If you want the ultimate in American luxury, you have to buy an Escalade, and the 2025 Cadillac Escalade has been updated with 55 inches of wall-to-wall dashboard screen space, available 24-inch wheels, and an optional executive rear seating package. However, you will have to pay dearly for the privilege of driving the latest Escalade because the new one starts at $5,700 more than before. Ouch.
So, what do you get for the extra $5,700? Well, other than a whopping 55 inches of screen stretching from A-pillar to A-pillar and Super Cruise hands-free highway driving assistance, not a whole lot. You still get a 19-speaker AKG sound system, 22-inch alloy wheels, a 6.2-liter V8 engine, 12-way power front seats, and plenty of brightwork, but with just two major features added over the outgoing base model, a starting price of $89,590 for the 2025 Cadillac Escalade Luxury seems a bit dear. Four-wheel-drive costs an extra $3,000 on top of that, meaning that if you’re in the snow belt and want the cheapest 4WD Escalade, you’re looking at a price tag of $92,590. It almost makes you want to go back to a GMC Yukon Denali, right?
Step up to the Premium Luxury trim to get ventilated front seats and a panoramic moonroof, and pricing jumps to $98,790 for the rear-wheel-drive model and $101,790 for the four-wheel-drive model. Considering last year’s model stickered for $95,190 in rear-wheel-drive Premium Luxury trim, that’s a $3,600 price increase for an SUV with one less actual feature, since the head up display from last year seems to no longer be included.
If you’re looking at the Sport trim, which is basically a murdered-out Premium Luxury trim, pricing for 2025 actually seems fairly reasonable. While the 2024 model started at $98,190 for the rear-wheel-drive model, the 2025 model sees a price increase of $1,200. Hey, if you’re into big screens, that’s probably a price worth paying.
However, if you think things get cheaper the further up the range you go, the buck stops here. The Premium Luxury Platinum trim costs a whopping $5,700 more for 2025 than for 2024, the same price increase as on the base model. Granted, you do now get night vision as standard, along with new power-operated doors, but that’s a significant price increase. Oh, and it goes harder than that. If you want essentially the same thing but with blacked-out trim, the Sport Platinum now costs $6,200 more than it did in 2024, for a starting price of $118,890 on that trim.
Lastly, there’s the ballistic 682-horsepower supercharged Escalade V, which now costs $7,700 more than the 2024 model for a grand total of $161,990 including freight. That’s a significant price increase, but if you ever have a change to experience this hilarious rampaging robotic rhinoceros, you’d probably agree that it’s still fully worth it. It feels like taking the Empire State Building down the quarter-mile, just a leather-line monument to excess and hubris in the best possible way. The Escalade V might just be the single best three-row SUV for any money, which is a bold statement considering you can now get a three-row big body Range Rover.
So yeah, the 2025 Cadillac Escalade is a lot more expensive than it probably should be, judging by what last year’s model retailed for. However, it’s likely still the king of the American luxury SUVs, and icons of luxury are rarely inexpensive. If you can live without the Escalade image, a diesel GMC Yukon Denali is likely a smarter buy as the frugal oil-burner continues for 2025 across the showroom floor. However, if you want an Escalade, you’ve got it. Make my hypothetical top-dog Caddy SUV a V.
(Photo credits: Cadillac)
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What, exactly, is sporty about this? Can we convince manufacturers to stop calling it “sport” already? Also, can we retire “murdered-out”? Friendly reminder that murder is, in fact, bad.
After the Cyberdump, these are one of the greatest indicators of a douchebag.
And the ocean’s crill shrieked in horror.
Here’s my take: If you have the money and want one of these, fine. It’s your money. But don’t give me any greenwashing about “saving the environment”, and certainly don’t tell me how your preferred political candidates are going to save the environment with green policies. If you really cared about the environment, you’d keep driving an old, well maintanined vehicle to squeeze plenty of years of service from it.
Personally I would not spend any money on a modern vehicle that seems likely to fail in a number of ways and be very expensive to fix in the future. For $100 I can get a set of standard fit, new gauges for my old vehicle. Can something similar be said for today’s modern cars in 45 years? Time will tell.
Who on earth is buying one of these and prattling on about the environment? I think the Lyriq tells you everything you need to know about what Cadillac thinks of its green-lifestyle customers.
Are you confusing this with the electric Escalade? This article is about the gas powered one, which nobody claims saves the environment
RIght, but how many left leaning voters will buy these while claiming to support green causes?
Who the hell knows. I’d bet the Escalade demographic skews heavy to the right though. Old rich white people in the suburbs aren’t exactly known for being progressive
Fly me to the hood…
And I thought my new CX-70 was big…
Is this a “cash on the hood thing”? The higher the hood, the more cash required?
One of these years the Escalade is going to go full “Mortal Engines” and just consume other cars for fuel.
I just realized how to save the climate.
Our massive gas guzzling SUV/Semis might be melting the ice caps, but if they only come in white or silver, the net albedo of the earth will be the same.
So, make the SUVs even bigger! But more reflective. As long as each SUV is the size of an iceberg, it’s a net positive.
For that money, could they include a class where the owners learn how to park the damn things?
I have no doubt that the first one of these things I see will be in a line at a McDonalds drive thru.
… cutting the corner and driving over the curb.
What an abomination. And it looks like you could tip it over in a parking lot.
That feeling when you want to save $20 a month on fuel for your $100,000 SUV.
I work at a GMC dealership, the diesels are impossible to keep on the lot. Yukon buyers are convinced that they must have the biggest vehicle on the road at all times but they’ll gladly take better fuel economy, just not at the expense of their elephant of an SUV.
That is literally amazing to me, the idea of giving up 150 hp and the sound of that 6.2 for more complexity and an undersized diesel is beyond my understanding.
The median Yukon buyer has no idea what half of those words mean lol. I used to have that discussion with them but I might as well had been speaking Latin. They see the better mpg and it’s cheaper or the same price as the 6.2 and that’s what they buy.
You’d think 5 seconds of test driving it would make a difference but you’re probably going to tell me they don’t test drive either lol.
It’s probably about 40% that actually drive it lol. Almost all of them only use 20% of the throttle though, so the diesel feels “powerful” and it is significantly quieter. That’s usually enough for them. I’m more surprised that we don’t get very many people putting gas in the diesel tank honestly.
The amount of e-waste in modern interiors is insane. No way this dashboard is going to be functioning well far into the future, whereas GMT900 Escalades are still working just fine (albeit with a useless nav screen)
The pricing is out of control. But at least it will be unreliable…
The excessive screens are the only thing I would worry about. The GM full size suvs are pretty reliable.
This is a good reminder that these things are so damn expensive! When you are at 100k I guess 5% doesn’t matter as much?
It’s not exactly a whopping price hike.
You can’t refresh something that was stale at the start. GMs just putting sprinkles on day-old doughnuts.
The front grille continues it’s metamorphosis into a 1970’s big rig cabover. Just add a multi-tone Imron paint scheme and some air horns.
Honestly, having like 4 mounted air horns would be pretty tits.
It’s probably a good idea for a safety enhancement too, as that thing will be pretty hard to see when it blocks out the sun.
While the new dash looks cool it also looks like a usability nightmare.
They sell like crazy, GM is stupid not to push the price up
There are much more affordable ways to loudly proclaim that you have no taste
I had the pleasure of being driven around in one of these (not sure year or trim) last week. They really are very comfortable places to sit, and, from the inside at least, it was tastefully appointed.
I wouldn’t personally buy one because I don’t have the money or the use case, but they can be pretty nice.
The leasees these are intended for won’t even notice.
How is it $5700 is “Whopping” but $61545+ “Ain’t Too Bad”?
A 5% price increase is a much bigger deal than a VW debuting at twice the price most commenters thought was reasonable /S/
A 5% increase on something that was always a premium vehicle
VS
What was marketed as a modern day reincarnation of the original VW van, complete with the two tone paintjob, when in reality it is the opposite of the original VW van, with a price-point to match.
Maybe because the hyperbole market is tracking the S&P today? /s
But seriously, thank you for asking this!
Isn’t super cruise like a $4,000 option on other GM vehicles? I would say that + the screens justifies the price increase.
What was it you guys said about the VW? “That’s not too bad.”