After a year of excitement, General Motors has unveiled the Cadillac Celtic, a $300,000 ultra-luxury electric sedan that the automaker says is the most Cadillac Cadillac ever.
Celestiq is Cadillac’s first major effort to capture some of the high-end markets currently dominated by companies such as Rolls-Royce and Bentley. As such, GM has piled in on the edge with describing this flagship 55-inch digital-display electric sports utility vehicle with Ultium technology — though it’s still just a show car version of what’s expected to be a production-ready car later this year. . It’s “the purest expression of Cadillac’s 120-year heritage” and is a flask made with “handcrafted” materials and all of GM’s most advanced technologies.
But what about the car itself? The Fastback’s low profile calls to mind a Porsche Panamera or a Mercedes-Benz EQS – but the comparisons pretty much stop there when you start to delve deeper into the design details. The rear of the Celestiq features four sets of corner brake lights, two on each side, that extend all the way to the wheel wells. Certainly the most distinctive and polarizing detail of Celestiq’s design.
Interestingly enough, General Motors refers to the Celestiq as a “show car,” which means it’s just a custom function meant for public display and not for sale. While that doesn’t mean there will be major differences once the production version is revealed, it’s still interesting for GM to see fit to make that distinction.
But apart from highlighting her moment for the first time, there’s nothing else to be revealed. Since it’s only a show car, GM remains silent on most relevant specs, including range, battery capacity, charging time and accelerometers.
Instead, the automaker is focusing on the bespoke nature of the Celestiq — each car will be handcrafted, and Cadillac reportedly only plans to manufacture about 500 units a year — as well as high-tech items meant to set this Cadillac apart from the rest. Presumably we’ll get more precise details once the production version is revealed later this year.
This includes a 55-inch digital pole-to-pillar display with “electronic digital blinds,” which GM describes as an active privacy technology that allows occupants to view videos while blocking the driver’s view. The interior is trimmed in red leather, making the Celestiq fit for ownership (or maybe just the uber-rich).
The panoramic glass roof, a common feature in modern electric vehicles, is modularly adjustable thanks to GM’s “Particle Suspended Device” technology. This allows each occupant of the vehicle to set their own level of transparency, while continuing that theme of personalization, personalization, and privacy.
The electric sedan, which is expected to debut in 2023, will be the first to feature the new GM Ultra Cruise advanced driver assistance system, which the automaker claims will cover “95 percent” of driving scenarios on 2 million miles of US roads. The system is also First to use Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Ride platformwhich would have a processing power equivalent to “several hundred” personal computers.
We also get more details about GM’s production plans for the Celestiq. The automaker plans to invest $81 million to support its assembly at General Motors’ Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, a campus designed by famed Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. The Celestiq would be the first production car to be built there since the center opened in May 1956.
GM first showed the Celestiq to a few reporters at its EV Day event in early 2020, but it’s only now releasing full images of the extravagant electric vehicle. Celestiq is meant to be a companion for Cadillac Lyricand it’s just put into production earlier this year.
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