Cadillac’s $130K Escalade IQ Has a User-Installed Cloth Roof Sunshade

My colleague Joel Feder just spent a week road-testing the 2026 Cadillac Escalade IQ. That’s a fully electric luxury land yacht with a list price of over $130,000. He liked the car a lot, with the exception of one glaring oversight hanging over the heads of its occupants: A sunroof you can only close with a janky folding cover like something you’d find in the clearance bin at AutoZone.

Like many modern luxury vehicles, the Escalade IQ’s roof is largely glass, making the cabin look roomy and breezy when the sunshine isn’t too intense. In pictures, it looks pretty cool to me. But you will not find corporate pictures of the vehicle’s sunshade in place, because it does not look like the kind of thing that should be OEM on a high-end luxury car.

As a spokesperson for Cadillac explained to us: “The fixed glass roof is darkly tinted and treated to provide shade and UV filtration, mitigating the need for a power sunshade. For customers that do want this option, they can choose the accessory sunshade which is easy to install.”

When I asked more about the omission of a retractable shade, they ellaborated: “We intentionally tinted it darkly and coated to avoid needing a sunshade – the glass has an infrared reflective coating that does a really good job of reflecting the sun’s heat, and the tint is darker than limo tint so it’s quite effective at providing shade.”

Feder disagrees with GM’s assessment of “dark.” And he lives in Minnesota—who knew the sun even made it that far north? Jokes aside—Cadillac’s sun solution here does look off-puttingly undercooked, especially for a very visually prominent feature in a car this expensive.

But it’s not just the look that’s offensive—it’s the user experience. Having to fold up and pack, then unpack, this stupid gigantic sun shield is going to be incredibly annoying for Escalade IQ owners. Plus, they’ll also have to not lose it, the little plastic clips that absolutely easily fall off the large folding contraption, or let it get damaged as it rides around in its little storage bag.

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My theory about this is that Cadillac wanted to skip the power retractable roof to avoid the cost and weight penalty, but didn’t realize the ceiling tinting was insufficient for blocking midday sun until it was too far along in the design process to make the change, leading to the quick development of this portable shade. Why this vehicle doesn’t have an electromagnetic setup that electronically darkens or lightens the glass like in the upcoming budget-focused Nissan Leaf, Rivian R1S, or even Cadillac’s own Celestiq, is unclear.

On one hand, I do appreciate that an effort was made to rectify the situation. But the design-stage oversight here is a big one. It’ll be interesting to see how owners feel about this after living with it. Once these things spend a few months and years getting tossed around the cargo hold, I have a feeling they’re going to start looking pretty ragged. I bet one of the Escalade IQ’s first refresh changes is either a much heavier tint on this window, or a electromagnetic tint like we’ve seen on the Rivian and Leaf with big ceiling-spanning glass pieces.

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