From Camaro to Escalade: Al Oppenheiser Reveals How GM Built the Hummer EV & Escalade IQ
Well, so you are, we think, the only chief engineer to have engineered a car of the year winner as well as an SUV of the year winner. Wow. Um, which is quite a feat. It’s quite an honor. [Music] I’m the chief engineer of the Escalade IQ and IQL and I also still am the chief engineer of the Hummer B. This is such a neat thing magic and you get really spoiled when you get in and put your foot on the brake and the door closes. Yeah, cuz I’ll jump into a Hummer and I’m sitting there with my foot on the brake, oh wait, this is that oldfashioned. I got to close it myself. Wait, I have to close my door. Yeah, come on. Where’s I need a door closer. It was very crazy. Um, when I was uh it was explained I was going to be leaving the Camaro and go over to help EVs. Um, was that a shock? Big shock. Big shock. Um, I actually had a conversation with Mark Royce about it and um, it was time to put the priority on making EVs exciting. No offense to Bolts and Volts. Um, but if we were going to grow our EV strategy and the strategy that Mary had laid out about our role in U0000, um, we needed to really put our focus on the EVs and and Mark is the person who saved the Hummer name and he had it in his mind that he wanted to do a battery electric Hummer. Um, so the uh, you know, it could have I could have moped and said maybe I should retire. I’m the Camaro guy. I got, you know, garage full of home and so on. But you don’t really get that many chances generally in in life to to start over again. And so, uh, that’s that’s how we kind of got motivated that, hey, I get this opportunity to be part of the the ground zero of GM moving to an EV world. And, um, the team for Hummer was handpicked. And actually beyond that, the team for the battery electric trucks was handpicked because of um their ability to understand how we develop vehicles but develop them fast and not afraid to um to try new things. We had the bet mentality that um things like uh two pizza lunch, two pizza meetings, if if you couldn’t feed people in the room with two pizzas, you had too many people there. Fail fast and fix it fast. Uh 24-hour rule. You you could discuss something and go out and learn about it, but you had to come back in 24 hours and make a decision. Quick decision-m autonomy. Push the decision-m down to the lower levels of the team. and don’t have everything go up to be pre-review pre-review then then all of a sudden you get to an executive level and make a decision in order to go fast we we did the entire battery electric truck architecture that way um we tried to act as a startup company um we came over and sat our engineers with our design team um little things like that that take time out of your day um to to to move fast you know the team lived over here at the at the design studio um understood what the mission was. Um the the IQ was meant for um style conscious, the ones that want to be first when a new technology comes out, they want to be first to try it. So I know EV is not new, but it’s it’s new in the Cadillac world in a luxury SUV. And the styling of the IQ has more sweeping roof line. Uh the mission that we had from a styling standpoint was to not make it seem like a big SUV that it was a luxury SUV, you know, styled for for those that are are trends setters. Um and I think we accomplished that. The this the sweeping roof line um we we uh if you can just to give an analogy, the same battery is a 24 mod battery that’s in the Hummer, right? Um and that’s 355 roughly miles range. Yeah. Um this is 460. And how do you do that? Well, it’s a narrower track than the Hummer. So this we call this the narrow track um version of the electric trucks. Um so that helps the overall arrow with a lower CDA, but the we exceeded our drag and our um CD targets for this uh way beyond what they were as a as a 34. Yeah. And we’re at a 32. And that, you know, just helps enable the range. Um, so the again the sweeping roof line really helps enable the aerodynamics of the vehicle. We have the underbody strakes and so on that also help really put a focus on maximizing the mileage out of that 24 mod battery versus what Hummer did. That’s not really a that’s not really a butt hauler. You know, the Hummer that’s more has a different purpose. This is going to be the family vehicle. So to get that 460, we really focused on arrow. Yeah, we are now a luxury SUV that if you’re in Detroit, you can take your family to Chicago. You don’t have to stop and charge or you can go to Florida on three charges. I mean, it’s it’s something that now there is no excuse why you would not want to consider an electric SUV and and a luxury SUV like Escalade. And I mentioned they’ve been in Escalade’s been around for uh over 25 years and we’ve sold over a million of them. So, it is a world recognized luxury SUV and um I think the IQ and IQL is a perfect addition to the family. [Music] And when we set out to do things like an Escalade IQ, we we sit in a room with the whole team and say, “What what do you want to read about when you look backwards after we’re in production?” and it always comes up motor trend of the year because we’ve all seen the calipers our whole lives, anybody in the auto industry and to be able to um be part of a team or even acknowledge um as a influencer in the industry whatever the it may be um to be part of that and actually put your hands on some hardware. I mean, it’s kind of like Stanley Cup for the auto industry and uh you know, I would say there few hundred people that have a picture of themselves with the calipers. It was pretty special. Very humbled and excited that we can now say that we’re the Motor Trend SUV of the year. This one’s different because um uh the the passion behind the team um is not different but um the Cadillac myself learning Cadillac I had a little exposure to the CT4 uh when I had Camaro. Um so I I sort of understood Cadillac is different and Cadillac has a has a whole different structure of meetings of approvals of consistency. See, there are people that their role is to make sure that no matter what Cadillac you get into, the customer feels the same, whether it’s a a CT4 or a Blackwing or an Escalade Ice or an Escalade EV. And I mean the the attention to detail to respect the Cadillac brand uh and the legacy that it has. I you really feel that um there is a priority at General Motors to um earn the Escalade crest and to take that back to maybe where it it originally started was it used to be named as the standard of the world and and you can feel it, you can see it. There’s definitely a a family environment of Cadillac that um no matter which team you talk to, they all have the same mission is you want to earn that crest on the front. And so that’s different. And I think the passion that goes into making sure, you know, we don’t go do anything necessarily specific for the EV Escalade. Um that you don’t go and talk to your other counterparts to say, “Hey, is this going to progress the brand?” So it’s very it’s it’s different for me. It was a good learning experience and I I really enjoy it. So, is is this going to be your last job at the end or is Rice going to shock you yet again? Uh, I don’t know. I I I we talked earlier. I don’t really consider this a job. I I think I have the luckiest job in the world being a chief engineer. It’s an aspiration of any engineer that comes to GM anyway in my experience. um the fact that I was able to achieve it for so many years. I’ve been a chief engineer for 26 years. Um I have um bosses above me that haven’t even been a GM that long. So I’ve been very lucky and I think I stay because I love it. I love the challenges. I’ve been given some great opportunities um in my career as a chief and before that. Um and you know I I would I wouldn’t do anything different if I started all over again. And then how long do I go? It’s still fun. If if it’s not fun to get up and come in, you know, I’m I’m 63. Um, but I still get up at 4 in the morning. I do my stretches. I come in excited, thinking about what can we do different today and how can we progress the company today? And as long as I’m able to do that, um, and they’re interested in me doing that and my badge works, I’ll come in. I’ll come in every day. [Music]
Al Oppenheiser, Chief Engineer behind both the Hummer EV and the Cadillac Escalade IQ, sits down to discuss his journey from muscle cars to leading the charge in General Motors’ electric future. As the only engineer to develop both a Car of the Year and SUV of the Year winner, Oppenheiser shares how his team approached EV design like a startup—pushing speed, innovation, and collaboration to deliver world-class luxury performance. From rethinking aerodynamics to reinventing what luxury means in an electric world, this conversation offers a rare inside look at how iconic American nameplates are being reborn for the EV era.
0:00 – Al Oppenheiser’s legacy at GM
1:30 – How EVs became GM’s top priority
3:00 – Inside the Hummer EV & Escalade IQ teams
6:00 – The design secrets behind Escalade IQ’s range
7:30 – Winning SUV of the Year
9:00 – Why Al still loves coming to work
#CadillacEscaladeIQ #HummerEV #GMElectric #EVInnovation #AlOppenheiser #AutomotiveEngineering #CarOfTheYear #SUVOfTheYear #ElectricVehicles
MotorTrend is the ultimate destination for gearheads looking for the latest automotive research and news.
Find the right car, truck or suv for you.
➡️: https://www.motortrend.com/car-finder
Follow MotorTrend for the latest!
MotorTrend News: https://www.motortrend.com
Facebook: / motortrend
Instagram: / motortrend
Twitter(X): / motortrend
TikTok: / motortrend
MotorTrend preferred music partner: Universal Production Music
MotorTrend is a subsidiary of Hearst Autos, Inc. and a part of Hearst Digital Media.
