Review: 2021 Cadillac Escalade Puts Wireless CarPlay on an Expansive OLED Display System

DFP1989 said:
Yeah the comments by the reviewer don’t make sense. Plenty of other brands utilise an increasingly industry-standard 10.25 or 12.3-inch widescreen display, and CarPlay takes up the whole screen with more content and icons than what it shown in this Cadillac.

Heck, the aftermarket CarPlay interface that I installed in my 2011 BMW with an 8.8-inch widescreen takes full advantage and shows more content.
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Cadillac says the Escalade has 38 inches (diagonal) of total display area. That is why they are claiming it is expansive. Sadly CarPlay can only take advantage of a small amount of the total display area, not sure if that is Apples fault or GM's.
 
mgmacius said:
Please do tell me, how often do you drive 500 km NON STOP?
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"NON STOP"? Never.

With 1 or 2 10-minute stops to pee and/or refuel? Frequently (at least, in non-pandemic times).

The unavoidable fact is that recharging an EV takes far longer than filling a gas tank, there are fewer places to recharge (especially with the right type of fast charger) and charging stations have far slower throughput.

Sure, in the UK there are motorway service stations every 30 miles or so, most of which now have a couple of EV charging bays. C.f. probably a dozen fuel pumps where nobody stops for more than a few minutes. Turn up looking for fuel, and if you're unlucky you may have to queue for 5 mins. Turn up looking to charge and if both bays have cars parked in them while the owners have gone off for a meal, or if they're out of order, that's tough - they could be there for hours, so it;s another 30 miles to the next station. So, you need to start looking for a charger while you've still got 60 miles or so of juice... and there's 60 miles off your "300 mile" range.

Then, does your destination have charging facilities? Unless it's out in the sticks there will be a filling station within a few miles (and, if you're truly headed for the wilderness, you can always carry a jerry can) but, with an EV, you can't assume that so that's another margin you have to leave, or you'll have to start your return journey with a break...

TL:DNR: 300 miles of EV range that takes an hour to fully recharge at a specialist charging point is not the same as 300 miles worth of fuel that can be replenished in 5 minutes at any filling station.

Now, these aren't necessarily deal-breakers, but they're definitely disincentives to spending a premium on an EV... and while the current provision of charging points may be OK for the current level of EV ownership, it's not clear how the current system will scale if EV usage is to expand, and - without some sort of subsidy - I'm not sure what the business case for investing money on charging stations will be. It's unlikely to be the sort of cash cow that a regular filling station provides. The current "sweet spot" for EVs is for people who have a 50-mile commute starting and ending at their private driveway, who don't need public charging points at all - people without private driveways will have a problem, but that's not going to be solved by charging stations on long-distance routes.
 
DTphonehome said:
Wasn't CarPlay supposed to support multiple screens in different aspect ratios (ie portrait orientation) since like iOS 13 or something? I've not yet seen one implementation of it. Some cars handle a nice large or wide resolution, but it's always the single screen with the same aspect ratio. With more and more cars having huge screens and digital instrument clusters, it's way overdue for CarPlay to fully populate that extra real estate.
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Subaru does CarPlay in a tall portrait mode.

I'm hoping (but not counting on) that coming to our Volvo that has a tall display.
 
rjohnstone said:
Happens when you leave the vehicle running without driving anywhere.
Idle time will kill MPG numbers real quick. I suspect that this was running at idle for sometime while the review was in progress.
My truck gets 17-25MPG, but let it idle at school pickup for 15-20 minutes every day and watch the average MPG drop like a stone.
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Same. My truck gets 21 mpg or better, usually. During school pickup, I just turn the engine off and roast or freeze according to the weather. Otherwise it’s not worth it to me to let the engine idle since we aren’t moving until then. The kids don’t trickle out. It’s stampede! I also have a small economy car and the mileage isn’t that much better on these kinds of commutes so I’d rather use the truck for the school run, so I can fit everyone and everything in easily.
 
Love all the elitism in here from all the electric car owners. The world isn’t ready for electric cars because the foundation isn’t there. Until I can get 700 kilometres from a 1 minute fill up, this is DOA for anyone who does long distance travelling, which the Escalade is kind of meant for.

you live in a city with good charger network? Great good for you, most people don’t. You only have to drive A to B short commutes to work and shopping? Good for you, lots of people out there live in more remote situation.

I don’t want to ever buy a new car with a gas engine but I want to buy an electric car with the current dog**** infrastructure even less. Calling this entire product a failure just because it doesn’t tick one arbitrary box that you’re super elitist and proud of in your car is a bit eye rolling

also, I’ve actually been driving Escalades (including the one from this article) for many years and they’re fantastic. As opposed to Tesla who can’t even line panels up and can’t seem to get into the 50th or better percentile for reliability ratings… no thank you
 
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apple_iBoy said:
Subaru does CarPlay in a tall portrait mode.

I'm hoping (but not counting on) that coming to our Volvo that has a tall display.
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Interesting, I didn't know that. My Volvo has a portrait screen and CarPlay just uses the bottom half in the usual landscape orientation. Very cramped for such a large screen.
 
Why is it every time an article happens to involve a car the EV and ICE armies come out of the woodwork to fight each other? This entire article feels like one big advertisement anyways...
 
Sean J said:
So they put all this 21st high-tech wizardry into it… and then throw it back into the 20th century with an ICE.
Am amazed any manufacturer is launching such vehicles given the bans most western countries have coming in the near future.
The future is electric.
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Sorry to disappoint but electric is the stop-gap. The future is hydrogen fuel.
 
DTphonehome said:
Interesting, I didn't know that. My Volvo has a portrait screen and CarPlay just uses the bottom half in the usual landscape orientation. Very cramped for such a large screen.
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Yeah, it’s daft isn’t it. Because what sits on top is absolutely useless visual debris (guidance via carplay…media via CarPlay…phone via CarPlay).

My wishlist is that Volvo updates so at least CarPlay-driven map could take up the vertical screen, like Volvo’s own map app can. Second wishlist item is that the CarPlay map can be shown in the gauge cluster display like Volvo’s own map app can. Wild aspirational wishlist item would be that Carplay could send turn information to the heads up display like Volvo’s own map app, but now I’m just being greedy.

I have a feeling Volvo might not be doing too much more with these Sensus displays now that the Google-powered one is their new baby. My understanding is that those don’t even have CarPlay support yet though, which would irk me.
 
It looks like it has google services built-in.

is that optional or do users just have to live with having a google icon on their dashboard and having their data sold?
 
Not that I would ever be in the market for a vehicle like this but there is no way I want to look at that OLED display day after day for years at a time.
 
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