GM announces Cadillac Celestiq electric car is going to be hand-built and 3D printed in low volume

GM announces today that the Cadillac Celestiq, the brand’s electric car after the Lyriq, is going to be a hand-built and 3D-printed ultra-luxury low-volume production vehicle.

GM has just started production of the Cadilac Lyriq, the brand’s first all-electric vehicle and GM’s second electric vehicle based on its new Ulitum electric platform.

The automaker is planning to quickly electrify the Cadillac brand with the platform. It has yet to deliver the Lyriq, but it started talking about the Celestiq more lately.

Last year, Cadillac was already talking about the Celestiq being a flagship vehicle for the brand.

We knew that the electric vehicle would be in the higher end of the market, but now GM has revealed that it will actually be competing in the “ultra-luxury space” and it will even be “hand-built” – making it a very low-production volume vehicle.

We learned that through GM announcing an $81 million investment into building the Cadillac Celextiq at its Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan:

Today, General Motors announced it will invest more than $81 million into the company’s Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, to prepare the campus to build the Cadillac CELESTIQ. The investment will be used to purchase and install related equipment to hand-build the CELESTIQ and campus renovation work has already begun.

As you can imagine, an $81 million investment is extremely low to bring a vehicle to production.

In today’s announcement, Mark Reuss, president of General Motors, confirmed that each Cadillac Celestiq is going to be hand-built without specifying how many GM is planning to build:

As Cadillac’s future flagship sedan, CELESTIQ signifies a new, resurgent era for the brand. 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.

GM also disclosed that the Celextiq will feature more 3D-printed parts than any other GM vehicle:

CELESTIQ is driving innovation across GM’s supplier community with what’s expected to be the highest volume of 3D printed components — more than 100 — of any GM production vehicle. This will include both structural and cosmetic parts, and both polymer and metal pieces. Additionally, the CELESTIQ production facility itself will leverage additive manufacturing for tooling, fixtures and gauges in the assembly process.

We don’t know much more about the Celestiq for now, but that’s going to change soon.

GM has already been teasing the electric vehicle – revealing that it will have a smart glass roof and releasing some teaser images last week.