Is the Cadillac Escalade IQ a road trip-worthy EV? [Video]

I recently had the opportunity to test drive a loaner vehicle from GM to conduct an in-depth review of the 2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ. I drove it thousands of miles to Florida and back to determine not only whether it’s a fitting BEV for families, but also whether it’s worth considering as an extended-road-trip-capable EV.

A quick background on the Cadillac Escalade IQ

My journey toward my recent road trip and in-depth review of the Cadillac Escalade IQ dates back to 2022, when GM’s luxury marque first announced plans for an all-electric version of the veteran SUV model. I was actually in New York City in 2023 when GM officially unveiled the initial design and spoke with its chief engineer.

Since then, however, I have remained a bystander to the official launch of sales of the Cadillac Escalade IQ as a 2025 model, hoping to conduct a review at some point. My colleague Fred had the opportunity to test drive the 2026 version last year, and I was a tad jealous.

The next time I saw the IQ in person after the initial unveiling was outside the Test Track ride at Disney World, which GM sponsors. I was blown away by its height and long front, and thought it would make for an excellent family EV, especially for road trips.

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Recently, my significant other and I had another Disney trip booked, this time intending to drive so we could bring our Great Pyrenees, Stella, along. This felt like an excellent opportunity to score an EV instead of a rental car and finally do an in-depth review of the Cadillac Escalade IQ.

GM was nice enough to oblige, so we took the SUV from snowy Western Michigan to Orlando and back, traversing a large chunk of the Midwest and Southwest along the way.

During nearly four days of driving, I was able to truly get a feel for the Cadillac Escalade IQ, both inside and out. I documented my experience in both text and a video review, which you can view below. Let’s start with some specs.

First impressions of the 2026 Escalade IQ

As promised, I’m going to start with some pertinent specs so you can understand what I was wielding out on the roads.

Powertrain: Dual Motor AWD

Battery Capacity: 205 kWh (insane)

Estimated Range: 465 miles

Power: 750 horsepower

Torque: 785 lb-ft

Acceleration: 0-60 mph in 4.7 seconds

Architecture: 800V platform

Charging Plug: J1772 (NACS adapter available)

Peak Charge Rate: 350 kW

Length: 224.3″

Width (with mirrors): 94.1″

Height: 76.1 “

Wheelbase: 136.2″

Seating: 3 rows, 7 passengers

Legroom

Front Row: 45.2″

Second Row: 41.3″

Third Row: 32.3″

Cargo

Behind First Row: (up to) 119.1 cubic feet

Behind Second Row: 69.1 cubic feet

Behind Third Row: 23.6 cubic feet

eTrunk (frunk) Space: (up to) 12.2 cubic feet

Total Cargo: 224 cubic feet

If you can’t already tell from the pictures, this thing is a beast.

After taking delivery, I had to immediately explore this premium SUV inside and out before I drove it from Michigan to Orlando and back. As you can see in the image above, even at over 224,” it still fit in my garage.

The interior screams comfort and quality that the Cadillac brand is known for, and this EV has just about every bell and whistle you can imagine (much to its own detriment, which I’ll explain in a bit). One interesting feature new to me was automatic doors controllable from the center display consoles. I’d imagine this is more useful for livery drivers, but I still had fun playing with it in the video. It was also nice to pull the door handle and have it do the rest of the work for you; just watch out for nearby parked cars!

From a family vehicle perspective, the Cadillac Escalade IQ is a three-row, large SUV seating seven and featuring individual monitors in the second row (seen in my video review). These are perfect for extended-family road trips, like driving to Florida with kids in the back.

Second-row passengers have their own display panel where they can control the rear doors, adjust HVAC, and activate heated seats for the second and third rows. Below that display are 2 USB-C ports, 2 HDMI ports, and a 110V plug. That means you can hook up a DVD player, or better yet, a gaming console. 10-year-old me would be so beyond jealous.

The eTrunk, or frunk, is easily the longest I’ve ever seen, and includes another 110V plug. Perfect for tailgating.

You wouldn’t notice it at first, but I soon learned that you can tap the rear Cadillac logo to open the trunk, which offers a respectable amount of space even with the third row up (see cargo specs above).

This was another cool feature. If you want any seats down, you can control them from the buttons in the trunk. Not just the third row, but also the second row seats. Better yet, you can also get the third row seats back up using the same trunk switches.

I needed the second row to transport Stella, so I kept it up. The third row down offered more than enough cargo space for two adults and a dog.

Below the rear trunk space is a tiny storage area, only large enough to house the charging cable, so not much cargo depth back there, unlike a competitor like the Lucid Gravity, for instance, which can stow a bunch of suitcases. That would be nice to have for larger families, but it wasn’t necessary for me personally.

Princess Stella tends to drool, so I covered the IQ’s rear screens out of respect.

Here are some interior images after everything was packed in.

Stella’s domain for the trip.Packed trunk with third row down.Plenty of frunk space.Made it!

The 2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ is a pleasure to drive

From a pure performance and driving standpoint, my review of the 2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ is a shining one. The open road felt easily conquerable in this massive vehicle, which stands 76.1 inches tall. In fact, I’d argue it’s hard not to feel safe when you’re sitting higher than nearly every other car on the road that isn’t a semi truck.

Not long into the trip, I had to test out GM’s SuperCruise ADAS. However, I could not for the life of me figure out how to activate it correctly. We ended up having to Google it (a common occurrence). Once I figured it out, though, it was so effective and helped give my legs a break during long stretches of driving. I’m a big fan – SuperCruise is still one of the best in the biz in my opinion.

As you will see in detail in my video review, the front display in the Cadillac Escalade IQ spans across the entire dashboard. I had my own customizable driver screen behind the steering wheel, plus a shared center display for most of the controls. My lovely passenger also had her own screen with apps like Disney+ and Hulu, which, when activated, I could not see from my seat to avoid distractions.

There’s also a center console display for HVAC and seat temperature controls, along with a Cadillac-branded knob to control the screen while driving.

If you’ve seen any of my other EV reviews, you know I like to have my ventilated seats on year-round, and the 2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ had both physical and digital controls for it. There were physical buttons on my driver’s side door and digital taps on the center console screen. That’s also where you can activate seat massagers, which were a lifesaver during such a long trip. The massage is another premium feature you didn’t know you needed until you experience it.

As we headed South through Indiana, the roads got progressively worse. I don’t know what’s going on in that state, but I’ve never seen miles and miles of unplowed highway around a major metropolitan area (Indianapolis). We counted over a dozen vehicles that slid off the road. Check it out:

Seriously, Indiana. WTF? This is a major highway.

For us, though? No problem. I put the Escalade in Snow Mode and never once felt out of control or nervous. The fact that this SUV weighs over 9,000 pounds helped, too, thanks to its massive 205 kWh battery pack.

Once we cleared the snow, I drove as long as I could into the night, where I got the full effect of the IQ’s large head-up display, which is one of the better ones I’ve encountered. I also tested a driver display feature called night vision, which can spot deer and other objects. I need that in Michigan! 

We had plenty of charging stops, which I detail in my video review and again below, but I found the Google Maps built into the Cadillac Escalade IQ’s UX super helpful in finding dependable charging the whole trip. 

By day two, I felt at home in the Escalade and was entirely in tune with its settings and controls, though I will say they are far from intuitive. The ride itself is beyond smooth and quiet, but there is way too much going on with buttons and screen taps as a driver, which could be dangerous. As I mentioned before, we had to Google for so many simple tasks because we couldn’t figure out where the controls were.

After a trip to Disney World that felt too short, it was time to head back North into the cold. As I reloaded the Cadillac Escalade IQ, I found some more quirks worth noting in my review. For starters, when using the keyfob, you have to hold the frunk button until it completely shuts and seals. If you let go, it stops and freezes. You then have to hold it again to fully reopen before you can start over. Conversely, you cannot hold the trunk button to shut it. You have to tap it twice, then let go. There were lots of little confusions like this throughout the vehicle.

On the drive back home, I encountered one issue with SuperCruise. I was driving at night and toggling my turn signal while SuperCruise was active, but the vehicle would not perform an automatic lane change. There were no displayed issues or explanations. The dash display just kept saying “looking for an opening,” even though it was always wide open. I’m not sure what the issue was, but it was fine after our next stop. 

I also was not a fan of the camera and digital screen as a rear-view display. It was utterly useless during the snowstorm because it got covered, and even after that, the camera remained dirty. As a result, the headlights of other cars took on an extra glow and shone far too brightly. Lastly, when quickly glancing up as one does when driving, my eyes would try to focus on the actual mirror itself, then the screen display within it, and I’d almost go cross-eyed. 

As I point out in my review video, I do like having cameras that display the side of the car when switching lanes, but I did not like how the Cadillac Escalade IQ does it. That view is shown in the center of the dashboard instead of the driver’s display, so you need to look in the middle of the dashboard to check your blind spot. That’s poor UX design in my opinion.

Our IQ roadtrip included A LOT of charging stops

All in all, our planned route was over 2,650 miles round-trip, not including charging stops. Those stops may not have added much mileage (we were able to stay close to the highway most of the time), but they certainly added to our overall travel time.

I was admittedly conservative with the battery level when it came to recharging and rarely let it get below 30% before stopping. There was one point where we were down to 4% in the cold, and it got a little risky. I usually try to avoid those situations, since you never know how reliable your nearest charger will be.

In total, we made 15 charging stops, adding 7 hours of extra travel time across 4 days of driving. Our average charge time was under 28 minutes, and we averaged 88.8 kWh per session. The total charging cost was $750, which is definitely higher than the cost of a trip in a combustion Escalade. Still, as I said, I chose to stop a lot more often than needed to ensure we were nowhere close to 0%—also, zero emissions—Yayyyyy.

My favorite chargers on the trip were hands down the Mercedes-Benz-branded ones because they were abundant, dependable, fast, and reasonably priced. A nice bonus was that they were also always located in a Buc-ee’s parking lot, so you could shop and eat while amongst a modern staple of road-trip Americana, while you wait.

My least favorite network was Tesla because not all of its chargers are open to other makes and models, the stations were always crowded, and those chargers never came close to the speeds of the other networks. No matter what network we used, we also never got close to the IQ’s max charge rate of 350 kW. We hit the high 200s at best.

Final thoughts and video review of the Cadillac Escalade IQ

Overall, the 2026 Escalade IQ is an incredible (and viable) option for a road trip if you’re going all-electric. As a long-time enthusiast and EV owner myself, I know for a fact I don’t need 465 miles of range in my day-to-day driving. However, for a trip to Florida, it was incredible. Being at 50% battery and still having over 200 miles of range left was downright surreal, and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to do a road trip with any less range from now on.

In many ways, the 2026 Escalade IQ spoiled us. The SUV screams comfort and quality throughout its interior, and its torque and acceleration are more than adequate, although not mind-blowing. SuperCruise remains a shining star for GM, but its branded chargers are a little overpriced for the speeds I personally encountered. I’ll take Buc-ee’s any day… sorry.

Overall, my biggest qualm with this vehicle is the user experience. It is so beyond complicated and unnecessarily so that it single-handedly turned us off to considering this vehicle as a purchase for ourselves. There’s also the fact that it’s a $127,000 vehicle, but that’s only a minor hiccup for an internet news writer’s salary, right?

No control or button is where you think it would be, and there are way too many places to look and/or touch. When you do find something, there are too many tap-throughs on the screens to get there, especially while in the driver’s seat. I’m lucky to have had a passenger to help me look things up.

Beyond that, the cargo space, seat modularity, and rear passenger screens are all home runs for a road trip. This is a perfect EV for a family of at least four planning interstate travel. I would familiarize myself with the controls first if I were you!

Want to see more, including Stella dressed as Cinderella? Here is my full video review of the 2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ, as promised. Enjoy!

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