Engineers at Cadillac have probably considered developing an electric Blackwing. If you’re looking for an EV with that badge soon, you might be disappointed. Torque is a strong drug. You might pass out. Alex Doss, the 2026 Cadillac Lyriq V’s chief development engineer, told the truth about an electric Blackwing over a noisy dinner table when the car was being launched: It’s not there. For now, though. Still, it is quite possible that it will happen, and it may well take place in the future. The two things that stand in the way now are market desire and technology. Doss says that the main difference between a Blackwing and a V—the Lyriq V being the first electric model to carry the name—is that the V is meant to be a daily-drivable track monster. By contrast, the Blackwing is designed to be a well-balanced and agile vehicle for city driving. Doss says that current technology is heavy, especially batteries. Weight is an electric vehicle’s worst enemy when it comes to gas mileage and handling. For the technical team to be satisfied with the track’s performance, the process of ripping on it requires a lot of cooling. The battery pack of an electric car gets very hot when it accelerates rapidly. It’s an issue with the equipment we currently have. Solid-state batteries and other new technologies can help with this in the future. Doss and his engineers aren’t the only ones who think this way. In 2022, Toshihiro Mibe, CEO of Honda, and Shinji Aoyama, operating officer of the company in Tokyo, said that solid-state batteries would be needed to make an electric car like the Type R. Soon, batteries will be made of solid state. Both Nissan and Honda are working on the system, and a lightweight sports car equipped with solid-state batteries—reminiscent of the Acura NSX—is expected to launch in 2028. Doss says that after technology, the second piece of the jigsaw puzzle is customer desire. As the expert put it, it just doesn’t exist anymore on a quantitative level. For an electric Blackwing to make business sense, a certain number must be reached, which Doss says has not happened yet. People are increasingly interested in electric sports cars, but Cadillac isn’t ready to make an electric Blackwing yet. With the Ioniq 5 N, which works like a real-life driving simulator, Hyundai showed the world what was possible. The electric giant’s hot hatch was awarded invoice pricing’s Best EV of 2024 for its exceptional build quality. The sleek Ioniq 6 N is set to be the company’s next release. The Porsche Taycan is another example of a high-end, globally competitive electric sports car, even though sales are falling. Doss doesn’t say that there won’t be an electric Blackwing in the future, but it’s clear that a lot of things need to change before the team is happy with their investment.
