Before heading on a trip to Tahoe last weekend, GM offered me the use of the company\u2019s 9,000-pound monument to excess \u2013 the new electric Escalade IQL (starting at $130,405) \u2013 for a week to test-drive. Before you continue, note that I\u2019m not a professional car reviewer. TechCrunch has excellent transportation writers; I am not one of them. I\u2019m just a car enthusiast, one with two electric cars in the family (this is not uncommon in the Bay Area).<\/p>\n
I was immediately game. I\u2019d first glimpsed one last summer at a car show, where some regional car dealers had stationed themselves at the end of a long field of exquisite vintage automobiles. My immediate reaction was \u201cJesus, that\u2019s enormous,\u201d followed by a surprising admiration for its design, which, despite its enormous scale, shows restraint. For lack of a better word, I\u2019m going to say it\u2019s \u201cstrapping.\u201d Its proportions just work.<\/p>\n
My excitement waned pretty quickly when the car was dropped off at my house a day before our departure time. This thing is a monstrosity \u2014 at 228.5 inches long and 94.1 inches wide, it made our own cars look like toys. My first apartment in San Francisco was smaller. Trying to drive it up my driveway was a little harrowing, too; it\u2019s so big, and its hood is so high, that if you\u2019re ascending a road at a certain slope \u2013 we live midway down a hill; our mailbox is at the top of it \u2013 you can\u2019t see whatever is directly in front of the car.<\/p>\n
I thought about just leaving it in the driveway for the duration of the trip. The other alternative was doing what I could to grow more comfortable with the prospect of driving it 200 miles to Tahoe City, so I tooled around in it that night and the next day, picking up dinner, heading to an exercise class \u2014 just basic stuff around town. When I ran into a friend on the street, I volunteered as quickly as possible that this was not my new car, that I was going to possibly review it, and wasn\u2019t its size ridiculous? It felt like a tank. I thought: other than hotels that use SUVs like the Escalade to ferry guests around, what kind of monster chooses a car like this?<\/p>\n
Five days later, it turns out that I am that kind of monster.<\/p>\n Look, I don\u2019t know how or when I fell for this car. If I\u2019d written this review after two days, it would read very differently. Even now, I\u2019m not so blind that I don\u2019t see its shortcomings.<\/p>\n It was the Escalade\u2019s performance in a terrible snowstorm that really won my heart, but let me walk you through the steps between \u201cUgh, this car is a tank\u201d and \u201cYes! This car is a tank<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston, MA<\/span> Just getting into it requires a little more exertion than would seem to make sense. I\u2019m fairly athletic and I still found myself wondering if this thing shouldn\u2019t come with an automated step stool.<\/p>\n Inside is where digital maximalism does its work. The dashboard opens with a 55-inch curved LED screen with 8K resolution that reads less like a car display and more like a situation room. Front passengers get their own screens. Second-row passengers also get 12.6-inch personal screens along with stowable tray tables, dual wireless chargers, and \u2014 with the most lavish version of the car \u2014 massage seats that will make them forget they\u2019re in a vehicle at all. Google Maps handles navigation. And the polarized screen technology deserves its own praise: while one of my kids binge-watched Hulu in the front seat, not a frame of it leaked into my sightline from behind the wheel.<\/p>\n The cabin itself is built around the premise that no one inside should feel crowded, and it delivers. Front legroom stretches to 45.2 inches; the second row offers 41.3; even the third row \u2014 historically the place where goodwill goes to die on a long drive \u2014 manages 32.3 inches. Seven adults could share this machine for a long while without fraying each other\u2019s nerves. Heated and ventilated leather seats with 14-way power adjustment come standard in the first two rows, and the whole operation runs on 5G Wi-Fi. The car also comes standard with Super Cruise, GM\u2019s hands-free driving system, which I\u2019m not sure I quite figured out. Actual reviewers seem to love it; when I tried it, the car felt like it was drifting to an alarming degree between the outer boundaries of the highway lane, and when that happens, it unleashes an escalating sequence of warnings. First, a red steering wheel icon materializes on-screen. Then your seat pulses haptic warnings against your rump. Ignore those and a chime \u2014 both reminder and reproach \u2014 fills the cabin. GM calls this impolite series a \u201cdriver takeover request.\u201d<\/p>\n Did I mention the 38-speaker AKG Studio sound system? So good.<\/p>\n As for the exterior \u2014 this is a handsome giant, but it takes some getting used to. At first, I found the grille, which is just for show, almost comically imposing. This is definitely a car for people who are the boss, or want to be the boss, or want to look like the boss while privately dealing with existential crises. Pulling up to a glass-lined restaurant one night, I\u2019m pretty sure I blinded half the patrons as I swung into a parking spot perpendicular to the building, the Escalade\u2019s headlights flooding through the windows.<\/p>\n Then there is the light show the car launches whenever it detects you approaching via the key or the MyCadillac app. It as if it\u2019s saying, \u201cHey, chief, where we headed?\u201d before you\u2019ve so much as touched a door handle. (In the vernacular of Cadillac, this is thanks to its \u201cadvanced, all-LED exterior lighting system,\u201d highlighted by a \u201ccrystal shield\u201d illuminated grille and crest, along with vertical LED headlamps and \u201cchoreography-capable tail lamps.\u201d) <\/p>\n It is, objectively, a bit much. I loved it immediately.<\/p>\n Despite its size, the Escalade IQL is unexpectedly nimble. Not \u201csports car darting through traffic\u201d nimble, but \u201cI can\u2019t quite believe something this colossal doesn\u2019t handle like a battleship\u201d nimble.<\/p>\n Now we arrive at the frustrations. The front trunk \u2014 or \u201cfrunk\u201d in the lexicon of EV devotees \u2014 operates in mysterious and frustrating ways. Opening requires holding the button until completion. Release prematurely and it halts mid-ascent, frozen in automotive purgatory, forcing you to restart the entire sequence. Closing demands the same sustained pressure. The rear trunk, conversely, requires two distinct taps followed by immediate button abandonment. Hold too long and nothing happens.<\/p>\n Relatedly, twice, the vehicle refused to power down after I\u2019d finished driving. The car simply sat there, running, even when shifted to park and opened the door (which tells the car to turn off). Solution: open the frunk, close the frunk, shift into drive, then<\/em> park, then exit entirely.<\/p>\n As for the software, it\u2019s absolutely fine unless you\u2019ve owned a Tesla, in which case, prepare for disappointment. This seems to be true across the board \u2014 everyone I know who owns both a Tesla and another EV says the same thing. Once you\u2019ve internalized how effortlessly Tesla\u2019s software dissolves barriers between intention and execution, every other automaker\u2019s software feels like a compromise.<\/p>\n Which brings us to the nadir of the trip: charging in Tahoe during winter. For all its virtues, the Escalade IQL is, by any measure, a thirsty machine. The battery is a 205 kWh pack \u2014 enormous, and it needs to be, because the car burns through roughly 45 kWh per 100 miles, which is considerably more than comparable electric SUVs. Cadillac estimates 460 miles of range on a full charge, and in ideal conditions that holds up. Tahoe in winter, however, is not ideal conditions. We\u2019d also arrived with less charge than we should have. A series of side trips on the way up, including an emergency detour to find shirts for a family member who had packed none, had eaten into the battery more than expected. By the time we needed to charge, we genuinely needed to charge.<\/p>\n We approached a Tesla Supercharger in Tahoe City that appeared on the MyCadillac app, but when we plugged in, nothing happened. We tried two more stalls. A GM representative explained, not entirely helpfully, that Tesla throttles non-Tesla vehicles to 6 kilowatts per hour anyway, but it was a frustrating discovery. A nearby EVGo had shuttered a month prior. ChargePoint\u2019s two units at the Tahoe City Public Utility lot were, respectively, broken and willing to connect but not to actually charge anything. We briefly contemplated a 35-mile drive to Incline Village, did the math on what stranded would actually look like, and decided against it. Then I discovered an Electrify America station 12 miles away. We drove through gathering snow, arrived shortly before 11 p.m., and it worked. I sat there for an hour fighting exhaustion before driving home.<\/p>\n The following morning revealed another issue: tire pressure had dropped to 53 and 56 PSI in the front (recommended: 61) and 62 PSI in the rear (recommended: 68). I have no idea whether the car had been delivered that way or whether something else was going on \u2014 either way, it meant someone standing at a gas station filling tires while being pelted directly in the face with ice. That someone was my husband. The tires held steady after that, even as the week kept doing its worst. For a family trip, it was going great.<\/p>\n At this point, in fact, I would have told you that the Escalade IQL is unquestionably luxurious and ideal for families of four or more who value space and technology. I would tell you it came burdened by real tradeoffs: forward visibility obstructed by its commanding hood, parking challenges inherent to its dimensions, limited charging infrastructure for a machine this ravenous, and tires tasked with supporting 9,000 pounds. It\u2019s a beautiful car, I would have said, but it\u2019s not for me.<\/p>\n But the snow that had started to fall kept falling. Within two days, eight feet had accumulated, making it impossible to ski \u2014 the entire point of the trip \u2014 and terrifying to drive. Except I found that I wasn\u2019t terrified because we had the Escalade, which, because of its weight, felt like driving a tank through the snow. What could have been harrowing felt serene.<\/p>\n I also adjusted to the size. By the end of this past week I had stopped mouthing \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d to whoever who was waiting for me to figure out where to park it. I had stopped caring what it said about me that I was driving a car whose entire design philosophy is: the owner of this vehicle is not waiting in line. Eight feet of snow had fallen, we needed groceries, and I was the one with the tank, suckers! I could sense my husband falling for the car, too. <\/p>\n Then the snow stopped and the sun came out, and the Escalade was just a very dirty car sitting in the driveway (sorry, GM!). I still like it, too, and I realize it\u2019s not because of the emergency alone. I love riding high, with the speaker system flooding the car with a favorite soundtrack. That light show still gets me. The frunk is still unhinged. I won\u2019t soon forget the panic of not being able to charge a 9,000-pound car where I thought I could. Parking this thing is truly a stressful endeavor. I have strong opinions about unnecessary consumption. None of that has changed. <\/p>\n I just also, somehow, want this car, so when the GM middleman comes to collect it, I may hide it under a tarp \u2014 a very large tarp \u2014 and tell him he has the wrong address.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-22-at-2.19.29-AM.png?w=680\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 9, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-22-at-2.21.47-AM.png?w=680\")
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