The new Lincoln Navigator is eating the aging Cadillac Escalade’s lunch, but a new report suggests the next generation of GM’s luxury bruiser could get much more appetizing with a V performance model and an all-electric trim.
The big news, or rumor in this case, comes from CadillacSociety, which reports that the fifth-generation Cadillac Escalade is due for the 2021 model year and will be eventually offered as an all-electric SUV with a range of 400 miles, allegedly according to anonymous sources with knowledge of Cadillac’s future product plans.
The new Escalade wouldn’t be expected to debut with the EV version, but rather it would be introduced a few years into production.
The new claim follows reports from last year that there would also be a performance variant of the next-gen Escalade. Jalopnik reached out to its own source with knowledge of GM’s future product plans, and while they didn’t know anything about an electrified Escalade, they had “caught wind” that a V performance version of the SUV could happen.
Regardless of a performance version, a 400-mile Escalade EV would move into a new segment the Navigator doesn’t yet compete in, and its long range would beat that of the current Audi E-Tron crossover, Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes-Benz EQC, and even the Tesla Model X, which is supposedly not getting a significant update anytime soon.
But considering the reported timeline for the EV Escalade, it seems like we’ll only have rumors to work with for a few years to come, unless GM confirms it when the regular model debuts sometime in the next couple of years. Maybe it has something to do with that weird rumor that Hummer was coming back with EVs?
GM previously has promised up to 20 new electric models by 2023, and this one seems like a good idea—we’ll just have to wait and see if GM commits to it.