it to have a ton of space in the backseat area or in the cargo area. Now, with the third row seat up, it's going to come standard, of course, with the third row. It can seat up to seven. You're going to get a little under 24 cubic feet of storage space. If you fold down the second row seats, it'll expand it out to around 69 cubic feet. And Cadillac says if you fold down every row, the second and the third row, you'll get a maximum of 119 cubic feet. Now, those numbers are pretty good. However, those numbers are kind of similar to the gas-powered Escalade, which is the short-wheelbase model. The long-wheelbase Escalade gas-powered model technically offers a little bit more space. But overall, this is still going to offer one of the most cavernous cargo areas in the electric SUV space. So although the cargo capacity is a little smaller versus the gas-powered Escalade, this is where you're going to get some of that space back. Because as you guys can see, this is built on a dedicated EV architecture, which means Cadillac was able to give us an e-trunk. They asked me not to call it a frunk. They want to call this an e-trunk. But you can see there's a pretty good amount of space in here that's covered, that's locked, that's stowable, it's protected from the elements. Cadillac says you have around 12.2 cubic feet of storage space, which as you guys see, it's pretty similar to the storage space that you've seen in something like the GMC Hummer SUV. There's also lighting in here, there's also a power outlet in here, there's also hooks. So it's a really nice place to store things. And it makes up for the fact that the cargo space isn't quite as cavernous as the gas-powered Escalade. Now, while we're under here, let's go ahead and talk about the powertrain specs of this model. It's going to launch with dual electric motors. It has a 200 kilowatt-hour capacity battery pack. So it's a pretty big battery. It's almost the same size as on the Hummer SUV or the Hummer pickup truck. Now, in terms of range, Cadillac is saying around 450 miles, that's their estimated range, and the power outputs are going to be pretty impressive. 680 horsepower and 615 pound-feet of torque. Those are the base specs. If you guys put it into its velocity max mode, which is kind of like their sport mode, it'll raise the power up to 750 horsepower and 785 pound-feet of torque. Those numbers are very impressive. If you guys are keeping score, actually, the Escalade V, the gas-powered supercharged V8 Escalade offers around 682 horsepower. So the electric version has basically the same power as the Escalade V. Now, in terms of performance, Cadillac says this should get to 60 in under five seconds. In V max mode, it has a one speed reduction gear transmission. This also will tow a maximum of 8,000 pounds. They didn't talk about the curb weight, but I'm going to estimate this car is probably going to be around 8,000-9,000 pounds. The regular gas-powered Escalade is like around 6,000 pounds. This is going to be significantly heavier because, remember, the battery is most likely going to be the double-stacked variety. Now, I want to show you guys really quickly the charge port door of this vehicle, which is actually located at the rear. The door is already opened up. It's going to be a power opening door, and the front trunk, the e-trunk, is also going to be power opening. But you can see over here on the charge port door, you're going to find the CCS connector. Now, Cadillac says this vehicle runs on the 800-volt architecture, which means you can accept up to 350 kilowatts on a level three DC fast charger. It also has a 19.2 kilowatt onboard charger, which is definitely needed considering the battery capacity. Cadillac says you should be able to add around 100 miles of range in 10 minutes on a level three. So that's going to be great for those of you on those longer road trips. Remember, this has a 450-mile range. And then on a level two, if you have it plugged into your house at a 48 amp, you should be able to add around 37 miles of range per hour, which means you could charge this thing overnight in roughly 10-ish hours. That's my estimate. Or if you guys can't charge that quickly, it might take you as long as up to 16 hours, depending on, of Now, sadly, because this is a very early prototype model, I'm not allowed to sit in this vehicle and I can't touch all the components, but I can at least show you guys this interior. And first of all, if you guys thought the exterior was bold and brash, the interior is also very futuristic, very next generation. In fact, Cadillac is basically giving a middle finger to the Mercedes-Benz Hyperscreen because what you're seeing here is a 55-inch, that's right, 55-inch curved display that stretches basically from the driver's side all the way over to the passenger side. As you can see, it's comprised of two different screens. This is of course going to be using the latest software from Cadillac. They said they actually partnered with Qualcomm Tech to develop the software for it. It'll have Google integration kind of built in. However, as you guys heard, GM is also doing away from Apple CarPlay, which I'm assuming this model will also do away from that. They're saying that the software with Google is going to basically replace that. If you guys have seen this interior before, if it looks familiar, it's because they basically took it out of the Celestic, which is their uber luxury $340,000 hand-built luxury EV. So you can see here with the two screens, it really, again, gives it a futuristic look. You also have another screen over here, which I believe measures 11 inches, where you can control all your usual functions for the vehicle. That screen also is tilted upward. The steering wheel, you can see it has a version of Cadillac's latest Super Cruise. If you guys are thinking this would have Ultra Cruise, technically the Celestic will have Ultra Cruise first. That's kind of next-gen over Super Cruise. But this, again, is still one of the best hands-free driving systems you're going to find. The seats, you can see they adjusted in multiple different ways. They're heated and ventilated. They're massaging seats as well. You have the perforated high-quality leather that you're going to find. A lot of the metal trim that you see is also genuine. The sound system in this car also is their latest AKG audio system. The bass system will have 19 speakers. I suspect this Sport Platinum Pro version will have, or Sport 2 version, will have 36 speakers. So again, beautiful interior, tons of space, tons of tech. And then you can see above me there, you can see there's a panoramic glass roof. Now, it is a fixed glass roof, so it's not going to actually open up. But again, it's going to let in a lot of light. Now, let's go ahead and hop into the backseat of this, or at least I'm not going to hop in. I'm just going to show it to you. The backseat area, Cadillac says they wanted it to give you kind of like a chauffeur experience. So what you have here is around 41 inches of legroom. That's actually the same legroom as in the gas-powered model. You also have these captain's chairs, which does lower the seating capacity to seven. There's a big center console here that offers, again, a touchscreen over here where you can control your different controls for the ambient lighting, for the door, the tint on the panoramic roof. These seats are also heated, ventilated, and massaging. So you're going to get that feature, that first-class experience. And then you can see each passenger has their own infotainment screen. This is a 12.6-inch screen mounted into the front seat back. So that's, again, going to give you that kind of first-class lounge experience with this vehicle. So overall, love the space that you find over here. The third row is also an area where I can't show you guys, sadly, these seats. Cadillac says we're not allowed to move them, but they did say that this vehicle has around 30 inches of legroom in the back, a little over 30 inches of legroom. As you guys can see, it's a little hard to see about that. Sorry. Hopefully, we can get one in person later on when they actually have a full production version. Now, if you guys are wondering the third row space, it is about six inches smaller in terms of legroom versus the gas-powered Escalade ESV. I suspect the floor is raised up because of the battery pack, but that's a question we can ask Cadillac whenever we drive this vehicle later on next year, which Cadillac says the production of this car is going to be going to production in the summer of next year. So you're gonna have to wait a little bit longer for this vehicle to get your hands on it. So although we've been waiting about three years for Cadillac to finally reveal the electric version of the Escalade, after finally seeing this vehicle in the flesh, in the sheet metal, I have to say it definitely has the presence that I expect from the Escalade name. It certainly has the size. It has the boldness of the exterior. It's got these massive wheels, which by the way, this car also comes with four-wheel steering. So if you're wondering, how am I going to park this thing? It has the turning radius of a gas-powered Escalade as well. And then of course, the specs, 450 miles of range is about 150 miles better versus the Celestic, and up to 750 horsepower is going to make this one seriously quick SUV. Now, some of you are probably wondering, the Hummer SUV and a pickup truck offer over a thousand horsepower on certain models. I suspect Cadillac is probably going to consider offering a V version as well. Remember, this is an electric car, so they can easily turn the wick up on the electric motors, reduce the range, give us over a thousand horsepower, because zero to 60 in under five seconds is fast, but I suspect they could turn up the wick and give this thing performance that'll be right around the three and a half low four-second range. But if you guys are wondering how you're going to get your hands on this vehicle, well, Cadillac says that production of this car at factory zero in Michigan is going to be starting next summer. So you're going to have to wait until probably late 2024 or early 2025 to get your hands on this vehicle. But Cadillac says when it does go on sale, it'll start at around $130,000. Now, $130,000 certainly sounds like a lot of money. A gas Cadillac Escalade starts at around $80,000. So Cadillac is roughly asking about $50,000 extra, but also keep in mind, if you guys are also considering the Escalade V, that starts at $150,000. So technically the electric Escalade has more or similar power. It's going to have a more range, most likely with 450, and it's going to be a little bit cheaper. Now, of course, that's the base version. I have no idea how much this model is, which is the Sport 2, which is going to be the more higher trim version. But overall, let me know in the comment section below what you guys of the Escalade IQ. But thank you guys so much for watching. 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