Cadillac has released the details for the production version of the Lyriq electric crossover. The luxury car manufacturer first revealed the car last year with a new and highly unconventional design. The car, which won’t be available until late 2022 has a staggering 33″ wide dashboard-mounted screen that displays the speedometer and other metrics that you’d normally see on instrument clusters.
The Lyriq looks more refined than some of Cadillac’s chunky old designs and it has expanded on previous vertical headlamp designs, resulting in narrow, long headlights that resemble an LED light strip. The taillights are vertical as well. It may take me a while to get used to that, but it’s already growing on me.
Images obtained with thanks from Cadillac.
The electric Cadillac Lyriq is equipped with a 340 HP electric motor producing 325 ft-pounds of torque, and that power is transferred to the wheels via a single-speed transmission (single-speed transmissions are common among electric vehicles). That motor will be powered by a hefty 100 kWh battery pack (it hasn’t been confirmed if that is gross or net capacity). It will come in performance all-wheel drive (AWD) and rear-wheel drive (RWD) configurations.
‘100 kWh’ means 100 kilowatt-hours/100,000 Watt-hours, which is a unit of energy storage capacity. A 100 kWh lithium-ion battery can provide 100 kW of power for up to 1 hour (realistically less due to losses and potential overheating issues, depending on the battery). The kWh rating of an EV battery has a significant impact on its range per charge. More kWh tends to result in longer range.
The overall efficiency of the car and its powertrain (how many kWh of energy it consumes per mile) is another significant factor determining driving range. The car’s batteries can be recharged via 19.2 kW Level 2 charging and 190 kW DC fast charging. Charge time is especially important to electric vehicles when on the road, as you need to be able to recharge and get back on the road quickly. If you’re charging overnight at home, it’s not an issue.
The car also sports a multi-link suspension, 17-inch brake rotors at the front and 18-inch ones at the back, twenty-inch wheels and a 19-speaker AKG Studio sound system. It’s base MSRP will be $59,990.
