Enlarge (credit: Cadillac)

In 2020, Ars tested the then-new Cadillac Escalade. The big SUV is Cadillac's best-seller, and while we might not have enjoyed the way it drove, or its thirst , it did feature some interesting driver assistance technology. There's a chance we might prefer driving the next Escalade, though—on Monday afternoon Cadillac revealed that it is working on an electric Escalade, called the Escalade IQ, and it will show off the new electric SUV later this year.

There's quite a lot riding on the electric Escalade. The regular version accounts for about a third of Cadillac's total sales each year, and automakers in general make the most money from large, loaded, and expensive vehicles.

That probably explains why the electric version will still be called an Escalade—you'd be silly to throw away that brand identity—although appending an "IQ" to the end creates a corporate link with Caddy's other EVs, the $60,000 Lyriq and $300,000 Celestiq . (No, that's not a typo.)

Enlarge / The Cadillac Lyriq is the first expression of the classic American luxury brand's future as an electric automaker. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

Cadillac provided flights from DC to Salt Lake City and back, plus a night in a hotel so we could drive the Lyriq. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

PARK CITY, UTAH—They say—accurately, in my opinion—that nothing focuses the mind like a deadline. I'm not sure what the amplification factor is when that deadline suddenly shrinks by nine months, as was the case for Cadillac's new Lyriq, but the result is an extremely competent new battery-electric SUV.

As we've covered in the past , General Motors is at the start of an electrification plan that it hopes will mean no more tailpipe emissions from any of the group's vehicles by 2035. The key to that is a family of batteries and electric motors (named Ultium) to be used across everything from big body-on-frame trucks to small crossovers . We've actually sampled a couple of early Ultium-based BEVs already—the bombastic Hummer EV truck and BrightDrop Zevo 600 delivery van . Both of those are rather niche applications, but the Lyriq is much more mainstream, given America's love for the SUV.

At launch, the Lyriq is available in a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive configuration, with a twin-motor, all-wheel-drive version coming early in 2023. The RWD Lyriq uses a 340 hp (255 kW), 325 lb-ft (440 Nm) version of the Ultium Drive motor, which is powered by a 102 kWh lithium-ion battery pack.