Cadillac has unveiled its modern and sporty-looking CELESTIQ electric vehicle (EV). This follows the news at the start of the year when Cadillac announced it planned to invest more than $81 million into the company’s Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan to build the CELESTIQ. This is the landmark campus originally designed by Eero Saarinen and the heart of the company’s engineering and design efforts.
This show car is a vision of innovation and previews the brand’s future handcrafted and all-electric flagship saloon. Conceived to lead Cadillac’s electric future and inspired by the brand’s 120-year heritage, it serves as a touchstone for the Cadillac design and engineering teams, who continue to develop the CELESTIQ as it moves closer to production.
Magalie Debellis, Cadillac Advanced Design manager, said: “The CELESTIQ show car is the purest expression of Cadillac. It brings to life the most integrated expressions of design and innovation in the brand’s history, coalescing in a defining statement of a true Cadillac flagship.”
In developing the show car, the design and engineering teams immersed themselves in the artisanship and customisation that defined early Cadillac sedans. These inspirations include the bespoke V-16 powered coaches of the prewar era and the hand-built 1957 Eldorado Brougham.
Tony Roma, chief engineer, said: “Those vehicles represented the pinnacle of luxury in their respective eras, and helped make Cadillac the standard of the world. The CELESTIQ show car — also a sedan, because the configuration offers the very best luxury experience — builds on that pedigree and captures the spirit of arrival they expressed.”
Designers drew further inspiration from classic architecture such as the mid-century masterpieces of architect Eero Saarinen. Plus, other iconic American designs which made era-defining statements when introduced and endured with distinctive timelessness.
Being a division of General Motors (GM), the CELESTIQ is based on the brand’s Ultium-based EV architecture. Cadillac says this has allowed a clean sheet for the design and considers the entirety of travel as a curated experience — one intended to evoke an emotional response.
The CELESTIQ electric show car certainly does that with its sleek styling yet muscular-looking front that is typical of the brand. It also combines old and new styling inside and we’re sure it will divide people but we like it here at ElectricDrives.
Laetitia Lopez, Cadillac Color and Trim creative designer, said: “We’ve combined the beauty of function with the beauty of form. We had to reconsider all aspects to immerse the customer, all of their senses, and create a connection with the vehicle through the finest genuine materials, exceptional detailing and advanced technology.”
The show car previews some of the materials, innovative technologies and hand-crafted attention to detail harnessed to express Cadillac’s vision for the future. Highlights include five high-definition, advanced LED interactive displays including a 55-inch-diagonal advanced LED display.
It also features expected industry firsts such as a variable-transmission Smart Glass Roof and Ultra Cruise. This is General Motors’ next evolution of available hands-free driver assistance technology which Cadillac plans to offer on the CELESTIQ.
The Smart Glass Roof features Suspended Particle Device (SPD) technology that allows for four zones of variable lighting. This enables passengers to fine-tune their cabin experience for completely personalised comfort and visibility.
Additionally, the 55-inch-diagonal advanced LED display introduces a passenger display with electronic digital blinds, an active privacy technology, which is designed to allow passengers to enjoy video content while blocking it from the view of the driver.
All of these technologies and ideas will make the CELESTIQ the most advanced vehicle ever from Cadillac. The CELESTIQ will be the first production vehicle built at the Global Technical Center since the centre’s inauguration in May 1956 and follows the brand’s first electric vehicle, the LYRIQ.
More information and availability for the production version of CELESTIQ will be announced at a later date.
