Before I took a trip to Tahoe last weekend, GM offered me the use of the company’s 9,000-pound surplus monument — the new electric Escalade IQL (starting at $130,405) — for a week’s test drive. Before you continue, please note that I am not a professional car reviewer. TechCrunch has excellent traffic writers; I am not one of them. I’m just a car enthusiast, one has two EVs in the family (not unusual in the Bay Area).
I was instantly in the game. I first spotted one last summer at a car show where some regional car dealers were positioned at the end of a long line of gorgeous vintage cars. My immediate reaction was, “Jesus, that’s huge,” followed by a surprising admiration for its design, which shows restraint despite its enormous scale. For lack of a better word, I’ll say it’s “strapping”. Its proportions just work.
My excitement wore off pretty quickly when they left the car at my house the day before they left. This thing is a monstrosity—at 228.5 inches long and 94.1 inches wide, it made our own cars look like toys. My first apartment in San Francisco was smaller. Trying to drive it down my driveway was also a bit of a pain; it’s so big and its hood is so high that if you go up the road at a certain grade – we live in the middle of a hill; our mailbox is on top – you can’t see what’s directly in front of the car.
I thought I’d leave it in the driveway for the duration of the trip. The other alternative was to do what I could to get comfortable with the prospect of driving it 200 miles to Tahoe City, so I worked it out that night and the next day, picked up dinner, headed to an exercise class—just the basics around town. When I bumped into a friend on the street, I volunteered as quickly as possible that it wasn’t my new car, that I might check it out and wasn’t it a ridiculous size? It felt like a tank. I thought to myself: aside from hotels using SUVs like the Escalade to transport guests, what kind of monster chooses a car like that?
Five days later it turned out that I was such a monster.
Look, I don’t know how or when I fell for this car. If I wrote this review after two days, it would read completely differently. Even now, I’m not so blind that I can’t see his flaws.
The Escalade’s performance in a freak snowstorm really won my heart, but let me walk you through the steps between “Whew, this car is a tank” and “Yes! tank.”
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Just getting into it takes a little more effort than it would seem worthwhile. I’m fairly athletic and I kept wondering if this thing should come with an automatic stool.
Inside is where digital maximalism does its work. The dashboard opens with a 55-inch curved LED screen with 8K resolution that reads less like a car display and more like a situation room. Front passengers get their own screens. Second-row passengers also get 12.6-inch personal screens, along with side tables, two wireless chargers and – in the most luxurious version of the car – massaging seats that make them forget they’re even in the vehicle. Google Maps handles navigation. And the polarized screen technology deserves its own praise: while one of my kids was watching Hulu in the front seat, not even a frame of it escaped my view from behind the steering wheel.
The cabin itself is built around the premise that no one inside should feel crowded, and it delivers. Front legroom expands to 45.2 inches; the second row offers 41.3; even the third row — historically the place where goodwill dies on a long drive — manages 32.3 inches. Seven adults could share this machine for a long time without getting on each other’s nerves. Heated and ventilated leather seats with 14-way power adjustment are standard in the first two rows, and all traffic runs on 5G Wi-Fi. The car also comes standard with Super Cruise, GM’s hands-free system that I’m not sure I fully understand. Current reviewers seem to love it; when i tried it, the car felt like it was drifting between the outer limits of the freeway lane to an alarming degree, and when this happens, a escalating sequence of warnings is triggered. First, a red steering wheel icon will appear on the screen. Then your seat haptically warns of your bum. Ignore them and the cabin will be filled with chimes – both a reminder and a rebuke. GM calls this rough series “driver takeover requests.”
Did I mention the 38-speaker AKG Studio sound system? All right.
As for the exterior – it’s a handsome giant, but it takes some getting used to. The grid, which is just for display, seemed comically imposing at first. This is definitely a car for people who are the boss, or want to be the boss, or want to look like the boss while privately dealing with existential crises. I pulled into a glass restaurant one night and I’m pretty sure I blinded half the patrons as I headed into a parking space perpendicular to the building, the Escalade’s headlights flooding the windows.
Then there’s the light show that the car triggers whenever it detects you’re approaching using the key or the MyCadillac app. It’s like it’s saying, “Hey boss, where are we headed?” before touching the door handle. (In Cadillac parlance, that’s thanks to its “advanced all-LED exterior lighting system,” highlighted by a “crystal shield” illuminated grille and crest, along with vertical LED headlights and “choreograph-capable taillights.”)
Objectively, it’s a bit much. I loved it instantly.
Despite its size, the Escalade IQL is unexpectedly nimble. Not nimble “sports car hurtling through traffic” but nimble “I can’t believe something this colossus can’t handle like a battleship”.
Now we get to the frustrations. The front trunk – or “frunk” in the lexicon of EV devotees – works in mysterious and frustrating ways. Opening requires holding the button until complete. Release early and it stops mid-climb, frozen in automotive purgatory, forcing you to restart the entire sequence. Closing requires the same sustained pressure. The rear trunk, on the other hand, requires two distinct clicks followed by an immediate release of the button. Hang on too long and nothing happens.
Similarly, on two occasions the vehicle refused to shut off after I had finished driving. The car just sat there and ran even after parking and opening the door (which told the car to turn off). Solution: open the frunk, close the frunk, engage the drive, then park and then get out completely.
As for the software, it’s perfectly fine unless you’ve owned a Tesla, in which case prepare to be disappointed. This seems to be true across the board – everyone I know who owns a Tesla or another EV says the same thing. Once you get the hang of how effortlessly Tesla’s software dissolves the barriers between intent and execution, every other automaker’s software will seem like a compromise.
Which brings us to the toughest point of the trip: charging in Tahoe in the winter. For all its strengths, the Escalade IQL is a thirsty machine in every way. The battery has a capacity of 205 kWh – huge, and it has to be, as the car burns around 45 kWh per 100 miles, which is significantly more than comparable electric SUVs. Cadillac estimates a range of 460 miles on a full charge and under ideal conditions it will last. However, Tahoe in the winter is not ideal conditions. We also arrived with less fees than we had. A series of side trips on the way up, including an emergency detour for shirts for a family member who hadn’t packed any, drained the battery more than expected. When we needed to recharge, we really needed to recharge.
We approached the Tesla Supercharger in Tahoe City that showed up in the MyCadillac app, but when we plugged it in, nothing happened. We tried two other stalls. A GM representative explained, not entirely helpfully, that Tesla throttles non-Tesla vehicles to 6 kilowatts per hour anyway, but it was a frustrating realization. Nearby EVGo closed a month ago. Tahoe City Public Utility’s two ChargePoint units were broken and willing to connect but not actually charge anything. We briefly considered the 35 mile drive to Incline Village, did the math on what the braid would actually look like, and decided against it. Then I discovered an Electrify America station 12 miles away. We drove through the snow, arrived shortly before 11:00 PM, and it was fine. I sat there for an hour fighting exhaustion before going home.
The following morning revealed another problem: the tire pressures dropped to 53 and 56 PSI in the front (recommended: 61) and 62 PSI in the rear (recommended: 68). I have no idea if the car was delivered that way or if there was something else going on – either way it meant someone standing at a gas station filling up the tires and getting ice thrown right in the face. That someone was my husband. The tires held steady after that, although the week was constantly broken. It went great for a family trip.
At this point, I would actually tell you that the Escalade IQL is undeniably luxurious and ideal for families of four and more who value space and technology. I’d tell you it was burdened with real trade-offs: forward visibility limited by its commanding hood, parking issues inherent to its dimensions, limited charging infrastructure for this ravenous machine, and tires tasked with carrying 9,000 pounds. It’s a beautiful car, I’d say, but it’s not for me.
But the snow that had begun to fall kept falling. Eight feet accumulated over two days, making it impossible to ski — the whole point of the trip — and terrifying to drive. Except I found I wasn’t worried because we had an Escalade that felt like driving a tank in the snow due to its weight. What could have been scary felt peaceful.
I also adapted to the size. Late last week, I stopped saying “I’m sorry” to everyone who was waiting for me to figure out where to park it. I stopped caring what it says about me that I drive a car whose whole design philosophy is: the owner of this vehicle does not wait in line. Eight feet of snow fell, we needed groceries, and I was the one with the tank, you fools! I felt my husband fall behind the car.
Then it stopped snowing and the sun came out and the Escalade was just a very dirty car sitting in the driveway (sorry GM!). I still like it too and realize it’s not just out of necessity. I love riding high, with the speaker system flooding the car with my favorite soundtrack. The light show still gets me. Frunk is still disconnected. I won’t soon forget the panic of not being able to charge the 9,000 car where I thought it could. Parking this thing is really stressful. I have strong opinions about unnecessary consumption. None of that has changed.
I kind of want the car, too, so when the GM middleman comes to pick it up, I can hide it under a tarp—a very big tarp—and tell him it has the wrong address.