The Optiq-V makes 519 horsepower and hits 60 mph in 3.5 seconds — then spends the rest of the drive not beating you up for it.
After a cold, rainy week in Québec, it's the most fun Cadillac you can buy, and the most comfortable performance EV I've driven.
Every performance brand has an electric trim now. What almost none of them build is one you'd actually want to live with every day. Cadillac did. The Optiq-V is a 519-horsepower, dual-motor electric SUV that will burn most things off a red light — and then drive you home in a quiet, soft, spacious cabin that never once reminds you there's a V badge on it. I spent a week with one in cold November rain in Québec to see if that balance survives real life. It does.
SPECS
Horsepower: 519 hp (Velocity Max)
Torque: 650 lb-ft
0–60 mph: 3.5 seconds
Battery: 85 kWh
Range: 402 km (250 miles) on the summer tires fitted to this vehicle; 447 km (278 miles) on all-seasons
Charging: 150 kW DC fast charging (NACS port); 19.2 kW AC home charging
Cargo space: 26 cu ft behind the rear seats; 57 cu ft with the seats folded
Rear legroom: 37.8 inches
Price: from $78,599 CAD; $94,047 CAD as tested
Performance: The Button Makes the Car
The full 519 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque live behind one control: press and hold the V button on the steering wheel and you get Velocity Max — maximum effort, everything the motors have. Tap the same button and it calls up your custom drive mode instead. It's exactly where it should be, on the wheel, and you'll use it more than you think.
For context: 519 hp is more horsepower than a Ford Mustang Mach-E GT makes (480 hp), and the 650 lb-ft of torque beats the Korean twins — the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N (568 lb-ft) and the Kia EV6 GT (545 lb-ft). This is not a slow vehicle pretending to be quick. It is genuinely, laugh-out-loud quick — in a Cadillac.
Ride and Suspension: Comfort Is the Point
Here's what the Optiq-V doesn't have: no MagneRide, like the Escalade IQ, and no air suspension, like the Vistiq Platinum. What it has is Continuous Damping Control — adaptive dampers with an electrical valve that adjusts stiffness to the drive mode and reacts to the road in real time. On rough Québec roads, it simply works. The ride is comfortable and the cabin is quiet, full stop.
The response is a fraction less instant than a MagneRide car and the body isn't as nailed down as a track-focused performance EV. That's a trade I'll take every day of the week, because this is a daily driver, not a lap-time machine.
Super Cruise is here too — hands-free driving on mapped highways, with automatic lane changes it will make, pass, and settle back in, or that you can switch off if you'd rather call the shots yourself. It's still my favourite hands-free system on sale.
The stance helps the case: at 75.3 inches wide, the Optiq-V is an inch and change wider than a Mach-E GT, riding on 275-wide tires. Wide body, wide rubber, real stability — smooth and grippy at the same time.
Range: The Tire Tax Is Real
Those tires are Continental SportContact 6 summers, 275/40R21 — and they cost you more than money. On these tires, the Optiq-V is rated at 402 km (250 miles). Fit all-seasons and the rating climbs to 447 km (278 miles). That 45 km (28 miles) difference is the tire tax: grip costs energy, every kilometre, all the time.
My week told the rest of the story. I averaged 4.0 km per kWh — about 25.0 kWh/100 km, roughly 2.8 Le/100 km (about 84 MPGe) — which works out to roughly 340 km (211 miles) of real range from the 85 kWh battery. Before you judge that number: the average temperature all week was about 3 °C, in the rain. For a 519-horsepower vehicle on summer tires in a Québec November, I'll take it.
Charging: Average, and That's the Weak Spot
The Optiq-V uses a NACS port and peaks at 150 kW on a DC fast charger. That's not going to knock anybody's socks off — the 800-volt Korean twins peak at up to 238 kW, and they win this category the same way I win the tire-tax argument: on the numbers. At 150 kW, the Optiq-V sits right in the pack with vehicles like the Mach-E GT, which also peaks at 150 kW. Where it claws ground back is at home: 19.2 kW AC charging is properly fast for overnight top-ups, if your panel can feed it.
Interior: Space You Can Feel
On paper, the Optiq-V isn't much wider inside than its competition. Sit in it and the paper lies. The horizontal design, the 33-inch display running Google built-in — Maps plots your route and finds your chargers — and a wireless charging pad placed where your phone actually wants to live make this cabin feel open in a way the Mach-E's vertical layout never did for me. Coming out of the Ford's heavily bolstered seats and into these — light-coloured, properly textured, supportive without squeezing — I was more relaxed in the first five minutes than in a week with the Ford.
There are hard controls for what you need, a real volume control, and everything lights up beautifully at night. The touch-style buttons aren't my favourite — I like traditional buttons — but they press down properly, which mostly makes up for it. The fixed glass roof has a shade, which is a definite bonus in my books.
Rear Seat and Cargo
Rear legroom is 37.8 inches, and Cadillac calls it best in the luxury segment — against the Audis, the Genesis, and the rest of the badge crowd, that's a fair claim. If you don't care about badges, the mainstream crowd (Model Y, Mach-E, Ioniq 5) is roomier still, so know which game you're playing. At 5'9", I had plenty of headroom, and the seats back there are as comfortable as the ones up front.
Cargo space is 26 cu ft behind the seats and 57 cu ft folded, with under-floor storage for cables and adapters. That's on the low side for the class and it won't win any spec-sheet fights — but the space is wide and flat and usable, and yes, my hockey bag fits. Two honest annoyances: there's no rear wiper, which I don't like on any vehicle, and the hands-free tailgate that opens when you stand behind it with the key in your pocket will also open when you merely walk behind it, which gets old.
The Outsider's Take
Everybody and their dog has a performance EV trim now. Most of them are built to win a spec-sheet argument or a lap time. Cadillac built something different: an adult, grown-up performance crossover.
On any given day, you're not on a track. I'm not, you're not — most owners never will be. What you're going to do is buy this as your daily driver, and every now and then pull up to a red light next to another performance vehicle and want to burn them. This does that. It will burn 90 percent of the vehicles out there, off the line, and then go right back to being the most comfortable seat you sat in all week. The seats aren't over-bolstered, the ride isn't punishing — when it's go time, brace yourself, tighten your core, put your foot down. I'll take the comfortable seat every time.
That's why this is my favourite fun car to be in: the comfort, and the spaciousness. I need space, and this has it. Of the whole Cadillac lineup, the Lyriq doesn't do it for me and the Escalade IQ is a little too wide and cumbersome — the Vistiq is my favourite Cadillac overall for its space and range, but the Optiq-V is the most fun one to buy.
519 horsepower, and it doesn't beat you up. That's the whole review.
The Optiq-V was provided by Cadillac Canada as a press loan. Watch the full video review above.
