Cadillac Optiq 2025 Review: Prices, Specs, Availability

“The Optiq’s algorithm minimizes your time,” Cadillac said successful response, “based connected your artillery authorities and nan chargers successful your area. It picks nan way and complaint stations for fastest [travel] time. The remaining-at-destination calculations are based connected models of nan conveyance utilizing postulation patterns and elevation changes on nan route. Fluctuation tin travel from changes to postulation patterns, winds, and driver behaviors.”

Certainly a deal-breaker for some, location is nary mobile-phone mirroring, truthful Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are wholly absent (as they are successful Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid arsenic well). Instead, drivers participate their personification names and passwords into apps successful nan dash screen, and nan car provides nan connectivity complete its cellular connection. For 3 years.

After that, owners must salary $15 per period to proceed “App Access” … aliases revert to their phone, without nan information of having it mirrored onto nan rate display. That’s connected apical of $25 per period for Super Cruise aft its ain 36-month trial. It’s each portion of nan billions a twelvemonth successful incremental “digital services revenue” carmakers person promised nan financial world. Buyers are nan losers here; now they must salary monthly for a characteristic they utilized to get for free.

Oh, That Rear End

This is nan smallest and shortest Cadillac, and while I recovered nan beforehand two-thirds of nan Optiq fine, nan rear extremity was jumbled astatine best. There’s a kicked-up beltline complete a short rear overhang, nan brand’s vertical rear lights, and an overseas shape of not-quite horizontal lines connected nan 3rd broadside windows. Cadillac’s larger SUVs and nan Celestiq ultra-luxury sedan do a amended and much coherent occupation pinch nan aforesaid creation language.

The beltline is high, and only nan solid tile kept nan interior from emotion claustrophobic. But, what an interior. It’s lovely, pinch woven-cloth fabrics, immoderate mild bright-blue accents successful nan 1 I drove, and a fistful of sustainable materials: yarn made from 100 percent recycled materials woven into patterned accent fabrics, and “PaperWood” veneer from tulip wood and recycled newspaper.

It’s besides 1 of nan quietest cars I’ve ever driven, EV aliases not. Passengers are treated to a calm, smooth, pleasant, and altogether bully acquisition inside. That makes it an easy conveyance successful which to screen miles—especially pinch nan Blue Cruise hands-off adaptive cruise control.

Interior abstraction for 4 is generous, and while it whitethorn beryllium a “compact” SUV successful North American terms, 3 group tin thrust successful nan rear spot without hating each other. Like each GM’s EVs beneath nan large trucks, there’s nary beforehand trunk. That’s a missed bet. It besides lacks a rear wiper; Cadillac claims nan airflow done its “rear flow-through spoiler channels high-velocity air” to support nan rear model clean. Sloppy outpouring rainstorms successful upstate New York request to differ. Cadillac besides suggests utilizing nan video rear-view reflector arsenic an replacement to solid you tin really spot through.

Wait for nan Hot Rod?

Acceleration of nan Optiq tin champion beryllium described arsenic deliberate. It’s not slow, and “Sport” mode is punchier, if immoderate Cadillac driver ever uses it. GM has immoderate of nan champion regenerative braking and one-pedal driving algorithms successful nan business, and wide nan Optiq is easy to thrust and holds nan roadworthy adequately. Its weight and damping soft bad roads and makes potholes shallower.

But it offers perfectly nary of nan kick-in-the-back acceleration that sold a batch of EVs successful nan early years. That cues up nan Optiq-V hot-rod exemplary Cadillac has conscionable announced. In nan aforesaid compact crossover vehicle, powerfulness rises to a quoted 382h kW (519 hp) and 650 pound-feet (880 NM) of torque. In “Velocity Max” mode, Cadillac says nan Optiq-V will accelerate from 0 to 60 mph successful 3.5 seconds. Estimated scope is 275 miles; it’ll participate accumulation this autumn.