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How will the Cadillac Escalade stay GM's profit leader with their promise of an EV future

A big SUEV like a Cadillac Escalade EV would sell really well under the Cadillac banner, but just like Tesla's Maxwell battery initiative, GM also needs to come up with some revolutionary EV battery initiative of their own to get head of competition. Producing an affordable EV battery will be a decisive factor in taking electric cars to the next generation.
2019 Cadillac Escalade Front

I believe that Tesla's initial plan was to swap out the 18,650 batteries with the Model 3's 2,170 batteries this fall for the Model S and X. However, there is a chance that Tesla's acquisition of Maxwell technologies could leapfrog the 2,170 batteries and go straight ahead with the Maxwell dry electrode batteries instead.

See my article here on Torquenews about what Tesla's Maxwell Technology acquisition means moving forward.

Escalade EV and GM's New Automotive Batteries

Regarding the new Cadillac Escalade, it was about 2 years ago when I first read rumors about how the 2023 EV Escalade would be a quantum leap ahead of the competition, with some revolutionary innovations. GM has said that they have new automotive batteries that are due out in 2021 that will have higher energy density, but still will cost only 30% as much to produce as the Chevy Bolt's batteries.

Currently the Cadillac Escalade is the highest profit vehicle in GM's portfolio (per vehicle). Yet, that's a double edged sword because the easy path is just to leave the Escalade unchanged and keep milking the cash cow until gas prices go up and the full sized SUV market shrinks again.

But the smart money is to keep the Escalade a moving target by adding the impressive new Blackwing 4.2L twin turbo V8 engine currently used in Cadillac's CT6 V-Sport, with a whopping 550HP/627TQ, and then add the full BEV model in 2022 to honor GM's promise to have Cadillac as GM's leader in BEVs moving forward.

Watch where the GM's Chevy Bolt fits into this list of the best-selling electric cars of 2019 so far in this video. (Please subscribe to Torque News YouTube Channel for daily automotive news and analysis).

See you in my next story discussing 4 European supercars that set the stage for the upcoming 2022 C8 Zora Hybrid Corvette.

Dean McManis is an electric car specialist and can be reached on Facebook at DeanMcManis for tips and feedback. Please, also leave your comments below for discussion.

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Comments

David (not verified)    July 25, 2019 - 12:21PM

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They won't sell any better than the ELR the price will be much higher than the ICE version. Now if they discontinue the ICE version all bets are off.

DeanMcManis (not verified)    July 25, 2019 - 12:41PM

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The Cadillac ELR is my daily driver now, but I agree that it's failure in the market was over pricing. Traditionally, the Cadillac versions of Chevy models cost $15K-$20K more, but the ELR came out at nearly DOUBLE the Volt's initial $40K price. Granted, the ELR was a wholly different car that merely shared the Volt's Voltec drivetrain, but if Cadillac had taken a short term loss on the car (selling it for $15K over the Volt's price) the ELR would have been a big hit and showed Cadillac as an EV innovator 5 years ago. I just went to my local Cadillac dealer yesterday and saw a regular Escalade like the one pictured above with a sticker price of $88K! Right now they are yielding a profit of upwards of $50K per vehicle, so they can absorb the extra cost of the EV Escalade transformation for a short while, as Cadillac establishes themselves as the Tesla division of GM. Plus it is most likely that the upcoming BEV3 EV drivetrain used will be cost shared with the future (top selling) EV Silverado and Suburban.