Cadillac is a well-known luxury brand in the states, but not all Cadillacs are the same. That is the case with the 2021 Cadillac XT5, which isn’t as luxurious as a Cadillac can be. Here’s a look at how if you want true luxury in your 2021 Cadillac XT5, you’ll have to pay more for it.

A look at the standard 2021 Cadillac XT5

On the outside, the standard XT5 might seem like an attractive option for its price point. It’s a compact luxury crossover, and with a price tag of about $44,000, it might seem like it’s coming with quite a few luxurious features.

For example, according to U.S. News, the standard XT5 has comfortable seats for five people. The seats have a synthetic leather upholstery, and the rear seats, in particular, are spacious enough for adults to sit in. Furthermore, the front seats are heated, the rear seats can recline, and there’s also a rear-seat reminder system.

The XT5 also comes with quite a few standard features, such as an 8-inch touch screen display, an eight-speaker premium stereo system, dual-zone automatic climate control, a WiFi hotspot, and much more.

In terms of safety, the XT5 has a suite of smart safety features, which include forward collision warning, front and rear parking sensors, and forward automatic emergency braking among many other smart safety systems.

True luxury comes at a price, however

But, like Motor Trend wrote, it’s clear that Cadillac cut some corners with the XT5’s interior in terms of its material quality. There are plenty of hard plastics in the XT5’s interior, and obviously, synthetic leather isn’t the same as the real thing.

It’s not known why Cadillac designed the XT5’s interior like this, but it does mean that if customers want to experience true luxury in their XT5, they will need to pay for the appropriate trims and packages. 

In the XT5’s case, despite the fact that the standard trim is called the Luxury trim, in order to get things like real leather upholstery in the seats, wireless phone charging, or additional safety features, customers will have to pay for an upscale trim as well as optional packages.

Additionally, Cadillac says that many of those optional packages are not available on the standard trim, but are available only on the Premium Luxury trim.

The Premium Luxury trim costs about $5,000 more than the standard trim. And, in order to get real leather seats, that’ll require getting the Platinum package, which Cadillac says costs about $4,900.

Plus, in order to get safety features such as adaptive cruise control, Cadillac says that’ll require getting another package, the Driver Assist Package, and that costs $1,300. 

Is the 2021 Cadillac XT5 worth it?

Like most cars, at the end of the day, it largely depends on the buyer and the configuration they ultimately choose. For some people, the standard XT5 trim is luxurious enough, so its $44,000 price tag is a fair price to pay.

For other people though, $44,000 isn’t that big of a deal, and decking out their XT5 so that it’s a truly luxurious SUV isn’t that big of a stretch. 

That being said, overall, Motor Trend was not very impressed by the XT5’s value, since the top trims weren’t quite worth the roughly $60,000 price tag when all’s said and done.

Furthermore, another issue with the XT5’s price is that its competitors may offer more features at a lower price. In particular, Motor Trend said that the Volvo XC60, the Lexus RX, and the Lincoln Nautilus all offer “superior dynamics and better material quality at a lower price.”