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2021 Cadillac Escalade price increases take starting price to $77,490

Update: This story has been updated with official pricing from Cadillac that includes the destination charge and pricing for the long wheelbase ESV model. The modified story continues below. As the 2021 Cadillac Escalade prepares behind-the-scenes for duty in front of real-life red carpets, more information on the brand new fifth-generation SUV bubbles to the surface. GM Authority got its hands on some MSRP figures the other day, but we have the official pricing from Cadillac now. GM kept pricing of the other full-sized SUV family — the Tahoe, Suburban, and Yukon — unchanged or close to the outgoing models. Escalade intenders will be happy to know the same goes here, the 2021 example priced at $77,490 after a $1,295 destination charge is added in, only $1,000 more that the soon-to-be retired 2020 Escalade for a fancier cabin and lots of new tech inside and out. Cadillac reworked the trim walk for 2021 to its Y-trim configuration, splitting into Luxury and Sport models above the base trim. There were four options in 2020, not including all-wheel-drive versions: Base, Luxury, Premium Luxury, and Platinum. There are five for the new year: Luxury, Premium Luxury, Sport, Premium Luxury Platinum, and Sport Platinum. The switcheroo makes it hard to compare all but the bottom and top trims, but the price walk for rear-wheel-drive versions goes: Luxury: $77,490 Premium Luxury: $84,290 Sport: $86,890 Premium Luxury Platinum: $101,290 Sport Luxury Platinum: $101,290  Add $3,000 to any of those trim prices, and you'll have the corresponding long wheelbase ESV price. Four wheel drive is a similar $3,000 charge on any trim. That means the base price on the top trim Escalade ESV with four-wheel drive is $107,290. The 2021 Platinum models are $7,700 more than the 2020 Escalade Platinum. The standard engine is the 6.2-liter V8, shifting through a 10-speed transmission. And the 3.0-liter Duramax diesel is a no-cost option, so take your pick. Customers could end up waiting for the Escalade as well, depending on when every kind of manufacturing can restart in earnest to serve the Arlington, Texas, plant all the parts it needs to build the new SUV. Related Video:      

NHTSA investigating nearly 750,000 GM models over non-deploying airbags

Nearly 750,000 vehicles built by Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac are the subject of a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation due to non-deploying driver-side airbags. While the investigation is ongoing, the agency believes the issue is likely due to rust particles that form on the inflator's connection terminal interface. The list of nameplates included in the investigation includes Chevrolet's Silverado, Tahoe, and Suburban, GMC's Sierra, Yukon, and Yukon XL, plus Cadillac's Escalade, Escalade ESV, CT4, CT5, and XT4. All of the potentially affected vehicles are 2020 or 2021 models, according to a bulletin published on the NHTSA's website. Investigators launched the probe in April 2021 after 15 consumers reported airbag-related issues, including nine who said an airbag malfunction light appeared in the instrument cluster. More alarmingly, the NHTSA is aware of six accidents that caused significant damage to the car's front end yet didn't trigger the driver's airbag. It adds that there are no fatalities linked to the issue, but there are six crashes and eight injuries reportedly blamed on it. No evidence suggests this problem is related to the millions of potentially deadly Takata inflators recalled over the past few years. General Motors is aware of the defect. It sent a technical service bulletin (TSB) to its dealers in March 2021 to address the aforementioned warning light. The note explains the issue is due to "rust particles in the connection terminal interface of the driver's airbag inflator." The company hasn't issued a safety recall yet, however. Whether it will partially depends on the NHTSA's findings. It's currently looking into the scope and the severity of the problem, and it wants to understand its implications on driver safety. Investigators will decide whether General Motors needs to recall the 749,312 cars that are part of the probe when they close their investigation. General Motors has already spent a significant amount of money replacing defective airbag-related parts in its cars. In November 2020, it was ordered by the American government to recall nearly 6 million pickup trucks and SUVs equipped with potentially dangerous Takata airbag inflators. It repeatedly argued that testing proved the inflators were safe, and it petitioned the agency four times starting in 2016 to avoid a recall, which cost an estimated $1.2 billion (about a third of its net income in 2020).

Cadillac's 4.2-liter Blackwing V8 to die with the CT6?

Cadillac's 4.2-liter twin-turbo Blackwing V8 debuted only last year, popping up in the CT6 V-Sport — now the CT6-V — with 550 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque. The engine's been stymied in every attempt to power a different Cadillac model since then. Its only two use cases have been a first and second run of the original, limited-edition super sedan and the CT6 Platinum V8 trim at a slightly detuned 500 hp and 553 lb-ft. Motor Trend cites "a highly placed source at GM" as saying that the Blackwing won't go into the coming high-performance version of the CT5-V nor in the next-gen Escalade. Left without options, there's a chance the Blackwing will die with the CT6, itself a sedan with its grille on the executioner's block just waiting for the bite of an ax that might or might not shortly fall. Cost-cutting has been tagged as the reason for this misfortune; Cadillac's sales malaise and lack of clarity as to how to turn sales around led GM to downsize the brand's allowance. The parent company chose to build the new CT5 on the Alpha platform used for the erstwhile ATS and CTS instead of the Omega platform underpinning the CT6. Along with that choice, the MT report says expense reasons nixed fitting the Blacking V8. We know the lower-tier V series CT5 will work with a twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 making 355 hp and 400 lb-ft. When we heard spy video of the upper-tier V series CT5 out testing, the engine sounded like the 6.2-liter supercharged V8 that would be a carryover from the last model.  The XT6, also rumored to get some V sauce, simply can't fit the V8. Instead of sitting on the Omega platform as once planned, the XT6 rides on the C1XX architecture under other GM products like the Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse. The C1XX engine bay doesn't have room for a stouter V6, much less a hi-po V8. The next-gen Escalade ruled itself out due to price issues in back, not in front. MT writes that the independent rear suspension supporting GM's next-gen full-sized SUV quartet has burned through cash in development, putting engineers a few direct deposits short of the funds needed to massage Blackwing installation. Earlier this year at least one report said the twin-turbo DOHC V8 could serve the top-spec next-gen Escalade. More recent reports of a performance-heavy next-gen Escalade have predicted the 6.2-liter supercharged LT4 V8 from the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and Corvette Z06.