Video: 2017 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid

This is the 2017 CT6 Plug-In Hybrid from Cadillac. And this thing might be a little bit more unique than you might expect. You see, it's the only Cadillac that you can buy in North America that isn't made in North America. The big market for car like this is China, where the government is really pushing hard for electrified vehicles to try and overcome some of the horrible air pollution that they have to deal with. Now, we're starting to see some of that sentiment creep into the United States as well, particularly in California, and with the popularity of luxury cars like Tesla taking off, Cadillac's decided to test the waters themselves with something just like this. A leather-lined luxury land yacht that you can plug into a wall. Now bear with me for a moment because we're gonna get a little bit technical up in here. See, the CT6 Plug-In Hybrid is powered by a two-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, that's made it up to a hybrid electric transmission that incorporates two 100 horsepower electric motors and a planetary gear set. And the whole thing meshes together to produce 335 horsepower and 432 pound-feet of torque, which is nothing to slouch jet. Cadillac says that the CT6 Plug-In can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 5.2 seconds, which is pretty quick for a car of this size. The hybrid powertrain is powered by an 18.4 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery that they've sandwiched in between the backseat passengers and the trunk. Now it eats up about half of your trunk space, unfortunately, but there's still enough room in here for a couple of large suitcases. So you'll get everything you need to get to the airport without a problem. It takes about four and a half hours to recharge it on a 240 volt Level 2 electric vehicle charger, or if you've just plugged it into the 120 volt socket in your house. Figure, it'll take about overnight. All that energy is good enough to propel this car for about 31 miles of electric range. And then the gas engine kicks in. You can go over 400 miles more at about 26 miles per gallon in total. Total range for this thing is about 440 miles before you need to either recharge or fill the gas tank again. Driving the Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid is a little unusual. It's dead silent in here. There really isn't a lot of noise at all coming from the powertrain. So, aside from the odd clunker thunker gear whine, you really don't hear much of anything happening until the gas engine kicks in. And then it gets a little unusual. You see, it'll keep the car in electric mode as much as possible, but if you accelerate and push that pedal past 50%, that's when the gas engine will kick in some power as well. And it hesitates a little bit, it hiccups before it does it. So the moment you really want as much power as you can get, it stutters for a second and then takes off. So it's a little unnerving, but that's really the only blemish in terms of the powertrain. You've got three drive modes in the CT6 Plug-In. Tour, which is the normal mode, which keeps it in electric mode pretty much all the time until the battery runs out. You've got sport, which gives things a bit more of an aggressive feel and actually does feel a little bit more responsive. And you've got hold. Now, what hold does, is it keeps the battery charge at the level it's at. So right now I've got 16 miles of battery range. I push hold and it'll use the gas engine to do most of my driving and power and keeps the range at 16 miles. Now, this is good for when you're driving on the highway or gasoline engines are really more efficient than electric motors, but it allows you to then have your 16 miles of range when you get to a city. That's useful in some cities that are now starting to require electric only operation downtown, unless you wanna pay a tax. That's increasingly common in China. It's common in places like London as well. And don't be surprised if we start seeing that start to show up here in the US as well. So the powertrain is smooth. It's comfortable, it's quiet, really no complaints at all about the power. The only issue I really have is with the brakes. They feel a little artificial as most vehicles that are hybrid or EV do feel a little artificial. I haven't yet driven a hybrid or an EV that has brakes, that makes me go, "Wow, these are fantastic." CT 6 Plug-In, really Alma, not all that different. It's still kind of hard to modulate, but overall they work just fine. They'll haul you down without a problem. So I think it's something that you'll just have to get used to if you choose one of these things. Now, if you wanna maximize your electric range, there's a couple of things you can do. It has some different settings for the regenerative brake system, and that can help sometimes, especially in urban stop-and-go traffic like this. You can select these regen modes either through the paddles or in the gear shift selector on the center console. You've got four options. You've got M1 through four. Now M4 is your standard regen breaking, which is not very much at all, but if you start playing with it, M 1 is the most aggressive. And you can almost do this as one pedal driving, on/off like you would in a Chevy Bolt or a Nissan Leaf. And whichever one you're comfortable with, it's gonna take some experimentation to see which one really is the best for you. Now, the interior on the CT6 Plug-In is big car comfy. There's plenty of room up front. The beltLine is fairly low. You can see out without a problem. The nice long hood presents this really cool view for you. The interior materials, kind of a mixed bag. I'm not a huge fan of the cinnamon leather, which to me, it looks a little too pumpkin spice basic, but it is available in some other colors as well. There's a lot of materials on the dash. You've got leather, you've got piano black, you've got Chrome, you've got brushed satin, and you've got carbon fiber, which to me, not all that luxurious. If they could turn this down a little bit, put some nice wood on here, which is available in some other trim levels. I think it would go a long way towards making the CT6 a proper flagship luxury sedan. Now in terms of electronics, we've got Cardilac CUE and the multimedia system, which is actually working very well these days. Plus, you've got much larger buttons on this much larger screen, which I think works really quite well. The gauges are all digital in the CT6 Plug-In, and they're not the greatest. I think if you really want good digital gauges, you have to look to like Mercedes-Benz or even Volvo, because they add a little bit of artistry in with just the basic information presentation. While driving the CT6 Plug-In is a perfectly pleasant experience. Riding back here is equally nice. There's tons of space. You've got lead room, you've got amenities galore. You've got plenty of USB plugs. You've got video screens in the seat back pockets. There's tons of headroom. Despite the fact that you've got a panoramic moonroof, this really is a pleasant area to be. And it had better be pleasant for how much this thing costs. You see, the CT6 Plug-In Hybrid only comes one way and that's pretty much loaded. It starts at $76,000 just to take over that, but that's still considerably less than its main competitor. The BMW 740e can't go nearly as far on an electric charge, it doesn't come with all the standard safety equipment and multimedia stuff that this thing does, and it costs $15,000 more before you add any of that stuff in there. So if you're looking to upgrade from your Chevy Volt and your Nissan Leaf, and you still wanna go mostly gas free on your commute to work of about being 30 miles or so, this might be something that you'd wanna check out. See all the details of the new '17 Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid at cars.com.