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Cadillac files to trademark Vistiq, Lumistiq, and Escalade IQL

Cadillac's been tapping various European patent offices to reserve names for its coming battery-electric model lineup. Remember, Cadillac plans to be an EV-only brand by 2030, it's trimmed-down dealer network expected to sell a range wherein all or most models end with "iq," as in Lyriq and Celestiq, that pronunciation being "ik," not "eek." In July of last year, brand attorney's filed to reserve the names "Cadillac Symboliq" and "Symboliq" in Switzerland. CarBuzz found three more applications in the category of "Motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles," one in the UK for the name Vistiq, another in Austria for the name Lumistiq, the last in an unknown country for the name Escalade IQL.   Yes, those first two names make us think of X-Men before they make us think of cars. But assuming the names ever get applied to product, we expect those products will be cars, and we also expect those cars will be of the crossover variety since safe money says CUVs will still be more popular than sedans and wagons in 2030.  Since the Escalade name effectively acts as its own brand, it appears the moniker will be grandfathered into the EV naming structure by turning "IQ" into a kind of trim. Our money is on the IQL version being a long-wheelbase variant of a battery-electric Escalade. The Ultium-powered version of the big-boy SUV is due here by 2025 at the latest and will be sold alongside the traditional, ICE-powered Escalade until the V8 Escalade goes away.    The switch to electric is Cadillac's moon shot; there isn't much else for the brand to try for winning back its bygone glory and acclaim. By the time Vistiq and Symboliq get here, though, we could all be drinking the IQ Kool-Aid and climbing on board if the Lyriq (pictured) and Celestiq, both expected around 2023, prove impossible to resist.  Related Video:

Cadillac Lyriq EV debut delayed by Covid-19 virus

The, coronavirus, otherwise dubbed Covid-19, has claimed another large gathering. General Motors canceled the public debut of its coming Cadillac Lyriq crossover, planned for April 2 in Los Angeles, due to fears over the continued spread of the virus. With more than 14 confirmed cases of residents with Covid-19, Los Angeles declared a state of emergency last week. Michael Albano, a communications director at GM, said in an e-mail to The Verge that "Our top priority is the safety of our media guests and employees." At the time of writing there's no word on a potential new date for the reveal for the highly anticipated crossover that GM just announced last week at a private event in Warren, Michigan. However, the automaker provided Autoblog with a statement that read, in part, "Please know we are working to reschedule the reveal as soon as possible." What we know about the Lyriq is just as compelling as what we don't know. There XT5-sized people hauler will be out to dazzle in every way, with a ton of weight on its shoulders — many will be judging GM's and Cadillac's past and claimed preparedness for the future based on this one offering. The Lyriq will be the first GM EV to sit on a new EV architecture the engineers call BEV3 and the marketers call Ultium, with battery capacities up to 200 kWh and a potential range of 400 miles. Speaking of which, GM just applied to trademark the term Tecra with the US Patent and Trademark Office, so we could be in for more information on innovative battery systems in the not-too-distant future. The automaker could forgo a public debut for the time being and opt to livestream the event. Or, who knows, it's possible the Detroit Auto Show just garnered itself a whopping debut for the show's debut event in June; the first rendering of the Lyriq aired at last year's Detroit show. Related Video:

MIT puts V2V technology on its 2015 Top Ten list

Of all the technologies swimming around the automotive world, it is vehicle-to-vehicle communication that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has fished out as one of its Ten Breakthrough Technologies of 2015. It joined emerging tech like brain organoids, supercharged photosynthesis, and Project Loon on the list, and got the nod over autonomous driving because, as the MIT Technology Review wrote, V2V communication "is likely to have a far bigger and more immediate effect on road safety." How so? Because actual cars transmitting data like their location, speed, steering angle, and state of braking to one another at least ten times per second provides a greater degree of awareness than sensor readings and algorithms. The US Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have been working for years on standards and a regulatory schedule for introducing V2V to the marketplace, and Cadillac plans to incorporate V2V into at least one of its vehicles by 2017. Since we've begun the year with a number of stories of cars being hacked into, that got us wondering about the security of V2V communications. In a recent piece by our own Pete Bigelow on what motorists should know about getting their cars hacked into, he wrote that although cyber break-ins are extremely difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to do remotely, V2V is "one more conceivable avenue a hacker could use to impact multiple cars at a given time." So we spoke to Wilmington, Massachusetts-based Security Innovation about it. The automotive consultancy company has been working with the DOT since 2003 on V2V technology and the issues around it - namely security and privacy - and its chief scientist, William Whyte, is the technical editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1609.2 standard outlining its security protocols. Those protocols are expected to be finalized by the DOT toward the end of this year and then come into effect in 2016, and the company's Aerolink product is the security solution Cadillac will use. Whyte said, "If you hack into a car, V2V is the hardest place to start," and Pete Samson, the general manager of Security Innovation's automotive team, said "There are ten or 12 alternate attack surfaces" around the car that would make much easier targets.