GM’s luxury Cadillac Celestiq to include over one-hundred AM parts
June 20, 2022
General Motors has announced it will invest more than $81 million into the company’s Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, USA, to prepare the campus to build its new Cadillac Celestiq range of luxury automobiles. The new model will leverage GM’s extensive Additive Manufacturing capabilities and supplier network, featuring more AM parts than any GM vehicle programme to date.
The Celestiq is expected to feature over 100 AM components, including both structural and cosmetic parts from both polymer and metal. Additionally, the Celestiq production facility itself will leverage Additive Manufacturing for tooling, fixtures and gauges in the assembly process.
“As Cadillac’s future flagship sedan, Celestiq signifies a new, resurgent era for the brand,” stated Mark Reuss, president, General Motors. “Each one will be hand-built by an amazing team of craftspeople on our historic Technical Center campus, and today’s investment announcement emphasises our commitment to delivering a world-class Cadillac with nothing but the best in craftsmanship, design, engineering and technology.”
The Cadillac Celestiq will be built on GM’s Ultium Platform, part of the company’s EV strategy. The Ultium Platform encompasses a common electric vehicle architecture and propulsion components like battery cells, modules, packs, Ultium Drive units, EV motors and integrated power electronics.
Through the Ultium Platform, GM intends to realise a strategic value chain shift across its network of vehicle assembly plants as the company commonises and streamlines machinery, tooling and assembly processes. This flexibility should enable lower capital investments and greater efficiencies as additional assembly plant transformations occur.
Celestiq’s roof is expected to be one of the first to feature a four-quadrant, suspended-particle-device smart glass. With this, each occupant of the vehicle can set their own level of roof transparency. The driver and front-seat passenger will also have a pillar-to-pillar freeform display with active privacy to help mitigate driver distraction.
GM’s Additive Industrialisation Center, which opened on the GM Global Technical Center campus in 2020, has enabled Cadillac to establish itself at the forefront of functional and aesthetic additively manufactured components in the automotive industry. The Cadillac CT4-V and CT5-V were GM’s first vehicles to benefit from Additive Manufacturing with parts including the shifter emblem, transmission components and HVAC ducts.
“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,” stated Gerald Johnson, executive vice president of Global Manufacturing and Sustainability. “The advanced manufacturing technology and tools we are utilising on Celestiq will help our team deliver the highest quality vehicles to our customers.”
