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The 2023 Lyriq will lead Cadillac to its electric future

The luxury brand is moving into the future with this $70,000 SUV, on sale in September

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As big as the news of the automaker’s first battery-powered vehicle — a sport utility, at that — is, what really worked everyone up into a froth at GM’s latest press function was global vice-president Rory Harvey’s assertion that Cadillac will develop no more internal-combustion powered vehicles.

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Now, before you panic thinking the Escalade is going to be cancelled next week, not to worry; he said “develop,” not “produce,” as in they will no longer spend any time researching, refining, and engineering new vehicles with an ICE engine at its core.

In other words, GM’s luxury division is not going to stop making ICE-powered cars any time soon, but know this: whatever piston-powered vehicles are in Cadillac’s lineup currently are the very last that will feature a spark-ignited engine. Going forward, says Harvey, any new model Cadillac introduces will be battery-powered.

The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq
The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq Photo by Cadillac

That means, if one defines “flagship” as the vehicle that most typifies an automaker’s most advanced technologies, the Lyriq, despite being small enough to fit into an Escalade’s trunk — I joke, but only partially — is Cadillac’s new flagship.

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And there should be little doubt that the future Lyriq predicts is very different than the past the Escalade represents. The styling, for instance, is dramatic in that it differs so little from the concept car originally introduced in August of 2020. Indeed, Andrew Smith, Cadillac’s executive director of design, says the major two differences between concept — which seemed more than a trifle avante garde for Caddy just last year — and production is that the Lyriq you’ll be able to start reserving in September will have seating for five, where the concept was a four-seater. Oh, and there’s more cupholders in the front console.

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As for the guts of the new Lyriq, Cadillac is being surprisingly coy about the details. Oh, we know the introductory model will be a single-motor rear-driver with 340 horsepower, but we have no idea what kind of performance it’s capable of and we know nothing about the much-promised AWD model that is sure to be part of the Lyriq lineup fairly soon.

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We do know there’s 100 kilowatt-hours of Ultium lithium-ion on board which should, Cadillac says, make for 480 kilometres of range in the EPA and Natural Resources Canada rating systems. How it will fare against Tesla’s Model X in the real-world range sweepstakes remains unknown. What we do know is that, with 190 kW of DC fast-charging, the Lyriq can regain 122 kilometres of range in just 10 minutes; and 313 km in half an hour.

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The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq
The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq Photo by Cadillac

A more-powerful-than-normal 19.2-kW Level II home charger that will add 84 klicks per hour will initially be standard on the limited first editions of the Lyric, but will then become optional, with a 11.5-kW affair becoming standard fare. And finally, a Variable Regen-on-Demand system lets drivers control how fast Lyriq slows down — and even come to a complete stop — when they lift off the throttle for customizable “one-pedal” driving.

As for detailed specifications, the Lyriq runs on a 3,094-millimetre wheelbase and stretches some 4,996 mm from stem to stern, which makes it a smidge shorter than a Model X Tesla and about half-a-foot longer than Caddy’s own XT5. But, since it’s an electric with a truly humongous battery, it does weigh in at 2,545 kilograms, roughly the same as a base Escalade. Compact the Lyriq may be; light, it is not.

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The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq
The 2023 Cadillac Lyriq Photo by Cadillac

As for highlights that further establish Lyriq as Caddy’s flagship for the future, there’s a huge 33-inch wide LED display that serves as both gauge set and centre console. Lyriq also boasts Cadillac’s latest-generation noise cancellation system. The lack of internal-combustion cacophony, while appreciated, does highlight other intrusions like wind and road noise. If GM’s engineers can quell those reverberation, the Lyriq might be able to boast Rolls-Royce-like silence.

—Until, of course, you blast the 19-speaker AKG audio system complete with headrest speakers because, well, you know, woofers in the doors are all well and fine, but they can’t make our ears actually bleed. The 2023 Lyriq will start at $69,898 when it goes on sale in the first quarter of next year.

David Booth picture

David Booth

David Booth is Driving’s senior writer as well as the producer of Driving.ca’s Driving into the Future panels and Motor Mouth podcasts. Having written about everything from the exact benefits of Diamond Like Coating (DLC) on motorcycle camshafts to why Range Rovers are the best vehicles for those suffering from opiod-induced constipation, Booth leaves no stone unturned in his quest for automotive veritas. Besides his long tenure with Driving, he was the editor in chief of Autovision magazine for 25 years and his stories has been published in motorcycle magazines around the world including the United States, England, Germany and Australia.

Education

Graduating from Queen Elizabeth High School in 1973, Booth moved to from his Northern Quebec home town of Sept-Iles — also home to Montreal Canadiens great, Guy Carbonneau, by the way — to Ottawa to study Mechanical Engineering at Carleton University where he wrote a thesis on the then burgeoning technology of anti-lock brakes for motorcycles and spent time researching the also then burgeoning use of water tunnels for aerodynamic testing.

Experience

After three years writing for Cycle Canada magazine and another three working for the then oldest magazine in Canada, Canadian Automotive Trade, Booth, along with current Driving writer, Brian Harper, and then Toronto Star contributor, Alex Law, created an automotive editorial services group that supplied road tests, news and service bulletins to what was then called Southam newspapers. When Southam became Postmedia with its purchase by Conrad Black and the subsequent introduction of the National Post, Booth was asked to start up the then Driver’s Edge section which became, as you might suspect, Driving.ca when Postmedia finally moved into the digital age. In the past 41 tears, Booth has tested well over 500 motorcycles, 1,500 passenger cars and pretty much every significant supercar of the last 30 years. His passion — and, by far, his proudest achievement — however is Motor Mouth, his weekly column that, after some 30 years, remains as incisive and opinionated as ever.

Personal

Booth remains an avid sports enthusiast — that should be read fitness freak — whose favourite activities include punching boxing bags until his hands bleed and running ski hills with as little respect for medial meniscus as 65-year-old knees can bear. His underlying passion, however, remains, after all these years, motorcycles. If he’s not in his garage tinkering with his prized 1983 CB1100RC — or resurrecting another one – he’s riding Italy’s famed Stelvio Pass with his beloved — and much-modified — Suzuki V-strom 1000. Booth has been known to accept the occasional mojito from strangers and the apples of his eye are a certain fellow Driving contributor and his son, Matthew, who is Global Vice-President of something but he’s never quite sure what. He welcomes feedback, criticism and suggestions at David@davebooth.ca
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