General Motors Co. in Detroit will invest more than $81 million into the company’s Global Technical Center in Warren to build the Cadillac Celestiq, an ultra-luxury electric vehicle.
The investment will prepare the campus to install related equipment to hand-build the Celestiq, and the renovation work already is underway. Celestiq will leverage GM’s extensive additive manufacturing capabilities and supplier network, featuring more 3-D printed parts than any GM vehicle program to date.
“As Cadillac’s future flagship sedan, Celestiq signifies a new, resurgent era for the brand,” says Mark Reuss, president of GM. “Each one will be hand-built by an amazing team of craftspeople on our historic Technical Center campus, and today’s investment announcement emphasizes our commitment to delivering a world-class Cadillac with nothing but the best in craftsmanship, design, engineering, and technology.”
As the first production vehicle to be built at GM’s Global Technical Center since 1956, Celestiq will be built on GM’s Ultium platform, the heart of the company’s EV strategy. The Ultium platform contains common EV architecture and propulsion components like battery cells, modules, packs, Ultium drive units, EV motors, and integrated power electronics.
Through the platform, GM aims to find a strategic value chain shift across its network of vehicle assembly plants as the company normalizes and streamlines machinery, tooling, and assembly processes. This flexibility permits lower capital investments and greater efficiencies as additional assembly plant changes occur.
Celestiq is expected to have features such as the first four-quadrant roof, suspended particle device smart glass, and a front seat pillar-to-pillar freeform display with active privacy to handle driver distraction.
Opened in the GM Global Technical Center in 2020, GM’s Additive Industrialization Center has enabled Cadillac to establish itself with functional 3-D-printed components in the automotive industry.
“This investment is a great example of our commitment to GM’s EV transformation as we apply our manufacturing expertise to a one-of-a-kind, ultra-luxury vehicle for the Cadillac brand,” says Gerald Johnson, executive vice president of global manufacturing and sustainability of GM. “The advanced manufacturing technology and tools we are utilizing on Celestiq will help our team deliver the highest quality vehicles to our customers.”
