Cadillac is set to unveil its latest electric vehicle, the Escalade IQ, later this year. The Escalade IQ will join the Lyriq and the upcoming Celestiq as part of Cadillac’s all-electric portfolio. The IQ designation is “Cadillac’s EV nomenclature,” and it first debuted on the Lyriq. It is expected that the Escalade IQ will share parts with the Hummer EV and use GM’s Ultium architectures.
Cadillac has promised to exist this decade as a purveyor of electric-only vehicles, with the Lyriq already out in the wild and Celestiq in the hopper, plus a mysterious Vistiq and Lumistiq waiting in the wings. Cadillac’s new naming scheme is easy to figure out, except for one: Escalade. There’s a ton of brand equity in that name, so changing it to Escaladiq would likely cause weeping in the corner offices of RenCen. How about Escalade IQ, then?
This should not be a surprise, as it was previously reported on these very pages back in 2021. It seems that our guesstimates at the time that Escalade IQ is planned for a regular-length rig while Escalade IQL is intended to append an extended-length brute may have been right on the money. Today’s announcement confirms the former, while the latter remains safely ensconced in GM’s special Drawer o’ Patents.
It is not unreasonable for some people to turn up their noses at this -iq naming scheme, but at least it is evoking some sort of reaction. The decision by Johan De Nysschen to rename everything with the hateful CTx and XTx prefixes will surely go down as one of the more notable marketing blunders, ranking up there with Acura ditching tremendous names like Vigor and Legend for their own xSX alphabet soup as prime case studies for future textbook case studies. The trend is now reversing.
Even though the last couple of years have been topsy-turvy in terms of supply, the Escalade has historically sold in roughly equal numbers to the Suburban and Yukon XL, despite its higher price. It outsells everything else in the Cadillac showroom by a ratio of 2:1, approximately.
Cadillac’s promise to exist this decade as a purveyor of electric-only vehicles is becoming a reality with the Lyriq already out in the wild and Celestiq in the hopper. The Escalade IQ will join these vehicles as part of Cadillac’s all-electric portfolio. The IQ designation is “Cadillac’s EV nomenclature,” and it first debuted on the Lyriq. It is expected that the Escalade IQ will share parts with the Hummer EV and use GM’s Ultium architectures.
Cadillac’s new naming scheme is easy to figure out, except for one: Escalade. There’s a ton of brand equity in that name, so changing it to Escaladiq would likely cause weeping in the corner offices of RenCen. How about Escalade IQ, then? This should not be a surprise, as it was previously reported on these very pages back in 2021. It seems that our guesstimates at the time that Escalade IQ is planned for a regular-length rig while Escalade IQL is intended to append an extended-length brute may have been right on the money.
It is not unreasonable for some people to turn up their noses at this -iq naming scheme, but at least it is evoking some sort of reaction. The decision by Johan De Nysschen to rename everything with the hateful CTx and XTx prefixes will surely go down as one of the more notable marketing blunders, ranking up there with Acura ditching tremendous names like Vigor and Legend for their own xSX alphabet soup as prime case studies for future textbook case studies. The trend is now reversing.
Even though the last couple of years have been topsy-turvy in terms of supply, the Escalade has historically sold in roughly equal numbers to the Suburban and Yukon XL, despite its higher price. It outsells everything else in the Cadillac showroom by a ratio of 2:1, approximately.
