A 9,000 pound beast I don’t want revenge

Before I left for a trip to Tahoe last week, GM gave me the opportunity to drive the company’s 9,000-pound flagship — the all-new electric Escalade IQL (starting at $130,405) — for a week. Before you continue, please know that I am not a professional car reviewer. TechCrunch has great traffic writers; I am not one of them. I am a car enthusiast, one with two electric cars in the family (this is not unusual in the Bay Area).

I was immediately game. I first saw it this past summer at a car show, where the local car dealers settled at the end of a long section of vintage cars. My immediate response was “Jesus, he’s great,” followed by a curious look at his design, which, despite being so large, shows restraint. For lack of a better word, I say “build.” The amount of it just works.

My excitement ended very quickly when the car was dropped off at my house a day before our departure. This thing is a monstrosity – 228.5 inches long and 94.1 inches wide, it made our cars look like dolls. My first apartment in San Francisco was small. Trying to drive it on my way was a little difficult, too; it is so big, and its cover is so high, that if you go up the road on a slope – we live in the middle of the mountain; Our mail is above it – you can’t see anything that is directly in front of the car.

I decided to just leave it in the driveway for the rest of the trip. The alternative was to do my best to be comfortable with the prospect of driving 200 miles to Tahoe City, so I spent that night and the next day, packing dinner, going to an exercise class – the most important things around town. When I met my friend on the street, I volunteered as quickly as I could that this wasn’t my new car, that I was going to see it again, and the size wasn’t ridiculous? It sounded like a tank. I thought: apart from hotels that use SUVs like the Escalade to transport guests around, what kind of monster chooses a vehicle like this?

After five days, it turned out that I am such a monster.

Look, I don’t know how I fell for this car. If I had written this review two days later, it would have been very different. Even now, I’m not so blind that I don’t see his weaknesses.

It was the Escalade’s performance in a freak snowstorm that really got my heart pumping, but let me walk you through the steps between “Ugh, this car is a tank” and “Yes! tank.”

Just getting into it takes a lot more effort than it might seem. I’m a very fast runner and still wonder if this shouldn’t come with an automatic pedal.

Inside is how digital maximalism works. The dashboard opens with a 55-inch curved LED screen with 8K resolution that reads less like a car display and more like a viewing room. Passengers in the front get their own screens. Second-row passengers also get their own 12.6-inch touchscreens along with storage tables, dual wireless chargers, and — with the car’s top-of-the-line model — massaging seats that will make them forget they’re in a car. Google Maps works with navigation. And the polarized screen technology is to be commended: when one of my kids was watching Hulu in the front seat, none of his frame jumped behind the wheel.

This cabin is built around so that no one feels overcrowded, and it delivers. The front of the leg stretches up to 45.2 inches; the second row gives 41.3; even the third row – historically where comfort goes to die for a long car – runs 32.3 inches. Seven adults can share this machine for a long time without disturbing each other. Heated leather seats with 14-way power adjustment come in the first two rows, and the entire service runs on 5G Wi-Fi. The car also comes with Super Cruise, GM’s manual transmission, which I’m not sure I thought of. The real reviewers seem to like it; when i tested it, the car seemed to shake to an alarming degree between the outer limits of the highway, and when this happens, it produces more and more warnings. First, a red steering wheel symbol appears on the screen. Then your chair emits haptic alerts against your rump. Ignore it and the cry – the reminder and the mockery – fills the house. GM calls this disrespectful list a “driver extortion bid.”

Did I mention the AKG Studio 38 sound system? Very nice.

Outside – this is a beautiful giant, but it takes some getting used to. At first, I found the grille, which is rather showy, almost interesting. This is a car for people who are a boss, or want to be a boss, or want to look like a boss while dealing with the problems that exist. Pulling into a glass-fronted restaurant one night, I’m sure I blinded half the patrons as I ran into the parking lot next to the building, the Escalade’s headlights streaming through the windows.

Then there is a light that indicates the car is starting whenever it detects your approach via the key or the MyCadillac app. It’s like saying, “Hey, chief, where are we going?” before touching the door handle. (In Cadillac parlance, this is due to the “superior, all-LED exterior lighting,” which is highlighted by the “crystal shield” lighting and crest, along with LED taillights and “painting-capable tail lamps.”)

It is, frankly, a bit much. I loved it right away.

Despite its size, the Escalade IQL is unpredictable. Not the usual “sports car going down the street” type, but the “I can’t believe this big thing doesn’t move like a battleship” kind of fast.

Now we get to the frustrations. The front trunk – or “frunk” in the lexicon of EV devotees – works wonderfully and frustratingly. Unlocking requires holding the button until complete. It releases prematurely and stops mid-ride, freezing in automotive purgatory, forcing you to restart the entire sequence. Closing requires the same steady pressure. The back trunk, in contrast, requires two separate taps followed by releasing the buttons at the same time. Wait too long and nothing happens.

Most of the time the car refused to go down after I finished driving. The car just stayed there, running, even after switching to stop and opening the door (which tells the car to turn off). Answer: open the frunk, close the frunk, switch in the car, that’s it park, then exit completely.

As for the software, it’s only good if you own a Tesla, so prepare to be disappointed. This seems to be true across the board – everyone I know who owns a Tesla and another EV says the same thing. Once you factor in how Tesla’s software dissolves the barriers between purpose and execution, any other automaker’s software feels like a compromise.

Which brings us to the nadir of travel: charging into Tahoe in the winter. At its best, the Escalade IQL is, by any measure, a thirsty machine. The battery is a 205 kWh pack – big, and it should be, because the car burns about 45 kWh per 100 miles, which is more than similar electric SUVs. Cadillac estimates a range of 460 miles on a full charge, and in good driving conditions. Tahoe in the winter, however, is not a good thing. We also arrived with less money than we should have. Several side trips, including an emergency detour to get a shirt from a relative who didn’t wear it, ate into the battery more than expected. By the time we had to pay, we had to pay.

We approached the Tesla Supercharger in Tahoe City that showed up on the MyCadillac app, but when we went in, nothing happened. We tried two more places. The GM representative explained, not very helpfully, that Tesla drives non-Tesla cars to 6 kilowatts per hour, but it was still disappointing. The nearest EVGo had closed a month ago. Two ChargePoint units in the Tahoe City Public Utility lot were, respectively, broken and ready to be plugged in but not charging anything. We briefly considered the 35-mile hike to Incline Village, did the math on what the drifters would look like, and decided against it. I finally found the Electrify America station at mile 12. We drove through the snow, arrived just before 11 pm, and it was done. I stayed there for an hour and was very tired before I got on my way home.

The next morning they revealed another story: the tire pressure dropped to 53 and 56 PSI in the front (approved: 61) and 62 PSI in the back (approved: 68). I don’t know if the car was delivered that way or if something else was going on – either way, it means someone stopped at a gas station filling up the tires and getting ice thrown in their faces. That man was my husband. The Tigers settled down after that, although the week continued to be very bad. On a family trip, it was going well.

At this point, I would tell you that the Escalade IQL is unquestionably perfect for families with four or more children who need space and technology. I can tell you that it was burdened with real problems: a futuristic look hindered by its steering position, parking problems associated with its size, limited mechanical components with this problem, and tires with a support function of 9,000 pounds. It’s a beautiful car, I’d say, but it’s not for me.

But the snow that had started to fall continued to fall. In two days, eight feet had piled up, making it impossible to swim – both places of travel – and to drive. Except I found I wasn’t scared because we had an Escalade, which, because of its weight, felt like driving a tank in the snow. What would have been a concern was the silence.

I also changed the size. By the end of last week I had stopped saying “I’m sorry” to everyone who was waiting for me to find out where to park. I stopped caring what it says about me that I’m driving a car whose whole meaning is this: the owner of this car is not waiting in line. Eight feet of snow had fallen, we needed supplies, and I had a tank, pacifiers! I also heard my husband fall into the car.

Then the snow stopped and the sun came out, and the Escalade was the ugliest car on the road (sorry, GM!). I still love it, too, and I realize it’s not just because of the emergency. I love to drive up, the speaker system fills the car with my favorite music. That light show still gets to me. Frunk remains unchanged. I won’t soon forget the fear of not being able to charge a 9,000 pound car where I thought I could. Stopping this thing is very difficult. I have strong feelings about junk food. Nothing has changed.

I, too, somehow, want this car, so when the average GM comes to pick it up, I can hide it under a tarp – a big tarp – and tell him he has the wrong address.