Notable changes are on the way for the 2025 Cadillac Escalade, which will receive a thorough refresh. So far, however, the luxury marque has done an excellent job of keeping the finer points of the luxury SUV’s design hidden under heavy camo – namely, its facelifted front end. But now, Cadillac Society spied a 2025 Escalade ESV that has dropped even more camouflage, giving us our best look yet at what’s in store, and it bears striking similarities to its electric counterpart, the Escalade IQ.
The 2025 Cadillac Escalade prototype captured today is wearing lighter camo on the front end, allowing us to draw parallels with the Escalade IQ, signaling that Caddy designers focused on creating congruence between the exterior design of the two mechanically unrelated full-size luxury SUVs. This is most evident in the lighting arrangements on both vehicles, which is the only area not affected by their differing methods of power delivery.
The refreshed 2025 Escalade features a set of vertically-oriented headlights that closely mirror the lighting signatures (on the outer edges of the vertical headlight cluster) and the primary headlights (on the inner edges of that same vertical headlight cluster) decorating the front of the Escalade IQ. While the lighting elements don’t appear to have been lifted directly from the Escalade IQ and pasted onto the front end of the 2025 Cadillac Escalade, they do look very similar. Of course, the two SUVs can be easily differentiated by the deep-breathing mesh grille on the internal combustion-powered Escalade, which stands in place of the LED lighting display seen on the Escalade IQ.
The similarities between the forthcoming Escalade and Escalade IQ don’t stop with their front ends, as the refreshed luxury SUV will ditch the current model’s 38-inch OLED display in favor of a pillar-to-pillar (or coast-to-coast) panel that runs from the driver’s side A-pillar to the passenger-side A-pillar. The setup will be nearly identical to that found in the 55-inch coast-to-coast display found in the Cadillac Celestiq and 2025 Escalade IQ.
Inbound updates also include the addition of the Duramax 3.0L I6 turbodiesel engine (production code LZ0), replacing the current diesel engine (production code LM2), which was offered for the 2021, 2022 and 2023 model years. The forthcoming full-size luxury SUV will also gain 5G network connectivity, allowing it to better support technologies like Super Cruise and integrated OnStar services. That improved connectivity will be supported by a redesigned communications fin mounted on the roof.
Be sure to subscribe to Cadillac Society for the latest Cadillac Escalade news and around-the-clock Cadillac news coverage. We also invite you to join the latest discussions in our Cadillac forums and Cadillac Escalade forum.
GM Owner
Some call that the Lyriq look since it was the first Cadillac with that look.
CHRISTOPHER ALFLEN
The rear of both the EV SUV and EV Sedan remind me of the Pontiac Aztec.