GM has revealed that the Cadillac Celestiq, the luxury brand's future flagship EV, will be hand-built at the automaker's Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. "As Cadillac's future flagship sedan, Celestiq heralds a new and resurgent era for the brand," stated GM President Mark Reuss in a release. He verified that when it goes into production, the Celestiq would be a sedan rather than a hatchback. Cadillac also claims that the Celestiq will feature the most 3D-printed components of any GM product yet.
There will be about 100 sections in all, including structural and aesthetic aspects as well as polymer and metal materials. While the Celestiq will be a very exclusive, low-volume model due to the hand-built route, GM confirmed what we've known all along: it will be built on GM's Ultium strategy, which includes large-format battery cells, modules and pack layouts, wireless battery management system, shared drive units, GM's motor design, and more. We saw this car up close previously, in an earlier Celestiq concept version that GM said was production-bound in early 2020, as we observed last week with the publication of teaser photographs of the model. In a promotional film published last year, GM also displayed early peeks of the Celestiq. However, because GM waited more than two years to show the concept, we suspect it has evolved significantly. The mention of the sedan shape by Reuss implies that the concept's rear design, with its shooting-brake and bubble-window wagon elements, has been made more conventional. A few facts about what inhabitants would discover inside were revealed. Those in the front will get a "pillar-to-pillar freeform display" with "active privacy to assist prevent driver distraction," implying that entire parts of the dash may be blacked out or simplified. The roof will be composed of suspended-particle smart glass, with four quadrants and the ability for each tenant to choose their level of transparency. GM’s announcement was devoid of one especially important piece of information: a timeline for production. We’ll place our bets that the Celestiq will arrive by 2026—after some of GM’s mass-market EV products but before Cadillac completes its transformation to an all-electric brand. Cadillac will show the Celestiq in some form in July, with more pictures to come throughout the summer. And hopefully, by then, we’ll be able to estimate how long you might wait for one.