A LUXURIOUS HYBRID
New Cadillac CT6 easy on the gas
After a frantic stop-and-go drive through downtown Manhattan, we glide into the bucolic green countryside of Westchester, where century homes are bought and sold through Sotheby’s.
The mid-point stop on our drive route is Stone Barns Farm, an educational centre for food and agriculture “designed to promote sustainable, communitybased food production.”
The centre attracts throngs of green-minded and nature-deprived city dwellers, who volunteer their time tending crops of kale, collecting eggs or attending workshops on sustainable livestock practices. It’s all very earnest, and admirable and utterly plausible from within the environs of this privileged, pastoral setting.
Our sleek, champagne-coloured sedan would be right at home on the circular driveways of any one of these white-columned, slate-roofed stone estates. Nearly 10,000 people in the U.S. bought a Cadillac CT6 last year, only 250 in Canada. But the car we’re driving is the new CT6 Plug-In, a gasoline-electric hybrid version of the American luxury automaker’s full-size sedan.
Like the sustainable food movement, such vehicles have a specialized appeal, since the initial outlay makes it hard to justify the eventual rewards. But they also serve up electrification to well-heeled adopters, who don’t have to sacrifice luxury to do the right thing.
Cadillac expects to sell fewer than 1,000 of these cars in the U.S and under 100 here in Canada. Clearly, North America isn’t the target market for the CT6 Hybrid. While Cadillac’s sales have fallen by some 4.6 per cent here, they’ve exploded by 90 per cent in China.
With over one billion people, and strict new inner-city emissions regulations, China is the ideal environment for the hybrid executive sedan. More than 160,000 CT6 hybrids per year are expected to roll out of Cadillac’s US$1.22 billion manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China, in a market that has traditionally embraced full-size American luxury vehicles.
Visually, there are very few differences between the U.S.built CT6 and our Chinese-built hybrid. Some subtle badging, and of course, the addition of a charge port are the only obvious cues.
Instead of different packages and models, the CT6 comes in only one loaded trim level, designed to undercut similarly equipped competitors — Mercedes-Benz S550e, BMW 740e and Porsche Panamera hybrid — by up to $15,000.
It’s powered by a longitudinally mounted 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder gasoline engine, paired with two 100 horsepower electric motors encased within the EVT — electric variable transmission. Rather than producing traditionally stepped gear changes, the EVT seamlessly combines electric and engine power in a smooth, linear progression.
Total power output is 335 horsepower and 432 pound-feet of torque, which is similar to the V6 AWD CT6. With an 18 kWh lithium-ion battery in the trunk, electric-only range is 48 kilometres. The car’s total range is 643 kilometres, with a fuel efficiency rating of 3.6 Le/100 km. It takes about 4.5 hours to fully charge with a 240-volt unit, or up to 20 hours using regular 110-volt household current.
Energy is continually being replenished from brake regeneration, and using the manual shift mode and paddle shifters, the driver can choose from least to most aggressive brake regeneration. Thus, a driver can navigate congested traffic without ever putting his foot on the brake; simply downshifting to second or first gear and lifting his foot off the gas is enough to come to a stop.
On the road, the CT6 hybrid is whisper quiet. It can travel up to 125 km/h in pure electric mode before the turbocharged four kicks in, but the cabin is insulated well enough that the changeover is nearly imperceptible.
There’s no Magnetic Ride adaptive suspension available, instead it’s underpinned by the regular steel suspension, beefed up to support the heavy battery pack. Over the rough cobblestones of New York’s older back streets, the bumps and potholes were absorbed by the welltuned damping long before they intruded in the cabin.
The 2,054-kilogram CT6 Hybrid doesn’t feel fast or nimble; it’s more of a powerful, regal cruiser. The cabin is well appointed and attractive, although it lacks the refined elegance of its German competitors.
The hybrid’s trunk-located battery’s placement doesn’t allow the rear seats to recline as they do in a regular CT6, a glaring omission for the Chinese market, where back-seat comfort very highly regarded, not to mention the greatly reduced trunk space.
Standard equipment includes heated and chilled front seats, navigation, night vision, dual sunroofs, and a full suite of driver safety systems. We experienced a few glitches in the pre-production unit, which failed to initiate forward-collision warning and automatic braking, which Cadillac attributed to the bright glare on the radar sensor. The adaptive cruise control was confusingly initiated using the cancel button for the regular cruise control.
Steering is light and accurate, and despite its large size, the CT6 hybrid never feels ponderous. The battery pack’s weight over the rear wheels seems to improve the vehicle’s front-to-back weight ratio.
Unlike the regular CT6, the hybrid is available only in rear-wheel drive because an all-wheel-drive system was deemed too heavy for hybrid fuel efficiency.
Aside from the odd gear whine when decelerating, it’s easy to forget you’re in a hybrid when driving this sleek and lovely executive sedan.
The CT6 Plug-In Hybrid is arriving shortly in Canada through select dealerships, with an MSRP of $85,995 before applicable incentives.