No car company wants to admit this now because it’s become a marketing turn-off for half the country, but electric vehicles are supposed to be about saving the planet. They’re supposed to be about moving transportation past gasoline, toward a future powered by sustainable energy. Cutting back on pollution from one of its biggest sources, which is personal transportation.
It’s hard to justify any of that in the Cadillac Escalade IQ: a 9,000-pound behemoth powered by a massive 200-kilowatt-hour (at least) battery, great for long-range electric driving but thirsty for electrons when it needs to recharge.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ Photo by: Patrick George
All of this—the raw materials needed for the battery, the energy it takes to make such a battery, and the lack of efficiency overall—make the Escalade IQ and its big-battery ilk deeply questionable, from an environmental perspective.
But after spending time with the Escalade IQ myself, I’d offer this counter-argument: Who cares? The electric Escalde rules.
(Full Disclosure: Cadillac loaned me an Escalade IQ for a week of testing.)
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Photo by: Patrick George
Okay, fine. That’s a gross overstatement. EV efficiency is crucial for countless reasons. The huge-battery approach to trucks and SUVs probably isn’t a great solution to electric transport long-term, and I have real trepidations about a vehicle this heavy being on the road at all.
That’s what the logical part of my brain tells me, anyway. The less logical part—the one that has secretly always loved the Escalade—thinks this thing is better than ever when it runs on battery power.
After all, the Cadillac Escalade is America’s greatest vehicle.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Photo by: Patrick George
Yes, really. Did you think it’d be the Ford Mustang or something? The Tesla Model Y? Get serious.
2026 Cadillac Escalade: Driving Experience
Nothing encapsulates American values more than the Escalade does. It is titanic in size. It’s instantly noticeable. It’s opulent. It rules the road with tons of horsepower. It is the apex of American luxury, which is to make a vehicle as large and living-room-like as possible. It is the final-form edition of the tailfin Cadillac luxury barges of the 1960s, updated for modern tastes and sensibilities.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ Photo by: Patrick George
It can also tow a boat, if you need to tow a boat. Nothing is more American than that.
The purview of NBA stars, wealthy ranchers, gated-community moms and dads, and various and sundry Kardashians, the Escalade is nouveau riche incarnate—prosperity gospel on wheels. (Another uniquely American creation.) There is nothing under-the-radar about an Escalade. You buy one because you have arrived, and everyone needs to know it.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Photo by: Patrick George
Now, we herald the arrival of the Escalade IQ. It is not merely a battery version of the V8-powered version of the Escalade, although that SUV now borrows a lot of hardware and technology from the EV. It’s a wholly different vehicle built on General Motors’ common EV platform and closely related to the GMC Hummer EV and Chevrolet Silverado EV.
It is worth noting that the Escalade IQ is actually bigger than the gas Escalade, then. A whole foot longer, with a bigger wheelbase, and even a little wider. If that somehow isn’t big enough for you, there’s the Escalade IQL now, too, which is even longer and packs yet more headroom. I can’t ever say the Escalade IQ felt too small, but to each their own.
I haven’t always loved GM’s big EV trucks. They’re all super-capable range monsters with some very unique truck features. But their price tag, sheer size and the Hummer’s whole vibe have sometimes put me off. Not so with the Cadillac, however. This thing really clicked with me.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ Photo by: Patrick George
This is largely because the Escalade’s character translates really well to EV duty. It’s hard to replicate the thrills and feel of a small, gas-powered sports car to electric form; nobody has really pulled that off yet. But with an Escalade, you want prodigious passing power, long-distance cruising, quiet, and lots of room to carry all your gear.
Battery power helps the Escalade IQ deliver all of that, in spades. My tester, an Escalade IQ Sport (second from the bottom of a four-trim lineup) delivered 615 hp and 680 lb-ft of torque—or up to 750 hp and 785 lb-ft in the highest performance settings. That means it’ll deliver 0-60 mph in approximately 4.7 seconds, making it quicker than any car I’ve ever owned.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Photo by: Patrick George
With that much power and its sheer size, nobody’s going to get in your way for long on the highway. I will also say that this is the best application of GM’s one-pedal driving that I have experienced yet, feeling more like a Rivian than some of the company’s more jerky EVs of old.
I certainly can’t say it doesn’t feel large. It does. But Escalade iQ Sport comes standard with rear-wheel steering, which improves maneuverability at high and low speeds. It’s also easier to park than you might expect. This is a godsend on bigger trucks and certainly welcome here.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Photo by: Patrick George
And while the 200-kWh battery is plenty controversial, I can’t argue with the range it delivers: a Cadillac-estimated 465 miles of range. That ranks it among the longest-distance EVs you can buy in America, and the longest-range electric SUV.
Granted, the Escalade IQ delivers this range through brute force—just a big battery, not excellence in energy efficiency. At most, I saw around 2 miles per kWh, or almost half what my Kia EV6 can do when the weather’s nice.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ Photo by: Patrick George
All that range is great until it’s time to charge, which is a pain point on the other GM truck EVs, too. I plugged the Escalade IQ in on my home charger at 38%, and I was given an estimated charging time of 12 hours just to hit 80%. On a more reasonably sized battery, that’d take a couple of hours, max. Energy has to come from somewhere, and the big Cadillac is an energy hog.
This does mean you end up charging it less often, however. In a week of driving, including several runs from upstate New York down to New Jersey near the city, I only plugged the Escalade IQ in once.
And if you keep it around 80%, you still get a whopping 360 miles of range—I recommend you just keep it at that level unless you’re road-tripping. And if you need to fast-charge, it can at least do 350 kilowatt speeds and get you 100 miles of range in just 10 minutes on a powerful enough plug.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Photo by: Patrick George
But numbers only do the Escalade IQ so much justice. The rest has to be experienced to be believed.
This is an unbelievably comfortable and plush vehicle, akin to riding in the luxury car of a bullet train. It’s heavy on screens with so much routed through its panoramic 55-inch (!!!) LED display, but it retains enough physical buttons to make controls easy enough. And the display looks gorgeous, to boot. The overall materials are first-rate, including the plastics, and the seats are cushy as they should be.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ Photo by: Patrick George
Every time I experience GM’s in-car software, it gets better. While there’s still no Apple CarPlay, and thus it’s not as seamless and easy to do things like voice-to-text, it runs well and has a huge array of third-party apps now. It’s even better in the passenger’s seat or in the back.
Your occupants can fire up streaming apps like Hulu, Netflix and YouTube, although the screen is darkened so you (the driver) can’t see anything. You aren’t to the point where you can watch The White Lotus while the car drives itself—that’s coming in 2028, when GM throws LIDAR on this bad boy.
I have consistently found the whole “passenger screen” thing a bit silly, or perhaps even just pandering to the Chinese market. But here on the Escalade IQ, it makes sense. It’s not a car, so much as it is a luxury streamliner. And if you can’t sit in the back, there’s always hands-free highway Super Cruise, which is excellent as ever.
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
Photo by: Patrick George
2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ: Pricing And Verdict
At this point, the Escalade is a kind of mini-brand within Cadillac itself, running from the base $91,000 gas version all the way up to a loaded, full-size electric $130,405 Escalade IQL. Don’t forget the V versions on the gas cars, too.
A seven-seat Escalade IQ starts at $129,795; with the Onyx wheel package, a black roof, a Tesla NACS adapter and a few other options, my Sport tester came in at $137,020.
Expensive? Sure. But every Escalade I’ve ever been in has been north of $100,000, agnostic of what the “base” price supposedly is. And this test proves that the EV version of the Escalade is the one to get. Adding battery power here simply makes for a better, more powerful Escalade experience, and with enough range that there are basically no real tradeoffs. I don’t know why you’d want the gas version of this SUV anymore. It feels irrelevant now.
Gallery: 2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ
I think that even GM knows this huge-battery approach to EVs can’t last forever. They’re too resource-intensive to make and too energy-inefficient to operate. A 9,000-pound battery Escalade isn’t why we’re all supposed to be here. But over time, I am confident that it, and other carmakers, will figure out battery solutions for these trucks that are better all around.
For now, the Escalade IQ solidly proves one thing: some cars are just better as EVs. And America’s greatest vehicle is one of them.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
More Escalade IQ
Click here to see all articles with lists of the best EVs
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Insideevs.com?
– The InsideEVs team