The Cadillac Celestiq was officially launched by General Motors as a large bespoke electric car that will retail for over $300,000. At this price, the Celestiq is in the ultra-luxury segment and will compete with other manufacturers Bentley and Rolls-Royce.
General Motors executives seem to have made the Celestiq a “halo car” that helped improve Cadillac’s image, rather than hoping for mass sales like a mass product.
But, if successful, it could create a new two-unit business model for the company: one focused on handcrafted high-end vehicles and the other on mass-production models.
“It is a brand builder. It’s a hello vehicle. It will lift people’s perception of the brand,” Rory Harvey, global vice president of Cadillac. “The business case has and continues to evolve, but it’s not just purely about the car. It’s about what it does for Cadillac and how it lifts the other Cadillac variants.”
Customers can customize almost all aspects of the vehicle such as vehicle interiors, exterior colors, and other non-mechanical elements. Customers can work with Cadillac designers and engineers to customize the electric vehicle of their dreams.
GM plans to produce only hundreds of Celestiq cars per year. The Celestiq will be sold globally, with the largest markets expected to be the US and China.
GM says the Celestiq is only available on request, with a “significant deposit” by the customer to start the manufacturing process.
If you are interested in buying a Celestiq, orders will start as early as the end of this year and production starting in December 2023.
Celestiq offers a range of cutting-edge technologies including adaptive air suspension, magnetic ride control and rear steering to balance ride comfort and car performance.
In addition there are 115 3D-printed parts, including the metal center of the vehicle’s steering wheel.
The Celestiq is Cadillac’s second electric vehicle after the Lyriq crossover which went on sale earlier this year. Lyriq and Celestiq are two early models of the electric vehicle portfolio for the brand. Cadillac targets to make exclusively electric vehicles by 2030.
The Celestiq is about 18 feet long and 7 feet wide, wider and longer than the Cadillac Escalade SUV. The Celestiq is built on the automaker’s Ultium electric vehicle platform, but with an exclusive car structure.
GM claims the Celestiq has a range of over 300 miles on a single charge, with a performance of 600 horsepower, 640 foot-pounds of torque and a 0-60 mph acceleration of 3.8 seconds.
With those specs, it’s lower in performance than some of today’s luxury EVs and less expensive like the smaller $169,000 Lucid Air.
To open the door, owners can press a button or open the door automatically when the driver approaches the vehicle with the key fob, according to GM.
The Celestiq features five interactive LED screens, including a 55-inch diagonal screen that spans the front of the car; “smart glass roof” which includes adjustable transparency options; and Ultra Cruise, GM’s next-generation advanced driver assistance system that the company says will be capable of self-driving in most circumstances.
