- Cadillac’s “Opulent Velocity” idea debuted at present at Monterey Automobile Week. It guarantees “zero emission hypercar luxurious efficiency.”
- It is an electrical 2+2 coupe with “butterfly doorways,” augmented actuality inside and extra superior automated driving capabilities than present iterations of Tremendous Cruise.
- A working prototype, it might preview future electrical Cadillac V-Sequence vehicles, in addition to updates to GM’s Ultium electrical platform.
Normal Motors promised a do-over yr for electrical autos in 2024, and it actually appears to be delivering there—particularly in relation to Cadillac. The Lyriq has seen explosive gross sales, and we’re about to see the debuts of necessary fashions just like the Escalade IQ, Optiq and Vistiq. However in case you’re like me and you continue to admire the old-school efficiency vehicles just like the CTS-V and ATS-V, you might be questioning: The place’s the electrical Cadillac V-Sequence?
Now, a brand new idea making its debut at Monterey Automobile Week reveals that the V does have a battery-powered future. Meet the Cadillac Opulent Velocity idea, which GM says will trace at the place issues might go subsequent.
“Opulent Velocity is an experience-based design research,” Bryan Nesbitt, government director of World Cadillac Design, mentioned in an announcement. “It is the longer term imaginative and prescient of luxurious efficiency, incorporating Cadillac’s management in hands-free driving capabilities, electrification and efficiency excellence. Opulent Velocity expresses essentially the most clever integration of expertise, luxurious and exhilaration characterised by Cadillac’s halo V-Sequence variants, and future electrification design expressions.”
As with many ideas, this one is being known as a design research, which means it is much less a direct preview of an upcoming precise mannequin and extra an indicator of the place design and expertise might go subsequent at Cadillac.
However on a name with reporters final week, GM officers indicated that this idea is a working prototype—and that it reveals off the place the Ultium platform goes subsequent as effectively.
“After we look [at], for example, the facility that is required, we’re learning how greatest to ship the efficiency aspirations of this car,” mentioned Brandon Vivian, the Govt Chief Engineer at Cadillac. “Will probably be a model of Ultium that’s but to return.”
Past that, precise specs—battery measurement, vary, energy and so forth—are MIA for now. However here is what we do know.
In a refreshing change of tempo from the infinite sea of electrical crossovers on the market, it is a two-plus-two coupe that includes “butterfly doorways” that is lengthy, broad and low. In total design, it apes the low-volume, ultra-niche Cadillac Celestiq ultra-luxe sedan, however seems to be about 10 years forward of that.
The identify is intentional, apparently. “Opulent” refers back to the luxury-focused expertise at work right here, together with Degree 4 autonomous driving—which means absolutely self-driving, one thing no commercially accessible automotive is able to but—augmented actuality shows that blur the strains between windshield and dashboard and “curated artwork, leisure and ambient gentle” whenever you’re driving hands-free. Which you’ll have to do, as a result of in that mode, the steering wheel and pedals appear to vanish.
Nevertheless it’s meant to be pushed, too. “Velocity” engages the hand and toes controls and uncorks “Cadillac’s Blackwing track-proven engineering.” There’s even a “ghost automotive” that seems on the HUD so that you can comply with or attempt to greatest in your observe days, Gran Turismo-style. “Moreover, Velocity mode visualizes the aptitude to dictate driving enhancements, together with highway overlays, energetic details about highway situations and full management over energetic aero and suspension dampening settings,” Cadillac officers mentioned in a information launch.
So will this idea yield something actual? Down the road, it looks like that is very doable. Whereas it is a departure from Cadillac’s present EV language, the Opulent Velocity does appear extra future-focused than the present crop of vehicles which can be very closely ICE-derived in design.
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“There are some concepts in right here which can be type of foreshadowing issues we’re enthusiastic about ,” Nesbitt informed reporters final week. These embody “shifting the floor vocabulary of the car and the mixing of the tech of the car, and a few of that graphic type of execution married to that floor growth.”
If that is what’s subsequent for Cadillac, I like what I see up to now. What do you suppose? Tell us within the feedback.
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