The Cadillac Escalade IQ is an exercise in scale. We’re talking 55 inches of screen across the dashboard, a 205 kWh battery pack, the mass of a mid-rise apartment building, and available 24-inch alloy wheels. However, perhaps the greatest single signifier of hugeness on the entire vehicle is a badge on the back that just reads “1000” and while that’s a tremendous number, exactly what are you getting 1,000 of?
Well, it’s torque, except not really. See, back in 2019, Cadillac unveiled a new engine denomination system of badging its cars in Newton Meters depending on their torque output, starting with a “400” badge on the back of the Cadillac XT6 that made 271 lb.-ft. of torque. If you’re an engineer, you’ve probably already worked out that 271 lb.-ft. works out to 367.4 Newton Meters of torque, quite the discrepancy from 400.
The idea of using torque as a badge makes sense considering that only lunatics like myself take their cars to redline on almost every drive involving an on-ramp, and torque is what drivers actually glide around town on. However, Cadillac’s decided to round up to the nearest 50, which seems a little more egregious than Ford badging a 4.9-liter V8 as a five-liter but not all that bad compared to Mercedes-AMG badging a two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with plug-in hybrid assistance as a “63”, implying the presence of a 6.3-liter engine.
However, there’s an extra dimension to this craziness that makes it all make sense, and that would be the optional letter after the numbers. Back when you could order a three-liter Duramax diesel inline-six in an Escalade, the 6.2-liter V8 models wore “600” badging, while the diesels wore “600D” badging. In theory, this worked well because both engines produced 460 lb.-ft. of torque, and the “D” at the end of the diesel model’s badge theoretically let buyers know that the Duramax’s torque peak would arrive early.
It’s a similar story with the base Lyriq. While a “450E” badge implies slightly more torque than the “400” on the back of the XT6 suggests, the “E” tells you loud and clear that the Lyriq’s rounded-up 441 Nm of torque (325 lb.-ft.) comes from an electric motor, meaning it kicks in quickly. In contrast, you have to rev the XT6 up to 5,000 rpm to access its torque peak, so the experience will be quite different, and the badge lets you know. It’s a similar deal with the Cadillac CT4 sedan’s optional 2.7-liter turbocharged four-banger. It makes a strong 350 lb.-ft. of torque, or 474.5 Nm of torque, from 1,500 RPM to 4,000 RPM, so it gets the badge “500T” with the last letter indicating turbocharging.
Where I think Cadillac might’ve struck upon genius is the fact that this badging scheme is entirely powertrain-agnostic. No matter what’s in a car, be it electric motors or a gasoline engine or a diesel engine or even a steam engine, it’ll produce torque. Meanwhile, the Mercedes-Benz EQE 500 is bizarre because the numbers in a Mercedes-Benz model have historically indicated displacement, but an electric car has no combustion chambers. BMW is in a similar camp with models like the i4 xDrive40, although Audi takes a slightly different approach.
Over in Ingolstadt, the power denotation approach is another level of bizarre. Take the Audi Q4, available as a “45” or a “55” depending on how much power you want. Audi claims that the “45” badge is for cars making between 226 and 248 horsepower, while the 55 badge is for cars making between 328 horsepower and 368 horsepower. These numbers don’t correlate to displacement of combustion engines, real torque figures, or even real horsepower figures.
Maybe we were wrong to laugh at Cadillac for its rounded-up torque-based engine badging scheme in units few Americans use on an everyday basis, because from where I’m standing in the electrified automotive landscape of 2025, it makes the most sense out of almost any premium automaker out there. Why the qualifier? Well, in China, BYD has solved the issue entirely. The Han electric sedan displays its zero-to-62 mph times on its trunk lid with badges like “3.9S” for the performance model.
Top graphic credit: Cadillac
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I might be the only one left who’s old enough to remember when the Eldorado had a badge proudly screaming “8.2 LITRE”.
Nope, not the only one, I actually owned one for a while.
That’s 442 levels of dumb badging.
The engine in my 65 Buick Skylark GranSport is called the Wildcat 455, which refers to the 455 lb-ft of torque the engine puts out. It is a 401 cubic inch engine. So, GM has been doing this for quite a while!!
Well, the problem with Cadillac badging is that while the Euros have been using numbers for decades to designate models, Cadillac’s is but a temporary whim.
Considering the Blackwing doesn’t actually use a Blackwing engine, maybe they should have just called it “900” or “900S”.
I came here to yell about alphanumeric car naming, as it is one of my most passionate hobbies, but you know what?
You’re right, and there’s a single factor. These aren’t the model names, they’re trim defining badges that tell you more about the model.
Do I like some of Cadillacs model names? No, they still annoyed me with those, but this, this just makes sense, and you’re entirely right that using torque as the basis may be the single best option in the modern era where displacements means almost nothing.
Torque is fine, and Buick classically did it on their Wildcat motors in the 60s, but the choice of nM to give the impression of the 25% more torque (or power) as it’s likely to be perceived, is still a weaksauce move.
The Chinese brands might run into a problem, given that I most often see 2.5S on ten-year-old fourpot Altimas, and not big-battery 4WD sedans or Ferraris.
I recall reading they went with NM because most of the world uses the metric system, which makes sense. They sell more cars in China than the US.
Do you know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in Paris?
Royale with cheese. You know why they call it that?
Didn’t JLR do this too?
The number alone is somewhat silly, but the letter at end saying what flavor of power you’re getting is very clever. Plus it still lets people not into cars see “bigger number is better”
Just give them names. Truck de Ville, that sort of thing.
They have names, this is just the power badging. Similar to “454” on old muscle cars
Escalaad Concours d’Elegance Biarritz