Could the $54,000 Cadillac Optiq Be a Huge Hit? – CleanTechnica

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Could the Cadillac Optiq be the next big thing in the US EV market?

Cadillac is an interesting brand. Long ago, when my parents and grandparents were young, it was the luxury brand in the United States. It was king of the hill. But, gradually, new options came onto the market and Cadillac became more and more associated with … grandparents. It pretty much seemed like the brand was dying. However, the Escalade came onto the scene, quickly became one of the most prominent vehicles of rappers, celebrities, and country clubs, and the brand has done quite well for itself. (To be honest, I was surprised to find out the Escalade first hit the market in 1999 — I thought it was a bit older than that.)

In recent years, Cadillac’s XT line (XT4, XT5, and XT6) has been quite popular. Something sort of between and XT vehicle and an Escalade, but electric and even more luxurious, is Cadillac’s first fully electric model, and it’s been kicking butt. In fact, no other auto brand in country has more of its sales coming from pure electric vehicles than Cadillac — and that’s all the Lyriq. In the first quarter, 16.4% of Cadillac’s US sales were sales of the Lyriq. Now, Cadillac is coming out with a slightly more affordable EV, the Cadillac Optiq, starting at about $54,000. It’s a little smaller, and looks more like a competitor to the XT line.

Note that sells about 50% more of its XT vehicles than Escalades. The Escalade has about double the sales of any single XT model, but the three of them together add up to about 50% more. Naturally, part of that definitely comes from the fact that the Escalade is significantly more expensive than the XT4, XT5, or XT6, but that’s also the case for Cadillac’s electric vehicles. The Lyriq and Optiq are much closer in price to the XT line than the Escalade. (By the way, there’s an electric Escalade coming, the Escalade IQ, and it’s estimated to start at about $50,000 more than the the normal Escalade — $130,000 versus just over $80,000. I’ll come back to that in a minute.)

Bringing the Optiq to market tells me a couple of things. For one, it tells me that Cadillac is serious about selling EVs (if that wasn’t already clear). If Cadillac wasn’t serious about this, it would just sell the Lyriq. Bringing another EV to market that’s just a couple thousand dollars cheaper doesn’t make sense if you’re trying to keep EVs to a niche category and corner of your dealerships. Having the Lyriq and the Optiq, like having the three XT vehicles, tells people Cadillac is behind EVs and giving you options, with even fairly small differences in order to jack up the model count, have more EVs on lots, and appeal to more market segments. Frankly, Cadillac could have just rolled out another version of the Lyriq — but this is marketing, it is trying to sell EVs!

Also, while the price of the Optiq is currently estimated to start at $54,000, one has to think that it could come down in price later on when it’s being mass produced. Lowering its price could stimulate more purchases and create more of a difference between it and the Lyriq in order to push buyers into the segments they’re more drawn to.

Tech Crunch even notes that the Optiq may be targeted at hipsters! “The latest is the 2025 Optiq, a mid-size crossover that could finally snag the young, hipster customers Cadillac has longed for. With a base price of $54,000, it’s the cheapest in the EV lineup, and its design has enough special touches to stand apart from the rest of its portfolio.” Note that this is close to the price arena of a Tesla Model Y. If a fairly wealthy “hipster” wants an EV that stands out a bit more than the millions of Model Ys on the road, or doesn’t want to buy an EV from a company CEO who has endorsed Donald Trump, boom — the Optiq is staring them right in the face.

And let’s come back to that Escalade IQ. You don’t roll out a new model that’s $50,000 more than your top-end model without thinking, and even more so when this is an EV and is building on the giant legacy brand of the Escalade. Cadillac 100% wants to be seen as an EV leader and a company that’s going all-in on EVs. (It probably also wants some of those sweetly insane profit margins available up in cloud territory.) Cadillac is telling people: Oh, you want the fanciest new thing on the block? That’s an EV. But even if you can’t afford the Escalade IQ, we’ve got this Optiq over here you will love.

Oh yeah, and we haven’t even talked about the Celestiq, which doesn’t have a listed MSRP and you have to inquire about if you want to buy it.

By the way, the Optiq is being produced in Mexico, which, it turns out, recently elected a female climate scientist as its next president. Talk about progress! Am I jealous? Am I probably very jealous? Don’t ask me if I’m jealous! “The automaker’s Mexican subsidiary has finally confirmed that the all-new Cadillac Optiq will be manufactured at the GM Ramos Arizpe plant, the company’s most advanced factory in the country that was modernized to produce next-generation fully electric vehicles,” GM Authority writes. “A pair of GM Mexico executives confirmed to Cluster Industrial that the Mexican plant is preparing to begin production of the Cadillac Optiq in the last quarter of the year.”

“The Ramos Arizpe Complex received a $1 billion investment in 2021 for the production of electric cars, as the fifth General Motors North America plant to produce EVs,” said GM Mexico’s Communications Department to local press. “Recently, Cadillac announced in Paris the launch of Optiq, which will also be produced in the Ramos Arizpe plant in the last quarter of the year.”

I have to give big kudos to Cadillac on the Optiq. It’s an attractive EV packed with the features and luxe you’d expect from a Cadillac and at a somewhat affordable price. I look forward to seeing them all over my Florida suburb instead of all of the XT4, XT5, and XT6 crossovers I see, and I look forward to tracking its quarterly sales growth.

All images courtesy of Cadillac.