2026 Cadillac Vistiq Tested: A Promising Costar Is Born
Caddy’s new electric SUV skillfully combines power, three-row practicality, and high-tech luxury.
Cadillac’s marketers have informally christened the 2026 Vistiq electric three-row SUV the “baby Escalade,” consigning it from birth to live in the shadow of its more aspirational sibling. Talk about throwing shade on a new product. Then again, the $129,795 Escalade IQ is the size of a small pole barn, so it makes plenty of shade, even for something grander than the brand’s two-row Lyriq if not as grandiose as its headlining SUV. As the brand’s newest EV cast member tasked with portraying a posh yet reserved people mover, the Vistiq upstages Caddy’s soon-to-be-departed XT6 with a solid performance.
The Vistiq’s scene opens with two trim levels, the $79,090 Luxury and the $79,590 Sport, followed by the more technologically advanced $93,590 Premium Luxury and $98,190 Platinum. Its familial resemblance to the Escalade IQ is clear, yet its more reasonable proportions and contoured flanks play better on the eyes without reducing it to a wallflower. The Vistiq’s handsome envelope stretches a substantial 205.6 inches in length and 79.8 inches in width, though that’s still a respective 18.7 and 2.6 inches tidier than the big IQ. The optional 23-inch wheels, shod with meaty 305-section-width all-season tires no less, look perfectly at home under its haunches (21-inchers are mandatory on lower trims such as our Sport test car; 22s are standard on the Premium Luxury and Platinum).
2026 cadillac vistiqview exterior photos
Marc Urbano|Car and Driver
Center Stage
The theater continues inside with generous amounts of space, an attractive architectural design, and a pleasant mix of materials for a mainstream Cadillac. Of the versions we’ve driven, the Sport featured carbon-fiber-like accents with copper-colored inlays, while the Premium Luxury brandished fetching open-pore wood trim that nicely offsets its brushed-aluminum speaker grilles (a booming 23-speaker AKG stereo with Dolby Atmos surround sound is standard on all models). Smudge-prone piano-black trim is scarce yet hard to avoid on the steering wheel and center console.
2026 cadillac vistiqview interior Photos
Marc Urbano|Car and Driver
The overall layout is a good middle ground between the Lyriq’s and the Escalade IQ’s, incorporating the former’s curved 33.0-inch touchscreen for driver information and Google-based infotainment. A spacious center console as in the latter includes a secondary touchscreen for climate settings, as well as Cadillac’s flimsy rotary knob that can manipulate the main display. Luxury amenities abound, from standard soft-close doors to five-zone automatic climate control with nicely detailed vents even in the aft quarters. Night vision and a head-up display with helpful augmented-reality navigation overlays (a first for Cadillac) come on higher trims.
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HIGHS: Unassumingly quick, decent range, compelling packaging and refinement.
Elevated front seats with comfortable side bolsters provide good support and a commanding view out the front. In the second row—a standard three-seat bench or optional $800 captain’s chairs—there’s slightly more legroom than in both the Lyriq and the outgoing XT6. Your long-legged author could easily sit behind his own driving position without his knees touching the front seat, and his head was nowhere near the standard panoramic moonroof. A second, fixed skylight sits above the power-folding third row, which thanks to the second row’s tilt-and-slide feature, is easy to access even if you’re not a contortionist. Legroom in the way back also increases over the XT6. Adults should find the low-slung bottom cushions and decent headroom acceptable for at least short outings.
2026 cadillac vistiqview interior Photos
Marc Urbano|Car and Driver
Action Call
All Vistiqs come with front and rear permanent-magnet motors that in their sportiest Velocity Max setting combine for 615 horsepower and 649 pound-feet of torque—familiar figures if you’ve scanned the specs of the Chevrolet Blazer EV SS, as well as the Cadillac Lyriq V. It’s also more electronic firepower than you’ll get in similarly priced competitors such as the Volvo EX90 (402 to 510 horsepower), though less than what’s available in pricier alternatives from Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla. Despite our test car’s 6226-pound girth, it bolted to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds and covered the quarter-mile in 12.1 seconds at 114 mph—also midpack metrics, albeit sufficient to make the Vistiq a sleeper at stoplights.
LOWS: Top trims are expensive, unimpressive grip and fast-charging draw, slightly harsher ride on standard coil springs.
More on the Cadillac Vistiq
2026 Cadillac Vistiq Review, Pricing, and Specs
Cadillac Vistiq Starts between $78,790 and $97,890
Likewise, its 102-kWh battery provides our test car with 305 miles of EPA-estimated range, which is slightly more than the top-spec EX90 Performance Ultra (300 miles) but less than the 850-hp Rivian R1S Tri-Motor (371 miles) and the 828-hp Lucid Gravity Grand Touring (up to 437 miles for the three-row configuration). Interestingly, while we’ve yet to run the Gravity on our 75-mph highway range test, the Vistiq, the EX90, and the R1S all returned the same 250-mile result.
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2026 cadillac vistiqview exterior photos
Marc Urbano|Car and Driver
Capable of drawing electrons at a so-so 190 kilowatts, the Vistiq is said to pack on about 80 miles of range in 10 minutes at a DC fast-charger. We’ve yet to confirm that in our own testing, but a Blazer EV SS with the same battery took just shy of an hour to charge from 10 to 90 percent, so factor that downtime into your itinerary if you employ the Vistiq for family road trips. For simply charging at home, an 11.5-kW onboard AC charger is standard, but a 19.2-kW unit is available. As with all GM EVs, there are numerous regen settings, including one-pedal operation and a convenient on-demand paddle on the steering wheel.
Though undeniably quick, the Vistiq’s defining road manners are its quiet comfort and confident capability. Generous sound insulation and road noise–canceling acoustics pumped through the audio speakers hush its cabin at speed, with our example producing a subdued 67 decibels of noise inside at 70 mph. Adaptive dampers are standard and firm up slightly in Sport mode, which also adds a tad more weight to the steering and sharpens the accelerator response. But the ride is always well managed and compliant, especially with the height-adjustable air springs (on the Premium Luxury and Platinum only) that also can drop the vehicle nearly two inches for easier entry. With rear-axle steering (again, top trims only) that can swivel the rear wheels up to 3.5 degrees, the Vistiq exhibits a refined nimbleness that belies its size.
