The recent GM EV Day event was overflowing with new info on the automaker’s upcoming line of all-electric offerings, including the announcement of a new flagship luxury sedan from Cadillac called the Celestiq. Now, according to media in attendance at the event, the upcoming Cadillac Celestiq will cost at least $200,000.
If true, that price tag will make the Cadillac Celestiq the most-expensive production vehicle ever sold with a Caddy badge, catapulting the sedan into the realm of European heavy-hitters from the likes of Bentley, Rolls-Royce, and Mercedes-Maybach.
Cadillac Escala concept
Granted, that’s probably where a flagship model should be – at the top of the pile, waving the brand banner and raining down premium, aspirational associations across the make’s entire stable. The question, though, is this – what will the Cadillac Celestiq offer to justify the eye-watering price tag?
For now, Caddy is keeping its cards close to its chest on that front, merely stating that the upcoming sedan will be the “ultimate expression of Cadillac design and technology, with a bold, dramatic presence, and unparalleled refinement and innovation.” Sounds promising, but how about something a little more concrete?
Cadillac Escala concept
Well, we know that the Celestiq will most likely adopt GM’s next-gen BEV3 electric platform for underpinnings, and could offer both RWD and AWD drivetrain configurations. We also know that the sedan will likely take styling cues from the gorgeous Cadillac Escala concept that debuted in 2016 at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Finally, we expect the four-door to arrive sometime between 2023 and 2024, following the launch of the Cadillac Lyriq crossover slated for 2022.
Furthermore, it’s entirely possible the Cadillac Celestiq will offer some hugely impressive output figures. We already know that GM isn’t shy when it comes to making high-powered all-electrics, as evidenced by the 1,000-horsepower claims of the upcoming GMC Hummer EV, and given the Celestiq’s price tag, we think something near four-figures for motivation would be entirely justified. In addition, the Celestiq will be hand-built in the United States.
Super Cruise in the 2021 Cadillac Escalade
Then, of course, we have the tech offerings. Perhaps the Cadillac Celestiq will offer the highly advanced next-gen version of the Super Cruise semi-autonomous driving system called Ultra Cruise, something which will get closer to full autonomy than the systems currently in use with the Cadillac CT6, CT5, CT4, and next-gen 2021 Cadillac Escalade.
We’ll follow this story as it develops, so make sure to subscribe to GM Authority for more Cadillac Celestiq news, Cadillac news, and 24/7 GM news coverage.
Comments
I hope that GM is approaching this from the direction of building the absolute no compromises AT ALL totally best car ever built! They can if they want to, only thing in the way is the bureaucratic penny pinchers and autocratic unimaginative management that will keep this from happening. The great challenge is NOT building the car thats the easy part!!!!!
Second thought is at 200k or close to, this car will be everything the CT6 was claimed to be, {insert official reason for canceling it ] Now a more expensive lower volume car is coming. I am not objecting to it just wondering how to make the pieces fit in a way that makes scene. Seems to me Cadillac needs a car in that can move into the low 100K CT6 Blackwings, to fill the price gap between CT4-CT5 60K to 200K……………
What Cadillac needs to do is come back down to earth, they have forgotten the
Buyer that brought her to the dance. $100,000 for a Cadillac is redicilous and will
Never fly. Americans don’t want electric ,self driving cars but they do want a good transportation value that is priced right, fun to drive and a realistic vehicle !
And has range to match the rwd CT6
Tom Robinson
“Good transportation value that is priced right”
Are you suggesting Cadillac build a Camry fighter?
The CT5 is there for you today!…
Tom Robinson, you do realize the article is about a Cadillac flagship sedan that they haven’t truly had in a VERY long time? This isn’t the car for value, but they’ll have cars for that in the CT4 and CT5. Your comment goes against the very nature of a true flagship, as it is supposed to be a vehicle that someone would aspire to own, and bring people into the showroom, not provide value.
Tom, Thats not Cadillac’s job… Sadly some inside GM see it just as you do. Perfect examples would be CIMARON AND CATERA!
YES it IS Cadillacs job…. to provide a vehicle wher the buyer can justify the expense. They created the Allante and priced it at the same $$ as the well established Mercedes SL.. it failed. The Catera priced at/near a BMW 3 Series = failed. The XLR priced at SL levels again and the XLR-V was over $100K = Failed, then the ELR, a Volt with a great looking body priced at $75K = FAIL…. THIS is GM’s legacy.
A $200K vehicle by GM has got to be so incredible with so much going for it OR it will fail and I think miserable. GM will then say no one wants a coach build custom Lux Sedan.
Also if they launch it after all their other EV’s using the same platform as the Chevy Astriq it will also fail. You’d think these idiots would learn from their mistakes… I predict this will be an Electric Escala and they’ll price it poorly and gorgeous as it might be, it’ll fail and they’ll say no one wants a gorgeous EV…
Thats not Cadillac’s job. Sadly some in GM see it just as you do, CIMARON and CATERA are perfect examples.
“Seems to me Cadillac needs a car in that can move into the low 100K CT6 Blackwings, to fill the price gap between CT4-CT5 60K to 200K…”
I’ve been thinking the same thing. We’ve curiously heard basically nothing about the VSS-R RWD platform for a long time…maybe that’s the answer? Doubtful, but there’s a chance. Or they may just throw a 5 Series-sized EV sedan in there to cover, who knows.
Cadriver
The CT6 is still sold in China. The Celestiq will be exported to China.
In the U.S. GM will have the Escalade, Corvette & Hummer EV. HD pickup trucks, Electrics & Cadillac Vs.
They will be well represented in the ~$100K market.
Out of the three vehicles you mentioned, only one is a Cadillac. None are Cadillac sedans.
As someone who wants to see Cadillac become a serious full-line performance-luxury brand, a Corvette and a Hummer are no replacements for a Cadillac sedan in the $65-100k price range.
GM doens’t know how to build a $100K vehicle… they only know how to price one at $100K…
Well so much for that then. While I think a halo car is needed at Cadillac and a big sedan is needed, I don’t see this as the right portfolio mix. Even the respected German luxury brands don’t price their big sedans like that and they have a hierarchy of products that graduate into the upper echelon price points. GM will have the $50,000 smallish CT5 sedan and then a gigantic electric sedan at $200,000?
Cadillac is a brand selling a ton of rebadged and rebodied Chevrolet’s and then they’re thinking folks will buy a $200,000 sedan with the same name? I’d be all for this, I’ve often said Cadillac once competed with Rolls Royce and should be aiming higher today but they’re going to need better entry level and mid-tier products to go with a $200K car.
If this represents their new top-end and they’ll be elevating the brand in general then I’m happy but they canceled CT6 so there’s a huge gap between CT5 and this.
Ci2eye
Bentley & Rolls Royce haven’t made money in a long time. It’s how they ended up being owned by the Germans.
The Germans have divided up the highend market between too many models and too many brands. Facing stiff competition from Tesla & Land Rover, none of those models make money anymore. With Europe & China going heavy on electric. The Germans will need to focus all their resources on the high volume models at the lower end of the luxury spectrum to stay in business.
Nobody sane claims that Tesla competes with Bentley and Rolls.
Peter G,
I didn’t say anything about Rolls Royce in context of today. I didn’t say anything about Bentley at all.
What I was suggesting was that in their heyday, Cadillac competed with Rolls Royce so I think they should be aiming higher today than the near-luxury market they compete in with all those FWD crossovers (XT4, XT5, XT6). I for sure think competing with Rolls Royce would be much too giant of a leap for Cadillac today. They’d be doing well with competent models to match Genesis at this point. They aren’t even a legit competitor with Korea and for sure aren’t on par with the German brands. Rolls is in an entirely different league. All Cadillac has left is the name that still has a lot of residual prestige but the products don’t live up to the name.
Having said all that, I know Bentley doesn’t make money and VW has established a profitability goal for them in the next few years. I’m pretty sure Rolls Royce does though although BMW AG doesn’t release those numbers.
So this thing is going to have to completely be a leader on all fronts showcasing future technologies and styles that will eventually cascade down to $20,000 vehicles. This task has historically been dominated by the S Class.
I agree Andrew. I personally think this is a genius idea. Cadillac going electric provides the brand with a completely new slate to reestablish themselves on the market. Not only that, but you can afford to charge a huge sum of money for a flagship luxury sedan because of how new the tech is. If Cadillac tried to make a Maybach-fighting sedan, people would laugh them out of the room. But an electric sedan, full-size, with zero compromises (as Reuss has said)…that could work. But it HAS to be NO COMPROMISES, none. This is a segment no one has even come close to touching. If Cadillac was the first, they could establish themselves as king of that segment. And what better image-booster for Cadillac then being king of the full-size high-class electric sedans? Plays to their heritage perfectly.
As a side note, one automotive journalist said that, besides being stunning outside, he said the attention to detail and materials used was not only Mercedes-esque, but Maybach-esque. This is likely the flagship JDN endlessly teased before he got canned.
I don’t think that’s 100% true.
Who had the first factory remote start? GM (Chevy)
Who had the first night vision? GM (Cadillac)
who had the first electric starter? GM (Cadillac)
Who was one of the earliest adopters of the panoramic moonroof? GM (Cadillac)
I’m not saying that the S-class is not the top of the line, but you can’t say that the it was historically a tech leader.
Another stupid idea. If they couldn’t sell the C6, they won’t sell enough of these to make it worth doing. Take a page from the new Corvette. Build a car equal to the best of Mercedes and sell it for half the price.
Where do you think the Corvette got its interior from?
They have already stated that this is not going to be a mass produced car. I see maybe 250 to 750 over the course of its lifespan. Which is achievable, especially considering they follow through with it being almost completely hand made. The majority if it’s sales more than likely being in China. I’m with the few that feels that Cadillac needs a Lexus LFA or a Ford GT or a more relatable MB Maybach. They need something to give them a better image than what they have. No V series is going to do that. The V gives them the performance aspect, but not the luxury aspect that they need.
Hopefully they do follow up with the no compromise statement. Cadillac may have decent sales currently. That will only go so far with the current portfolio that they have though.
Just waiting for the GM brass to begin their mass exits(retirement packages in hand) just as this and the other EV’s start to stream unto the market with the damage already done.
So the old American coach-build approach, I like it.
The last Cadillac IMO was 1957 when you can get a unique Cadillac that shared little with the rest of GM, the party was over in 58′ when an Impala looked and can be nearly optioned as a Caddy (Lincoln died in 69-70′ when the Continental became a T-bird and Mercury with style and Imperial in the same time became a loaded Plymouth).
As someone else said there’s a huge gap between CT5 and the Celestiq, hopefully Caddy is working a tween sedan a division counterpart..
“hopefully Caddy is working a tween sedan a division counterpart”
A between sedan with a divisional counterpart (Chevy, Buick). I hate autocorrect
good luck with that one.
gm has cancelled the april debut of the lyriq due to corona.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2020/03/06/automakers-coronavirus-parts-disruptions/4977019002/
The car is beautiful but I’m not interested in an electric car at any price.
It’s ridiculous to put all that money into a car that only a few can afford. Mercedes would never have dropped the S Class and just offer an E Class or Maybach. I don’t think I’ve ever see a Maybach on the road but I see plenty of S Classes.
Steve
I see a lot more Escalades than S-classes on the road. The reason you never see a Maybach is because Mercedes only sold 3,000 worldwide in the 10 years the brand was on the market.
Its not about sales, Steve. If you’re Cadillac, you need an image car to set the tone for the brand, to reestablish yourself with consumers. Cadillac needs this desperately.
Yet Benz with Maybach have Police cars, taxis and trucks but Cadillac magically can’t make a $200k car, lol.
I bet they’ll sell of lot of those for $200,000 !!!
What are these guys thinking ???
Wayyyyyy back in 1987, Cadillac introduced the Allante. I was green behind the ears at the child-like age of 19. I just started at the Cadillac (Buick, GMC and Honda) store and was in love with American luxury. I vividly recall the intro of the Allante and all the hype with it: Being hand built (or at least in part), hand crafted words described the car. Engines assembled in the USA. Body of the car being flown in special planes from Italy and the USA, etc, etc. Although a much different car than this new Celestiq, there are also many similarities. If you look at the starting price of the Allante back in 1987 (if my memory serves me, it was around $48-57,000), and then factor that $50g would now be closer to the $200g in today’s money. The Allante was being built for very wealthy customers with a very different demographic than the clients buying a DeVille or Fleetwood. Cadillac was going after the MB wealth.
Everything about the Celestiq makes me go back to the Allante. I really would love to see Cadillac totally succeed on this car. If they do it properly and give it a stunning design, that price tag won’t hinder the few who would buy it. However, just one mis-step will tank this car. Do this Cadillac and do it with all you have!
I would also like to see the Celestiq succeed, but I Cadillac is pushing the envelop a bit too far it they actually think they can sell this car for $200,000. I understand your Allante argument and in fact I was one of 3,000 or so people who bought one. I bought a 1988, and if I’m not mistaken, the list price was $58.600. It was expensive, but it was quite a bit cheaper than a Mercedes SL, at the time. I think Cadillac has a long way to go before it can justify asking Bentley money for one of its cars,
I definitely see your point, but I think there’s two critical factors missing from the Allante analogy:
1.) The Allante was billed as being a zero compromises, no-corners-cut car, but it definitely wasn’t that. It was another parts bin, FWD, weak attempt at trying to take the fight to the Germans ruined by bean counters.
2.) The Celestiq presents a huge opportunity because, as an EV super-luxury sedan, it would be the only one available, and could set the standard in perhaps the (potentially) most critical segment, image-wise, for luxury automakers of the future. You simply cannot understate how beneficial a huge, technologically masterful, uber-luxury sedan could be for Cadillac, especially if its the king of the segment. The Allante never became anything near that important, nor could it ever anyway.
@G8Burnout: I do agree with you for the most part. However, one thing that you are missing here is the idea they had then compared to now. My comparison may not be perfect, but it’s close to it. When they did the Allante, back then they had the same dreams and “goals” if you will, just like they seem to be doing here now. Of course there is a huge difference of gas vs electric. But back in the eighties, the Allante was (in their heads) the car that was going to change everything for Cadillac. Fast forward to today and I’m certain they have the same basic idea in their heads that this car will change everything. I hope this one does! I really want this to be a global smackdown! I dream that the super wealthy will be lining up for this car and it brings retail price or higher.
Question for you. In your #1, you say the Allante was “another prts bin, FWD week attempt”. What other cars was it sharing anything with? Yes, it was front drive. However, in the day, the Allante did quite well against the competition from the car magazines, etc. Sales just never made it.
You know I am a Cadillac fan and love GM but this car may be nuts?
Let’s face it do you pay all this money for a unproven a Cadillac or do you just get the proven Bentley?
Will this Cadillac just be another $25k car in 5 years like the XLRV has become?
I know GM can build a car that is worth $200 k but will they let the engineers and designers get all they need to make it right?
I will state right now if anything inside or outside the car is identifiable part from a Chevy it is match over.
At least VW borrows for the Bentley from Bugatti not from the Jetta.
Bentley doesn’t have an EV yet. This car is aiming for the people who want the performance and green cred of an EV with the status and luxury of a Bentley.
The price point could work if Cadillac has learned a lesson from the past. They can not offer a over priced under performing vehicle. It has to be top tier in every way or don’t even waste their money.
As a matter of fact with their past reputation they need to be better than all the rest. Being just as good and costing just as much is not going to cut it. That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong. I was once back in 1854 ,or was that 1954? Been so long I can’t remember. Lol
Agreed… We all remember the 75k two door chevy volt which rotted on the dealer lots (deservedly)…
My opinion that I keep sharing with everyone here that Cadillac will have a huge opportunity and most likely their last chance at becoming a Tier One Luxury Auto Brand is only with the transition to EV’s. It is really looking like I might be proven correctly with everything media is buzzing about what they have seen. Now I will remain calm as I still understand that this is a GM Brand and the Beancounters can still destroy this Brand. But everyone that has seen the Lyriq is saying it is simply amazing. So maybe just maybe I will be proven correct with my assumption that Cadillac switching to EV’s will be what finally Brings this Brand Back. Cannot wait to see what these next 10 years have in store for us.
Cadillac as a whole needs to distinguish itself from the rest of the GM lineup. if they continue using dashboards, steering wheels, switchgear, and other visible and tactile elements that other vehicles in the GM lineup use, They are doomed to get only a slight premium.
They need to up the game and make a truly unique not just another cloned GM vehicle.
It may be an amazing beautiful car, but why would someone buy a $200k Cadillac when they can buy $100k Tesla. The GM and Cadillac brand have been ruined after 30 years of building mediocrity. They will have work to rebuild brand value and it will not come overnight. Overpricing is not going to work.
Seems awesome, but it won’t ever be a significant money making product at that price. Still, if it helps to re-ignite passion within GM for building great cars, I’m all for it. But I think there is an extremely high risk that people will look at it and say “Why should I pay 200k for a sedan with the same underlying architecture as every other GM vehicle on the market?”
Will there be enough to differentiate it when EVs are the norm? EVs are very quick by their nature. In the past, these hyper-expensive luxury saloons had extremely expensive, bespoke engines and powertrains which were necessary to provide the high performance that buyers expected, especially in a super heavy car. Performance has always been a draw for these cars. It isn’t all just soft touch leather and wood interiors that draws people to them.
With EVs, even mid-range GM products are going to be very snappy on the road. I don’t see there being as much of an impetus to spend that much when much cheaper vehicles have performance that is nearly as good. You can only go so fast on public roads. The Hummer will need 3 electric motors with 1000hp to feel quick. A sleek, aerodynamic cadillac uber-luxury sedan with that setup is going to be dangerously hyper-car fast. Do we even NEED that?
It’ll sell a few thousand units and prop up the brand, but I’ll never be able to afford one, so to a certain extent I don’t really care about it, honestly. The large luxury sedans are already over-priced. Does anyone really think a base S-class is worth $100,000? Give me a break.
Show me an S-class competitor for $75k and I’ll be impressed.
I think your comment points to something I’ve been thinking about; what will differentiate a luxury car vs. a mainstream car in an EV world.
Right now, the only real luxury EV we have is a Tesla Model S, a Porsche Tucan, Audi ETron, and a few other new-to-market products with the Tesla being the only one with history.
The Model S has been a novelty with its electric drivetrain and Silicon Valley pedigree. What happens though with the future GM envisions? When there’s a skateboard platform, batteries sitting in a tray and the number based on vehicle size and the same generic little electric motors? What determines luxury at that point?
Throughout automotive history, a cheap car had a rudimentary platform and a small, often four-cylinder engine with a manual transmission – think Model T, VW Beetle, MINI, Chevrolet Cavalier, Toyota Corolla, etc. On the other hand, a luxury car was built on a larger, much more sophisticated platform, with a large sophisticated engine sometimes with 12 cylinders or a V-8. A luxury car’s power train was smooth, quiet, and powerful.
From what I’ve seen of GM’s EV plans, it’s the ultimate in platform sharing which is probably why they’re doing it. The skateboard works well with GM’s parts sharing culture. They build a platform and scale it up or down using the same batteries and motors and put a pickup body on it, a Cadilliq body on it or a Hummer body on it but underneath, it’s the same. If this is indeed the plan, it explains why Ruess is so confident they’ll make money from Day 1. They are building a 21st Century Chrysler K-Car. The K used the same platform and 2.2 Turbo 4 for family sedans, vans, sports cars, luxury sedans, and even a quasi-exotic. This looks to be the same plan. It’s the ultimate in cheap.
So what makes a Cadillac special in this era? Or any other luxury car if they all do this. It won’t be the unique Blackwing 4.2 TT V-8? It has me wondering.
Model S and luxury don’t belong in the same sentence. They cheaper out on interior matrriors, build quality, and sound deadening. When you make an EV, with a nearly silent motor, that is noisier inside than a midrange ICE sedan because of wind noise, you do not deserve to be called luxury.
Yet the CT6 was a WM Caprice/ G8/Commodore with unique sheetmetal, no problem with it.
I get the economy of scale but hell if you do/hell if you don’t and it’s reaching if you compare what GM doing to what Chrysler did in the 80s. Most of Bentley models are on Audi VW bones, Rolls today even have mostly BMW based models, Lincoln’s electrics will come from some unknown Sillycone Valley start-up. What “grand plan” you have for an ultra-Caddy?..
“Yet the CT6 was a WM Caprice/ G8/Commodore with unique sheetmetal, no problem with it.”
I’m sorry…WHAT??
Totally agree
And that’s the culture today… “Give me Rolls Royce products, at Corolla prices”. Just because… you know, it is a Cadillac.
Everyone complains that Cadillac is a “luxury Chevy”. But over at the German camps, we have cars equivalent to a VW, to then cross the pond with little vinyl seats, plasti-wood and silver-painted buttons and all of a sudden it is luxury. And add to that, now “Tier1” bull****. Yea, the same nameplate that will pick up your garbage in all sorts of markets, while sell you an overpriced commuter FWD, and construction vans are deemed “luxury”?
Worst of all, all those Germans will not see 5 years without issues, they’re dead at 10 years.
Cadillac, that is exactly what you need… a halo car. It would have been better with CT6 in the portfolio so there isn’t a big gap, but I will wait on the sidelines and see how does it all come about.
Cadillac has always been something akin to “the best car that you can reasonably expect to buy if you have a good job and work hard.” A 1955 cadillac fleetwood was $5300, the most expensive car they’d every produced at that time. That’s $51,000 today.
This idea that Cadillac should be, or has ever been, a Rolls-Royce/Bentley level product, is just plain wrong. You may “want” them to be that, but thats never been the business model and likely never will be.
Them teasing a $200,000 uber-luxury sedan is fun and everything, but it won’t sell and they know it. Cadillac will, as it always has, try to build the best $50,000 car they can and hope people buy it. That’s their game, and why would they change it considering that is where the money is?
The CT5 is there for you today!…
Plus the custom built (and really expensive) Gulden/Depression-era Cadillacs was only compared to Rolls, Benz/Pullman and Lincoln, they have a chance to pull it off.
The CT5 is a great car, and the CT5-V is an excellent car. I have absolutely no use for a $200,000 sedan that will ride on the same platform as the $50,000 ones. I hope its an amazing car, I really do, but lets be real, it’s pure marketing.
$200K and people thought Cadillac’s CT6 was overpriced.
Cadillac at the EV day has said this car will be hand made and have a limited run. I’m guessing say 500 units?
It makes you wonder, GM talk a good game. But two or three years for a flagship car,the rest of the world would still be ahead of them.I say fire them all I thought GM was a business.
Cadillac has a hard time pushing a $100k vehicle. They sold very few CT6-Vs, CTS-Vs and Escalade Platinums. But somehow they’re going to push a $200k one? No chance in hell. They’ll be lucky to sell a dozen of these in China. Probably won’t move a single one in the US. They haven’t proven to us that they can build vehicles that are worth anywhere close to that. I bought a $73k CTS-V in 2011. From day one, the thing rattled from the dash and sunroof. Rented a 2019 CTS last summer. It also rattled, from the sunroof and dash. Eight years, two generations, and they can’t fix a problem. Inexcusable for a company trying to move upmarket.
If Mary Bara is in charge it will be a complete flop. She knows as much about cars as Obama did about the police department.
Mary is an engineer who came up through the GM ranks. She knows a hell of a lot more about cars than you do.
She’s a 35 year lifer, as was her father, and she says she wants to change the culture. Sure she knows “GM” but when I met her she was in Human Resources… she’s not qualified to be there, she was appointed by Barry Soetoro and she’s ruining this company. Oh and bubbaq knows a hell of a lot more than you do about everything… knowitallbutthead…
Remember the GM HYPE about the Omega platform? CT6 was first, then a unspecified CT7 or 8, Elmargej and Esclade on Omega… Remember all that? What happened next? The cheapskates at GM panicked and canceled this NEW direction to cut costs. Cant help but to think after two or three years of dithering GM will come out and BOLDLY announce cancellation of this next new way for Cadillac and expect accolades for there cost cutting efforts. This of course after a internal program to massively cut costs and fatally cheapen the end result will come first, then the natural GM reaction of canceling it.. HYPE IT, HYPE IT, HYPE IT, CUT IT, CUT IT, CUT IT. KILL IT! DONE!
This is pretty cool. even if they only sell five a year.
It seems when it comes to low volume niche market cars Reuss is taking the wheel. I say that’s a good thing because he has a passion for great cars. At least he does not come across like a beancounter.