Cadillac Teases Giant Escalade Screen Ahead of February Reveal, Predicts Future Sales Supremacy

by Steph Willems

Published: December 16th, 2019

cadillac teases giant escalade screen ahead of february reveal predicts future sales

Cadillac’s upcoming next-generation Escalade is garnering plenty of headlines ahead of its reveal, and not just because of leaked shots showing a very Escala-like take on the Chevrolet Suburban/Tahoe.

Redesigned from the ground up for the 2021 model year, General Motors’ full-size, body-on-frame SUVs aim to top the current crop in both refinement and interior room, and the pinnacle of that lineup will be no different. Cargo volume aside, we now know for sure it’ll top challengers in at least one measurement: screen size.

The General’s luxury brand is busy touting the Escalade’s whopping 38-inch curved OLED screen in the lead-up to its public debut. That unveiling, by the way, will take place February 4th in Los Angeles, with the premiere tied closely to Oscar night. Expect a barrage of marketing on Hollywood’s big night.

Stretching uninterrupted across the full width of the instrument cluster and center stack, the immense screen is said to boast resolution twice that of a 4K television, with color that’s especially vivid. It might rival the windshield for entertainment and useable info, too. Let’s hope the brightness adjustment doesn’t crap out.

In contrast to the Escalade, Chevy’s Tahoe and Suburban make do with an upgraded 10-inch touchscreen.

“From the highway to the big screen, the Escalade has been embraced by drivers and fans around the world,” said brand president Steve Carlisle in a statement related to the gimmicky tie-up. “We’re excited to introduce the 2021 Escalade during Oscars week in February.”

With the Detroit auto show moved to the summertime, it would seem that Oscar night has become a stand-in for the dead-of-winter trade show. GM started the SUV-Hollywood connection earlier this month, successfully (and unexpectedly) securing a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for the Suburban.

Late last week, Carlisle predicted the Escalade would end the year as a best-seller in the full-size premium SUV segment, with GM CEO Mary Barra telling Motor Trend, “I’m very confident about the next generation of Escalade. Let me just put it that way.”

While Lincoln’s Navigator, all-new for the 2018 model year, is a newer and more refined vehicle than the Escalade, Caddy’s big guy needn’t worry about letting Carlisle down. Despite sales dropping 2.8 percent through the end of the third quarter, Escalade volume remains double that of the Navigator. At the end of September, Escalade sales comprised 26,535 units; Navigator volume stood at 13,201, up nine-tenths of a percent from the previous year.

Ford didn’t help the Navigator’s appeal or name recognition by leaving the model withering on the vine for many a year, thus giving Cadillac an edge. Neither the Navigator nor other high-end full-size SUVs give GM brass many sleepless nights, apparently.

“Yes, there are many competitors coming into the segment, but I think Escalade has a special place and will again exceed people’s expectations with the next model,” Barra said. “It’s iconic.”

That assertion will be put to the test on February 4th.

[Image: General Motors]

#2021CadillacEscalade #Cadillac #CadillacEscalade #Escalade #FutureModels #GeneralMotors #GM #ProductPlanning #SUVs

Steph Willems

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8 of 15 comments

MKizzy on Dec 16, 2019

With such a ridiculously large high resolution touchscreen in a moving vehicle plus Caddy's below par infotainment system quality, we should assume every 2021 and up Escalade on the road will be piloted by a distracted driver.

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PeriSoft on Dec 16, 2019

The '90s-fetishizing child luddites at Jalopnik hate this, so I like it.

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- Art Vandelay on Dec 16, 2019
  
  I am a 90's fetishing luddite and I like it. It is what it is.
  
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- 28-Cars-Later on Dec 17, 2019
  
  So, GM took the only model it sold which could actually run for a reasonable amount of time and replaced a critical system with an LED from the lowest possible bidder. Progress!
  
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- PeriSoft on Dec 17, 2019
  
  @28-Cars-Later They replaced about 30 components with one - or, compared to old-school bulb-based gauges, a couple hundred components. I'd wager it's going to be substantially more reliable, all-told, if more annoying when it *does* die. There seems to be this blanket assumption that anything cool will break, just as an article of faith, but when was the last time you actually saw an LCD / OLED panel fail? Solid state, low-voltage electronics tend to be incredibly reliable. As long as GM didn't get impatient like Tesla and source consumer HW because what the hey, it can't be that much different (and this is pretty obviously a custom geometry so that's highly unlikely), I don't think it's going to be a huge issue.
  
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- 28-Cars-Later on Dec 17, 2019
  
  @PeriSoft Yes, because this is *luxury*. "The instrument cluster wasn't affected, even though I accidentally rebooted that before the touchscreen. All touchscreen-managed functions are non-accessible, including AC, seat-heating, rear-window defrosting, etc.. I couldn't even turn on the vent fan or open the sunroof using the steering wheel controls. The car still drove fine so I wasn't panicking. It's actually serene with a dark screen and only the motor/road noise (plus the milling noise that I have going). After I got home and plugged the car in, I noticed that the current draw was at 12A, so it wasn't recognizing my normal 11A setting. I had limited functional access via the smartphone app, so while I could monitor charging, I couldn't flash the lights, lock/unlock the car, vent the roof, etc.. Even the trunk button (the one you use to set the hatch opening height) wasn't back-lit, although it functioned." "Ugh, sounds like a failure to me... ***they seem to change out the center computer and screen together***. Sorry to hear but thanks for the details, I have thought about this scenario a lot since the whole bubbles on touchscreen thing." https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/center-touchscreen-blank-screen-of-death.57639/ "As long as GM didn’t get impatient like Tesla and source consumer HW" The king of beancounters didn't do the same? I wouldn't hold my breath on this.
  
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- PeriSoft on Dec 17, 2019
  
  @28-Cars-Later I suspect it would cost GM more to source outside their usual supply chain anyway. Plus, how many 35" long, 5" tall consumer OLEDs do you know of? If I had to guess I'd say that the Tesla issues have nothing to do with the display device but are effectively a failure of the body management computer, and Tesla probably has extra issues because they probably ignored all convention and went full-NIH. They'd have had the same problems if all those features were run via knobs and buttons too. The single large screen is just a cost-cutting move on their part, and really isn't relevant to the actual failures any more than it's relevant that most serial killers drink milk. Whatever GM's problems I think it's dangerous to project Tesla-like issues onto any major automaker with a normal supply chain and engineering paradigm.
  
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- JMII on Dec 17, 2019
  
  @28-Cars-Later I too would be worried about the BCM or HMI more then LCD screen itself. The HMI on my C7 has been flaky at times. Thankfully it only takes out the radio, nav and some customizable settings. However in Tesla and many new vehicles the HVAC system and pretty much everything else is controlled by the screen - and that is scary. I guess the good news is while expensive the fix is easy - just replace the darn computer. My fear is years from now who is going to stock such units and understand how to program them? Hopefully the hobbyist community will stay on top of this. For example the HMI in my GM vehicle has to uploaded with VIN specific information. So a junkyard swap doesn't work like in the analog days. You need the unit plus the programming.
  
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