2024 Cadillac Celestiq First Ride: Worth Rolls or Bentley Money?!

An America that typically conflates the Cadillac brand with jumbo Escalade SUVs, Uber Black rides, or memories of the bad old padded-roof, wide-whitewalls, and velour-seat days might have trouble wrapping its collective mind around a hatchback Cadillac luxury electric car priced like a Bentley or a Rolls-Royce. But the journey of a thousandfold perception upgrade starts with a single step change in reputation. And via Blackwing performance models and hand-built special editions, Cadillac has been making these step changes. Does the new 2024 Cadillac Celestiq present like a legit Rolls or Bentley alternative? We got a chance to find out when we recently took a ride in an engineering validation vehicle, with vehicle performance manager Blaine Heavener at the helm.

First Impressions

Scale has so much to do with your first impressions of a luxury vehicle. A Rolls-Royce Phantom towers over other cars, whereas this Cadillac Celestiq sprawls. It’s very long, low, and wide, which makes it impressive in a different way. Unique jewelry-like lighting impresses mightily at night, as does the push-button interface that powers open the doors (of course, a similar feature is now available on the Genesis G90 and other more proletarian conveyances).

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Interior Vibe

Once inside the 2024 Cadillac Celestiq, the vibe is vastly more modern and high-tech. Sure, there’s sumptuous leather with interesting perforation, stitching and piping patterns, cushy carpet (with a lower nap than the Rolls standard), and expertly crafted wood (or other materials). But whereas Bentley offers an option to rotate the infotainment screen away in favor of a wood panel or analog clock, Cadillac presents a brilliant QLED screen spanning the abundant width of the car just under the windshield. Naturally the passenger side features lenticular polarization to enable right-seat occupants to watch movies without distracting the driver. And as for physical vibes coming from the 38-speaker AKG sound system, they sound righteous—even when simply playing a lower-bandwidth XM Chill stream.

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Riding in Back

Rear-seat passengers get their own screens. These seem smaller than the industry max, but larger ones would look cartoonish attached to these trimmer seat backs. These can play all the popular streaming options or display info like speed, range, efficiency, and individual system energy use to allow rear-seat passengers to micromanage the journey remotely. Tray tables deploy from the center console, which also incorporates a control screen. The latter is how Mr./Ms. Big swipe to close their power door, and how they control their climate.

Here there are novel options including the vents’ aim, whether they focus or fade toward the occupant, and the choice of three oscillating airflow options: side to side, up and down, or a wiggly combination (happily there are three presets per side to preserve choices). Of course, there is a wireless charger and a USB-C port for each rear passenger.

The glass roof features electrochromic tinting by quadrant and offers five levels of dimming for each passenger ranging from very light to very dark (but not opaque) blue.

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Riding in Front

For as high-tech as this cockpit is, the interface seems approachable. There’s a crystal-looking rotary push knob flanked by haptic capacitive quick-select buttons for home, back, media, and navigation. Immediately above it is the control screen for climate, seating comfort, doors, roof-tinting, self-parking, and more. The massaging seats offer five programs at three levels of intensity each (Knead-3 felt invigorating). Car conversationalists will appreciate full Google/Alexa control of everything, and of course they can shop at the Google Play store.

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How Does It Ride?

Full disclosure, our ride experience was in one of several final validation vehicles transported to California’s Monterey Car Week, where Cadillac Celestiq engineers spent the week accruing development miles. (Hey, you gotta drive ’em somewhere, why not have some filthy-rich car-lover eyeballs on ’em at the same time? And we hear certain high-net-worth guests were afforded brief drive opportunities.) The point is, Carmel Valley Ranch Road and the Laureles Grade are not terribly bumpy test routes. That said, “our” Celestiq, riding on 23-inch wheels and tires felt blessedly serene (22s are also available). That’s thanks in large part to a novel integration of magnetorheological (MR) shocks, active anti-roll bars, and bespoke Michelin Pilot Sport EV tires with self-sealant and sound-absorbing foam inside. These are reportedly the first tires to bear the Cadillac Mondrian logo on the sidewall. The development drivers also noted having enjoyed “tailgate mode,” an Easter egg feature that may become available later, utilizing two external speakers (and not the lo-fi pedestrian warning ones) to serenade picnic parties. You heard it here first!

When Do Deliveries Begin?

We asked Heavener what issues, if any, the Monterey shakedown drives had uncovered, and he replied there was nothing major. Mostly a few electronics glitches and some refinement of the regenerative one-pedal driving behavior, especially when descending grades. At least a year of production has been spoken for, with initial deliveries expected in the fourth quarter of this year. And if the number of swiveling heads, smart phones, and long-lens cameras pointed in these cars' direction are any indication, the new 2024 Cadillac Celestiq is poised to make a splash.