Overview
Cadillac decided to unveil their first all electric crossover, which marks the beginning of a new era and the end of internal combustion engines for Cadillac, it was announced by Cadillac that the manufacturer intends to stop making any new vehicles with an internal combustion engine by the start of 2030, the new Lyriq was their first fully electric crossover to be released, Lyriq is expected to hit the market by first half of next year.
“We will be leaving this decade as an EV brand as things stand today,” Rory Harvey, global vice president of Cadillac told reporters during an online media event this week for the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq. “We will not be selling ICE vehicles by 2030.”
General Motors, Cadillac’s parent company has claimed to be an Electric exclusive company by the year 2035, Cadillac however seems to be set to achieve the goal by 2030 instead.
Price Tag and Power
The Lyriq is GM’s first to market vehicle with their next generation EV platform and battery system known as Ultium. The vehicle is said to only be available with only one configuration for the first model year to simplify production.
Lyriq comes with a price tag of $ 59,990 and looks awfully similar to the concept design unveiled by Cadillac in last year’s auto show.
“The intent was to basically take the show into production” said Andrew Smith, Cadillac executive director of global design.
The vehicle is expected to produce 340 bhp on it’s rear wheels with 325 Nm of torque, driving range on a single charge is over 300 miles according to GM. While GM says the vehicle is capable of adding 76 miles in about 10 minutes on a DC fast charger.
Interior
Interior of the vehicle offers a 33 inches curved LED screen which covers the entire front of a modern and sleek look paired with a 19 speaker AKG studio Audio system with headrest speakers and some top of the line noise cancelation system.
The Lyriq was expected to be released in late 2022 or early 2023 but somehow Cadillac managed to pull the release date forward by almost nine months. Pre-Booking will start in September and production will begin at Tennessee in the first quarter of 2022.
Exterior
The design is strikingly similar to the show car design unveiled last year, save the smaller wheels and bigger mirrors and conventional door construction, an extra cup holder and 2 row five seater setup.
It has the same vertical signature lightning a light up Cadillac crest. The tail lights light up like digital rain falling on the vehicle. Chief engineer Jamir Brewer said The concept needed to meet regulations around the world and meet all performance requirements and customer expectations.
“The engineering team had to say we are committed to bringing the show car to life in a production vehicle,” she said. “You’ll be hard-pressed to find any differences between it and the show car.”
Driving
The Lyriq is built upon the BEV3 electric vehicle architecture by GM utilizing Ultium platform battery system developed with LG Chem. Also being used in 2022 GMC Hummer EV.
However, as compared to hummer’s 24 modules Lyriq due to its smaller frame will use a 12 module, 100 kWh battery pack. With the first-release models a standard 19.2 kW Level 2 charging module will be provided for owner’s homes that will give the Lyriq up to 52 miles of range per hour. Which is said to be the fastest level 2 charger allowed in the industry.
The Lyriq will include a one-pedal driving feature paired with GM’s Regen on Demand regenerative braking technology. Meaning that by simply easing the foot off the pedal will apply motor’s retardation on the wheels bringing it all the way to a halt while charging the battery acting as a generator in the process as well without any need of hitting the brakes unless more rapid deceleration is required. The vehicle can also be brought to an instant halt by using a paddle on the steering wheel.
The Lyriq is first of the 30 EVs to come from GM according to the $ 27 billion project till the year 2030, which serves as a lead brand in the EV industry.
“These are historic moments,” Harvey said.
