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Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
2025 Cadillac Optiq SUV EV shocks with style, features and value
SAN FRANCISCO — The 2025 Cadillac Optiq EV is a road-hugging little SUV, sleek, low, wide and fun. The 2025 Optiq compact SUV is equally at home carving cliffside roads, blasting down the highway and parking in a crowded city center. Cadillac's smallest EV comes with full-time all-wheel drive, 300 horsepower and up to 302 miles range on a charge. I enjoyed a day driving an Optiq from the heart of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge and up the Marin Coast. It's as stylish and fun to drive as any small luxury SUV you'll find, and comes with unexpected goodies, including standard AKG audio with Dolby Atmos capability for a remarkable listening experience. The Optiq is in dealerships now. Luxury 1: $52,895 Luxury 2: $53,495 Sport 1: $55,095 Sport 2: $55,595 Source: Edmunds Prices exclude $1,495 destination charge The Optiq's steering is fast and direct, perfect for diving into a gap in traffic or holding the line and hitting cornering points on windy roads. The twin electric motors deliver smooth, immediate power, while the combination of heavy battery mounted low in the chassis, a wide track and sticky tires keeps the SUV composed and stable. The drivetrain offers two settings of one-pedal driving: conventional freewheeling and a bicycle-style lever on the steering wheel the driver can squeeze to apply varying amounts of deceleration, up to a significant 0.4 G-force. Continental developed dual-compound tires to deliver good range and handling. The tires also contain a sound-deadening foam that contributes to the Optiq's quiet cabin. The Optiq is easy to drive fast, quiet on the highway and practical in city traffic and parking. Audi Q4 E-tron Genesis GV60 Jaguar I-Pace Lexus RZ Mercedes-Benz EQB Polestar 3 Porsche Macan Tesla Y Volvo C40 Recharge At 190 inches long on a 116-inch wheelbase, 84 inches wide and just 64 inches tall, with a steeply raked 24-degree windshield, the Optiq combines sporty looks with easy entrance and exit, and a surprisingly roomy rear seat. For comparison, the base Optiq is 5.6 inches longer on a 4.7-inch longer wheelbase, with a 1.6-inch lower roofline than a Mercedes-Benz EQB compact electric SUV. The Optiq has 12 hp more, but 30 fewer pound-feet of torque. The Optiq's lights enhance its sleek design. The lighted grille is low and slim. The front badge is also lighted, while Cadillac's signature vertical light blades adorn the front and rear. The rear badge also is lighted, and a fast rear window complements the windscreen. The standard AKG audio system includes Dolby Atmos, which allows every element of a recording to be placed precisely in a virtual space around its listeners. Twin electric motors deliver 300 hp and 354 pound-feet of torque to the front and rear axles. Surprisingly, Cadillac doesn't offer performance figures, but I never found myself wanting more muscle. The 85 kWh battery can charge at up to 150kW DC, good for 79 miles range in 10 minutes under optimum conditions. Cadillac declines to offer the more widely used measure of time to charge from 10% or 20% to 80% or 90%, but the Optiq's quick charging should be fully competitive for the long highway drives where DC fast charging is paramount. Home charging at 240v ranges from 24 to 55 miles per hour, depending on the charger. Cadillac offers NACS adapters to use Tesla DC chargers in addition to a built-in CCS port for other fast chargers. The Optiq is likely to be one of the first General Motors EVs to replace the factory-installed CCS port with NACS, later this year. All-wheel drive 300 hp, 354 pound-feet of torque Standard 19-speaker AKG audio with Dolby Atmos NACS adapter available Dual-compound Continental tires 33 inches of continuous screen across dashboard The Optiq's interior is comfortable with supportive seats and surprising rear legroom. It's trimmed largely in attractive, sustainable materials, included fabric door tops and instrument panel made from recycled polyester. A sharp and responsive touch screen controls many features, but climate controls get welcome physical toggles. More toggles on the steering wheel handle some features, including cruise control and the Super Cruise hands-free driving system. Drivers who prefer multifunction rotary controls will find one on the center console. There's also a physical volume dial. Programmable ambient lighting and colorful trim panels complete the attractive layout. More: 2025 Cadillac Escalade IQ: This is how you do a big luxury EV More: 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 XRT EV makes a leap with new battery, features customers asked for The 2025 Optiq is a sporty and luxurious compact electric SUV. It's priced competitively and matches or exceeds competitors' performance features. Contemporary and appealing looks, inside and out, complete the package. All-wheel drive five-seat compact electric SUV Base price: $52,895 (All prices exclude $1,495 destination charge) On sale now Model tested: Optiq Sport 2 Price as tested: $55,595 Power: One electric motor on each axle Output: 300 hp, 354 pound-feet of torque Transmission: Single-speed automatic Battery: Lithium-ion, 10 modules, 85 kWh usable power Maximum charging rate 150 kWh/400 volts Maximum charging rates: Level 2, 7.7kW: 24 miles per hour of charging. 11.5 kW: 33 miles/hour. 150kW/400v DC fast charge: Up to 79 miles in 10 minutes. EPA estimated range: 302 miles Wheelbase: 116 inches Length: 190 inches Width: 84 inches (including mirrors) Height: 65 inches Passenger volume: 101 cubic feet Cargo volume: 26 cubic feet cubic feet behind second rows; 57 cubic feet behind front seats Curb weight: 5,192 pounds Assembled in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@ Follow him on Twitter mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 2025 Cadillac Optiq EV delivers big on performance, style, features
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Driven: 2025 Cadillac Optiq EV Is Ready for a Fight
"Seeing is believing" only goes so far. At some point, you've got to lay hands on metal and experience something firsthand. And so it is with the new 2025 Cadillac Optiq, a small luxury EV from a storied brand that, for some reason, has decided to append a suffix pronounced "ick" to the names of its electrified vehicles. But as it turns out, there's nothing icky about this new Cadillac EV whatsoever. In fact, they may have a fledgling hit on their hands. It starts with the look, which is pleasingly proportional and free of faff. Compared to most others in the segment, the hood is a bit shorter, the windshield is more aggressively raked, and the rear window is slightly laid back. The resulting vehicle is uncommonly long, with a 116.3-inch wheelbase and an overall length of 189.8 inches. Compare that the Audi Q4 e-tron's relatively stubby wheelbase of 108.7 inches and somewhat short length of 180.6 inches. Or the Mercedes-Benz EQB, which has a 111.4-inch wheelbase and is 184.4 inches long. Meanwhile, the Genesis GV60 is only a couple of inches shy in the wheelbase department but is a whole foot shorter from stem to stern. But the wheelbase in question gives the Optiq more than just a sleek profile. It enables the fitment of an 85.0-kWh battery, the biggest in this group. This in turn gives it the most range of the bunch, a particularly strong EPA-estimated 302 miles, which is a big chunk more than you'd get from the EQB (207 miles), the Q4 (258 miles), or the GV60 (264 miles). Two electric motors lie under the skin, one at each end. The front one is a permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PSM) that is always on duty, while the unit at the back is an induction motor that chips in when necessary—including acceleration, thankfully. We have no problem with the use of one induction motor, because there's no need for a clutch to take it offline. But the Mercedes and Audi have their PSM at the back and induction motor up front, which seems wrong-headed. You want your primary PSM where Cadillac puts it for the stabilizing effects of regeneration at the front. Regardless, the Cadillac makes 300 horsepower and 354 pound-feet of torque at full boil. That's not quite as much as the Audi, but solidly midpack. We haven't yet taken the Optiq to our test track to time its 60-mph sprint, but it feels like a 5.2-second car. On the braking front, the Cadillac feels smooth and linear when you press the left pedal. Regeneration works as expected, and the limits are high enough to encompass most normal driving. But occasionally, you might have to supplement the recuperation with friction braking because it's not quite as predictable as other systems. Still, we sailed through a tricky winding descent using nothing but regen. The Optiq has all the steering feedback you could ask for. When driving straight it delivers the subtle feel necessary to keep it subconsciously on your desired path, and when you turn in you get a nice increase in effort. It was, in a word, faultless. The Cadillac's price point is not the place to find a height-adjustable air suspension and adaptive dampers, but the Optiq's passive setup is expertly tuned. There's nothing wrong with steel springs and passive shocks, especially on the Optiq, which uses something Cadillac calls Passive Plus dampers. These units have a second valve inside that makes their response frequency-dependent, which means the damper will stay firmer at the sorts of low-piston speeds that characterize cornering, but they'll open up to soften the impacts of discrete bumps. All dampers attempt to do this, but this second valve gives the suspension tuning engineer a much more definitive tool for dialing everything in. It absolutely works, because while the ride felt sporty in corners, it also breathed fairly well on rough sections. Meanwhile, that long wheelbase makes the Optiq's cabin a nice place to spread out. There's plenty of room in both rows, and the furnishings are surprisingly spectacular. The star is the coarse-weave fabric that sits atop the doors and dash. It looks luxurious rather than cheap, and it's made from recycled materials. The fabric lies next to stitched faux-leather armrest panels and matching seats. Before you is a 33-inch screen as seen in the larger Lyriq, with manually adjustable climate vents located elegantly in a slot below. There's one drawback to the drawn-out look, though—that sloping rear roofline does take a wee bite out of cargo space. Still, 26 cubic feet is pretty decent in this segment, and Cadillac placed the charge port on the front fender to preserve as much as they can back here, albeit at the expense of a frunk. The real star of the cabin show is the standard AKG Studio system with Dolby Atmos, which includes 19 speakers behind stainless-steel grilles sprinkled throughout the cabin. Atmos allows Dolby's engineers to place different instruments in precise points in 3-D space, and they have remixed thousands of albums available through dozens of streaming services. But there is a catch, of course. To get the proper experience, you'll need to play your music through the infotainment's built-in apps. (Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, for those who prioritize mirroring over music fidelity.) Cadillac has priced and contented the Optiq quite aggressively. Every single piece of active safety equipment in the catalog is standard, as is Super Cruise, massaging seats, and the AKG Dolby Atmos system. You get your choice of Luxury or Sport themes, which cost $54,390 for Luxury 1 with chrome trim or $54,990 for Sport 1 for body-color trim and different wheels. You can step up to Luxury 2 or Sport 2 for $56,590 or $57,090, respectively. The jump from equipment-level 1 to 2 nets you quite the bundle: For the $2100 or $2200 extra (depending on trim), you get a color head-up display, heated rear seats, ventilated front seats, eight-way power seats instead of six-way, fancier LED headlights and taillights, an air-quality sensor, and a cargo-area cover. Standalone options include a faster 19.2-kW Level 2 onboard charger (11.5 kW is standard, which is more than sufficient), 21-inch wheels instead of 20s (meh), and special interior and exterior colors (natch). Did we mention that the Optiq contains all this stuff and still costs less than similarly equipped versions of the Audi Q4, Mercedes-Benz EQB, and Genesis GV60? As we said, Cadillac seems to have a proper hit on its hands. Despite the unfortunate naming scheme, the 2025 Optiq gives us zero ick. 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