2020 Cadillac XT6 Night Review & POV Drive (Ambient/Cornering Lights, Night Vision, Etc!)

Welcome everyone to another night review of this 2020 Cadillac XT6. This is the premium luxury model as well. Got a lot of goodies to show you. We're going to take a look at the exterior lighting, the interior lighting, and go for a test drive and see how well these lights perform. Now I want you to know I have a daytime review of this as well with all of the details, but this one is going to be a little bit quicker. Now starting out right up front, the Cadillac definitely has a pretty nice front end. You've got their signature vertical lighting here. You can see that that right side even has that blinker. We even have the premium LED headlamps where you got the low beams on the outside, high beams on the inside, and they do a nice job. I'll show you and talk to you about that in a little bit, but you can even see some of the glare off of that grille overall. This front end looks pretty nice and every single XTX model is going to give you cornering lamps. You can even see a little light down there below the blinker, and I'll show you exactly how that works in just a sec. Now I think this Cadillac definitely looks good in this paint. This is the metallic, or the Manhattan metallic actually. It looks good in all lightings. I like the light shining off of it. It's kind of a darker grayish, almost blackish color, but it does look good at night still, even with these signature lighting up front. It looks pretty good. Those are some optional 20 inch wheels as well. You got a blinker on the mirror. You can see the marker light really well over there. So Cadillac did a nice job of illuminating the outside of the vehicle. Those door handles even light up, and I'll show you that in a little bit as well. And then in the back of the vehicle, you still have that vertical taillamp design. You've got LED license plate lights as well. Everything back here is LED. The blinker is red though. I'd like to see maybe an amber blinker, but still it definitely stands out. These taillights look pretty nice. Now the cargo area for this XTX is interesting because you can get a hands-free lift gate with a Cadillac emblem that actually illuminates on the ground to swipe your foot. And lighting in this cargo area is quite good. You've got a couple LED lights up on that cargo gate. And as you can see behind the third row is somewhat well illuminated, not too bad. Plus that third row and the second row get those LED lights that even can help out when you fold the seats down. And then as we hop into the second row on that door, you can see a little bit of that ambient lighting that runs on the door panel, which looks pretty nice. I'll show you more up front. And then as we take a peek inside, it is fairly well illuminated. Nice and bright LED lights that are on the outside because we have a large moonroof that I'll show you. Plus in the middle, you've got the climate control illuminated and a couple charging ports right below that. And when those lights aren't illuminated, there's actually a little tiny bit of lighting that kind of casts down on that leg area. One pretty neat feature is that both the front and the rear door handles can be illuminated. So that looks pretty nice at night. I wish that they would automatically illuminate as you approach the vehicle, but they don't. It's only when you unlock it or you open the door or close the door. But once we go ahead and look in here, you've got some LED lighting that shines down. The interior is pretty nice. Let's go ahead and take a look. All right, now as we hop on the inside, you've got nothing special or extravagant with the lighting. The ambient lighting is very subtle, but it is a nice, comfortable area to hang out. Although it does seem a little bit sterile. So right away looking at the door, you can see that lighting running up underneath of that little panel. That looks pretty nice. It's a very gentle glow. Everything is illuminated, your memory buttons, your window buttons, even the door handle just a little bit as well. Your door pocket is illuminated a little bit too, and even your button to open up your hatch. So that's nice to have a little bit of illumination in the door pocket too. Your interior lighting control is over here and you can even adjust that with your head up display too. The head up display has a decent amount of information. It's easy to see at night and at the daytime. Steering wheel has the same white backlighting on it. Nothing too fancy here, but it is easy to read and all the buttons are illuminated. In front of us, we've got a couple physical gauges. And honestly, I was expecting a little more of an extravagant type of display. I prefer a simple display, but considering it's Cadillac, premium luxury, and a lot of options on here, I was expecting a little bit better of a display. I don't know if I should say better, but just a more unique and interesting type of display. But there's a ton of information that you can see on here. I'll go through more of this in the full review. Now, I can't go without saying that Cadillac has night vision on here as well. So beyond the headlamps, it uses infrared sensors to actually detect objects or animals or people or whatever, past what you can see. And that will show up on here. So for example, if there's like a deer crossing the road or something like that, or a person, it's going to let you know before you can even see them. So that is really cool and really awesome. The push button start button is illuminated. We've got this one size screen across every single trim. I was expecting a larger screen on here as well, but this is easy to use. It's very clear. It's nothing fancy again, kind of like that center display. You control it. You can touch it or you can control it with the center dial down below, but it's got everything you need. Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Wi-Fi, SiriusXM, all that good stuff. Tri-zone climate control is also well illuminated and easy to use. There is a little storage bin right there that doesn't have any illumination. These cup holders also don't have any illumination, but they have an ever so gentle light that comes down from overhead. All of these buttons and switches, your radio control, your shifter, have good illumination on them. Right below all of this, right down there, there is another storage bin that does have some very subtle illumination, but the camera is not able to pick that up. Our center storage area has a couple illuminated charging ports. The whole bin is illuminated. This can be removed. And this little section is actually wireless charging and it is illuminated from this bin, which is nice. Overhead is all LED lighting. So that does a great job. And this I think is the coolest thing on here. So you can have a regular rear view mirror, or you can flip the switch and have a camera. I really like this. You can also get this on the Traverse as well, but even at night, you can still see fairly decent on there. Speaking of cameras, we have another camera on here. We've got their surround vision camera, a ton of different views on here, and you can actually see surprisingly well. I think the vehicle illuminates well, and we do have an overhead light going on us right now. Now, when we look straight ahead out at our headlights, you've got a pretty good beam pattern. There seems to be pretty good width on those headlights as well. They get an acceptable rating from the IIHS, no matter whether you get the premium or just the regular stock headlamps. We do not have fog lights, so let me turn on the high beams. The high beams are actually fairly wide. Those look pretty good. And then out to the side, even without turning anything on, you get a little bit of light. But when I hit my blinker, take a look at that. Look just how much light you get shooting straight out to the side of the vehicle. So that is really nice. The only thing is that you don't really get any assistance off into the far corner over there. They're not actually adaptive headlights. All right, y'all, we are taking off in the Cadillac XT6, and right off the bat, just even pulling out of my parking spot, there's some really great lighting off to the side. It'd be nice at this price point if they had actual adaptive headlamps that could swivel off into the distance, but at least this immediate cornering function is still really handy to have, whether you use your blinker or just slow down or start turning that way. So in this night review, I'm going to show you how well these headlights do at night. I actually have the night vision on in the center display, so I'll let you know if that picks anything up. We'll use the automatic high beams. We'll take some corners on some dark roads and see how well everything goes. If you want more of the driving impressions in a daytime review, I have one of those too, so be sure to check that out. But the transmission and power output of this XT6 is pretty good and pretty smooth. There have been times where this nine speed automatic has been not my favorite. Slowing down sometimes has been kind of harsh, or slowing down and then accelerating right away gets a little jerky, but it's certainly not sporty. But we do have a real-time damping suspension on here, which is optional, and ride is great, but I'll talk more about that later. We'll get on some dark roads here in a sec. We do have an automatic dimming driver's side mirror, and when you have your camera on this mirror, you don't get any glare in there whatsoever. And I really like having the camera because you can see so well. If you flip it the other way, it is automatic dimming too, so you'll get an automatic dimming mirror even if you don't have the camera. Y'all, we're going to be getting on a dark road here, and a possum literally just ran out in front of me, but I did not notice or see it on the night vision camera. But I've got the automatic high beams on. They just turned on. The high beams are great. The spread of the high beams is better than many other high beams that seem to stay kind of narrow, and I can see quite well into the ditches as you can see as well on both sides. I'm going to turn them off as we go around the corner, and certainly up off into the distance on the driver's side, it's not that good with visibility. That's probably why it doesn't get a great or a good rating from the IIHS. It's just acceptable. Automatic high beams back on, and I can certainly see really well off into the distance. One knock on these headlights is for oncoming traffic. There is definitely some glare, so that could be another cause for a not perfect grade from the IIHS. I'm going to leave the high beams on going around here, and this does handle pretty well. You still get some body lean, some body movement. It is an SUV. It's certainly not performance oriented or anything, but it holds its own with its handling compared to some other three-row luxury vehicles. The high beams are still on. They did not turn off for some street lights like some vehicles do, which is good to me in my opinion, and I can see over the hill quite well. I'm going to turn the high beams off, and you still have some nice width into the ditches immediately actually, so that is nice to see. That is one thing that I really look for in headlights is the ability to see with width. Some narrow headlights can be nice, but when you're like me and you drive in the country quite a bit, like my way to work is pretty much all country, and when it's dark, I really love being able to see everything. One thing about the brakes with this vehicle is you can tell it's a big heavy vehicle, and wow, okay, so it actually just gave me a signal that there's there's a person here in my head-up display, and it looks like you can see something. It must be something out in the distance. That's kind of cool. You can see a couple little white things there, and I'm pretty sure that those are actually cows. I can't see from here, but I know that there's a pasture right across from me, so that's kind of cool. It actually flashed and showed me that there is something off in the distance, yes, and I could see the cows out that way, so that's kind of cool, and that can be seriously helpful, the night vision, super helpful if there's a deer off in the distance. I mean, it's a two thousand dollar option, which kind of stinks, but I grew up in South Dakota, and driving back roads at night is just playing with fire coming across all sorts of wildlife. Now, unfortunately, we have not hit any oncoming traffic yet, but it did just turn off when we came across some bright street lights, so it is responsive, and I have not had anybody ever flash me with this, but I know that they do have some glare, and they are kind of bright, but really, overall, driving the XTX at night is a nice experience. You have just some subtle accent lighting and ambient lighting, and it's kind of sterile in here. I'd like to see a little more customization, but everything is easy to see, it's clear, and there's really no guessing of what you're looking at. Well, I hope y'all enjoyed this night review. Please be sure to check out my daytime review and any other videos. I do night reviews on a regular basis, so subscribe for those. Hope you have a great rest of your day, and we'll catch you next time.