Up until now, the only American automaker to have taken electric vehicles (EVs) to the status of ultra-luxury is Cadillac with the Celestiq. Highly exclusive, very opulent and priced higher than any other model the company currently sells, the Celestiq aims at bringing Cadillac back to its status of “Standard of the World”, a status it once could brag about before everything went down the drain during the Great Depression.
But there’s another American automaker that’s trying to challenge Cadillac’s position in that space, similar to what brands like Duesenberg, Packard, and Cord did in the early days of the automobile. Actually, it’s not an automaker yet, but a New York-based startup called Dacora. Its latest all-electric concept aims at becoming the next great American boutique automobile.
Priced Very High, No Name Yet
While the Cadillac Celestiq has a more futuristic, contemporary, and even grotesque design from some angles, capitalizing on the latest design trends of shocking the beholder rather than focusing on elegance and symmetry, the Dacora concept, which currently has no name, rather hearkens its styling back to the curvaceous luxury land yachts of the 1930s. It’ll also start at a whopping $500,000.
It also kind of looks like an AI-generated image, as if asking a chatbot to conceptualize what a modern pre-Great Depression vehicle would look like as an EV. But, no. Dacora claims this was designed in partnership with the Pininfarina Group. And the company has an actual story.
Dacora is the brainchild of Kristie and Eric D’Ambrosio-Correll, husband and wife, both engineers who studied at MIT. Kristie currently acts as the company’s CEO, while Eric is Dacora’s Chief Technical Officer (CTO). Eric’s family is also involved in the area of classic car restoration. So there’s actual engineering and classic car experience here.
The technical details of this EV are still scarce, but Dacora claims the car will run on an 800-volt architecture and will provide up to 400 miles of range. There’s also, apparently, a hybrid version in the works, but Dacora still hasn’t given specifics on that one. It’s all talk for now, so we’ll need to wait for an actual running model to confirm these claims. But, if true, this could actually challenge the establishment.
Next Level Customization And Technology
Where the Dacora aims at truly setting itself apart, is in the level of craftsmanship, customization options, and how it plans on integrating its technology. For instance, while the dashboard is all screen, like Cadillac and Mercedes-Benz, the screen itself is covered in a semi-transparent wood panel. This allows the displayed information to penetrate through the wood, appearing more organic than the traditional robotic screen design. That’s actually really cool.
- The Dacora EV wants to challenge boutique ultra-luxury brands.
- It promises levels of customization never seen before.
- The cars will be built in New York starting next year.
Real wood spans the entire cabin, like in a vintage boat, and every touchpoint appears to have been carefully massaged to offer an ultra-high-end and rich feel. Customization is also said to exceed anything even the classic coach-building era ever attained.
Dacora will offer buyers the possibility of even supplying their own wood or other materials. The seat trim can be interchanged over time to fit different seasons and weather, or simply to keep up with changing fashion trends. The car can be a three-seater, or a seven-seater if that’s your thing. Even the floor pan can be adjusted to better accommodate larger human frames inside the car.
EV startups come and go, and claims to become a disturber in the automotive industry have been heard many times before. The real test for any newcomer is to actually build cars and sell them at a profit. For now, we don’t know when the first owners will get their Dacoras. But the company claims its reservations have exceeded original expectations. It wants to build these things in New York by the beginning of next year.
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