The 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ Gets Impressive Tech and a Six-Figure Starting Price

by Chris Teague

Published: August 10th, 2023

the 2025 cadillac escalade iq gets impressive tech and a six figure starting price

There are Cadillacs, and then there’s the Escalade. The hulking luxury family hauler has been around since the late 1990s and has become a showcase for the automaker’s technology and design prowess, but GM is going electric, and a three-ton V8-powered SUV doesn’t fit with that vision. Of course, Cadillac couldn’t just drop the Escalade, so it’s going electric with the 2025 Escalade IQ, an impressive and expensive EV that looks every bit as deluxe as its liquid dinosaur-guzzling counterparts.

The IQ’s $130,000 starting price buys a three-row SUV with curvier lines than the current gas model, and Cadillac said it’s the most aerodynamic Escalade to date. Riding on 24-inch wheels, the SUV has air suspension, a 450-mile range, and eye-popping specs. It delivers up to 750 horsepower using the Velocity Max setting, and there’s a whopping 785 pound-feet of torque. Those numbers enable a sub-five-second 0-60 mph time and up to 8,000 pounds of towing capacity.

Like the GMC Hummer EV, the Escalade IQ has rear-wheel steering and its own version of the funky crab walk feature that helps the big-boy Cadillac maneuver in tight spaces. The IQ also offers one-pedal driving and adjustable regenerative braking. Cadillac also equipped a heat pump system that improves range and speeds up charging. It can also redirect heat from the battery to the SUV’s climate control system.

The current Escalade’s cabin is packed with screens, and the IQ will follow suit. It features 55 inches of screen that stretches across the dash. The system uses a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and runs Google built-in. That said, one of the most notable stories about the IQ’s tech comes from what it’s missing: Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. GM promised that the features would not be available in its upcoming EVs, and we’re now starting to see the controversial policy in action.

Cadillac equips a long list of safety features, including intersection automatic emergency braking, blind spot steering assist, and an HD surround-view camera system. Super Cruise comes standard with a three-year free subscription through OnStar, bringing hands-free driving on more than 400,000 miles of highway in the U.S. and Canada.

The IQ will be built in GM’s Factory Zero in Michigan and enter production in the summer of 2024.

[Images: Cadillac]

Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.

#CadillacEscalade #CadillacEscaladeiq

Chris Teague

Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.

More by Chris Teague

Comments

Join the conversation

4 of 31 comments

MaintenanceCosts on Aug 10, 2023

This is what results when your answer to any engineering issue that crops up during development is "MAKE IT BIGGER!"

Like Reply
- FreedMike on Aug 11, 2023
  
  That's the nice thing about electrification - you can make vehicles HUGE and they still don't pollute. This might bode well for the return of the big family sedan or coupe - the market is beyond glutted with SUVs and crossovers, so it might be time for something new (or something old that's new again).
  
  Electro 6000 SUX!
  
  Like
- Peter on Aug 11, 2023
  
  MERICA
  
  Like
Art_Vandelay on Aug 11, 2023

wow...some posts deleted here. I guess some folks don't like being reminded of the Motors Liquidation Corp

Like Reply
- RHD on Aug 11, 2023
  
  Lots of posts were deleted. What, we can't say that when someone buys an Escalade IQ, they get too much of the former and lack too much of the latter?
  
  Like

Recent Comments

Henry The manufacturers should build what the market demands. Sedans are dying off because crossovers offer sedan ride sedan handling sedan mpg and MUCH more utility. When you look at a "crossover" its like the shell of a car from the 30s and 40s with an upright stance, great visability, lots of headroom and easy entry/exit while modern sedans follow the low wide slung back form factor of the late 50s to now sedans. I personally went from a grand marquis (awesome utility awrsome passenger room) to a honda accord (awsome passenger room crappy utility compared to a grand marquis) and when i think i could have grand marquis passenger room, grand marquis utlity, and accord mpg you know what I want? A honda crv. Thats why crossovers are winning. Theyre a better grand marquis.
MKizzy Even if the bulk of Malibu sales were to fleets, they were still a valuable source of modern affordable used vehicles for their second and third owners. With the most affordable GM and Ford vehicles powered by 3cyl turbos, used examples are more likely to be problematic. With the Escape also being dead if reports are true, the question is what comparable GM or Ford vehicles will fleet customers gravitate to post-Malibu? Will rental car agencies have to rethink their vehicle size categories as they're stuck purchasing lookalike compact CUVs.
AZFelix Sedans will continue to be replaced by CUVs and SUVs. The now omnipresent and bloated two-box shape will be considered 'normal' for passenger vehicles for current and future generations. The utility of the extra cargo volume of a CUV when compared to a three-box design may at times be questionable but they have some advantage. The embracing of the ease of entry and egress in CUV/SUVs by the elderly will likely morph into a disdain for the design by more youthful generations of buyers. What teenager wants to be caught driving a 'grandma' car? I suspect that this impression will lead to resurgence of trim and (comparatively) low slung sports wagons and hatchbacks in the near future. I look forward to their return.
MKizzy Sedans in general may make a comeback but only as BEVs and only if customers prioritize driving range over cargo flexibility. I think the moribund 2 and 3 door coupe and hatchback body styles also have a chance for a revival, even if they're in some oddly raised form, driven by falling birth rates and Gen Z/Alpha rejection of the CUVs they were ferried in as kids. Until then, the best case scenario for the ICE sedan market is it stabilizing as a few healthy-selling models much as the minivan market had done. Else, sedans will follow station wagons to become a boutique product sold only by a few luxury nameplates to affluent empty nesters or high earning households seeking second vehicles.
MRF 95 T-Bird Platfor Ms, be they for EVs or ICEs being flexible enough for different types of vehicles it’s not difficult for manufacturers to build sedans, as well coupes, convertibles and wagons as part of their product line.