General Motors has dropped some big news at the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show relating to the future of the company, including an all-new brand called BrightDrop. It’s focused on the business-to-business side of electric mobility, but thankfully, that’s not what this post is about. This post is much more exciting than MOBILITY. Instead, we’re going to speculate on cars GM previewed in a short video about its future offerings, one of which is an SUV that boasts a striking resemblance to the Corvette C8.
This video, which you can find a shortened version of here, lays out some key facts about the Detroit automaker’s future plans, like its push to release 30 new EVs by 2025. More interestingly, however, one presenter stands in front of a gathering of either announced or to-be-announced GM EVs. Despite the automaker’s efforts to obscure the vehicles, some of the shots are pretty clear. We’ve brightened the shots up a bit to make observing them that much easier.
We’ll address the entire fleet in due time, but let’s start with that quasi-Corvette crossover. Squint a little bit and just trust us here—it has similar headlights to the C8 sports car, a chiseled design language, and even the grille looks familiar. Before you get your pitchforks, keep in mind that almost the entire Corvette team was switched over to the EV side of the company around August of last year. Of course, that’s only circumstantial evidence, but it’s still something.
GM might try and play off the Mustang Mach-E’s hype, extracting some more value out of the Corvette brand. It wouldn’t be beneath GM to build such a car; remember that these are the same folks who make the new Blazer.
Talks of a Corvette SUV have whirled around the industry before, though there’s been nothing in terms of visual evidence until today. Sites have published speculative renders and discussed specs based purely on hearsay, but from where we’re standing, this looks to be it. And since it sits amid a sea of EVs, you can bet there’s no V8 to be found.
We’ve reached out to GM for comment, but it’ll likely stay tight-lipped about the sporty family hauler. Execs knew what they were doing by dropping this Easter egg into the presentation, though it’s worth getting in touch.
Moving on, there are a few cars that we’ve seen before in their entirety: the Cadillac Lyriq to the presenter’s right side, and the Hummer EV directly behind him. Beyond that, we enter the Twilight Zone, where PR people will “not speculate on future product” and nobody outside GM knows anything. That being said, the vehicle to the presenter’s left is the Cadillac Celestiq, a range-topping sedan that the brand has been talking about for some time.
According to another short clip GM released about the Celestiq, it’s set to have all-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, and an all-glass roof that will allow each passenger to select their own level of transparency. A spokeswoman also mentioned the Celestiq’s wall-to-wall display for the driver and passenger, and the rear-seat entertainment system. We don’t get a lot of great looks at the vehicle’s interior, but at least there are a few good exterior shots.
The Hummer, Lyriq, and Celestiq are obviously the ones we know the most about. The others in this grouping are less clear, so we’ll let the speculation begin in full-force.
The car behind the Celestiq looks like one of GM’s future electric pickups under the Chevrolet brand, judging by the illuminated bowtie fixed to its dash. We might’ve actually seen this vehicle before in the background of another GM investor presentation, but little was discerned from that spotting. Now we know that it will be offered in red. Sport Red Tintcoat, perhaps? Kidding! It’s a joke.
All we know is that this pickup definitely has the same Ultium underpinnings of every other forthcoming GM electric vehicle. Besides that, we can also see it’s a crew cab.
Now, here’s another interesting couple of cars. There are two vehicles behind the Lyriq, and the one to the left is perhaps an SUV offering under the GMC, Buick or Chevrolet brand. It definitely does not match up with the Cadillac design language, and it shares the same foglight feature under wider, narrow headlights with the aforementioned pickup. It seems pretty normal from a styling standpoint, which is okay, even for EVs.
The final vehicle to be examined looks like an electric CUV jellybean car, perhaps the Bolt EUV, or a Buick version of the same basic vehicle. In any case, it has a large single DRL stretched across the front fascia, and a rather plump figure to boot. If I had to bet, I would say it’s a Buick, but that’s just my intuition.
So, thanks to a little brightening, we finally have some kind of look at GM’s bold plan to move forward into the EV era. Some of the stuff, like the Celestiq, actually might be pretty cool. And finally, a big luxurious Cadillac sedan worthy of the badge seems to be on its way. The potential Corvette-styled crossover is certainly the most interesting, and while we’re likely months out from knowing anything more about it, you can bet we’ll be digging for details in the meantime.
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