The Cadillac Escalade won’t be released in Australia, as parent company General Motors instead doubles down on an electric-only model lineup for its luxury marque locally.
In lieu of the combustion-powered extra-large SUV, GM Specialty Vehicles is launching the related GMC Yukon Denali, while it says it’s still weighing the hefty electric Escalade iQ for our market.
“When you look at the Cadillac Escalade… we do already have a vehicle off that platform [and] we have announced that Cadillac will be an EV brand only, so that wouldn’t mean that we would move forward with the current Escalade, being an ICE product,” said GM Australia and New Zealand managing director Jess Bala.
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Escalade
While it isn’t bringing the Escalade to our market, GM is effectively selling the next most premium full-size, combustion-powered SUV it produces.
It’s bringing the Yukon, GMC’s restyled version of the Chevrolet Tahoe, here in Denali trim with various option boxes ticked – though technically there’s an even fancier version of the Yukon overseas, the Denali Ultimate, which adds extra accoutrements like massaging front seats.
The Yukon Denali is powered by the same 6.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 found under the bonnet of the Escalade, and offers a raft of high-end features such as adaptive air suspension and Magnetic Ride Control.
It’s built in left-hand drive in the US, but converted locally to right-hand drive (RHD) – the same arrangement a combustion-powered Escalade would have to have, given it’s not manufactured in RHD in the factory.
But while GM has confirmed it has closed the door on the combustion-powered Escalade, it’s keeping it open for the electric Escalade iQ.
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Escalade iQ
The battery-powered body-on-frame SUV is far from a certainty for our market, however, with a number of obstacles that could prevent it from ever seeing a local showroom.
“IQ we will keep assessing, but right now our priority is the vehicles that we’ve announced,” said Ms Bala.
“We have said openly we’ll keep analysing the iQ and where that fits and what could that be for us. Right now there are no plans. There are some complexities that come with that vehicle.
“That architecture doesn’t have right-hand drive on it so we’d have to convert it here, plus there are some things we’d have to work through around the screen and how we do that for right-hand drive with software and things like that.
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Escalade iQL
“Plus, when you look at what we’re bringing in with Cadillac right now, having already got Lyriq on sale and we’re delivering as of this month, adding in Optiq, Vistiq, Lyriq-V as well, we think that those vehicles are the bigger priority for our market.
“That’s four cars… that we’re doing in very quick succession, and we want to be able to launch and introduce them to the best of our ability and focus on the ones that we think have the greatest opportunity for our market.”
The Escalade iQ and its extended iQL sibling – which is longer and wider than even the stretched, combustion-powered Escalade ESV – use an enormous 205kWh nickel manganese cobalt aluminium (NCMA) lithium-ion battery.
These feature a dual-motor all-wheel drive powertrain with outputs of up to 560kW of power and 1064Nm of torque in Velocity Max mode, with upwards of 724km of claimed range.
MORE: Cadillac reveals its biggest, burliest EV yet
