Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Test Driving the All-Electric Cadillac LYRIQ”.
So you guys probably remember I got an early look at this vehicle right here. This is the Cadillac lyric and, of course, it’s all electric. Now last time I was looking at an early model this time around. I’M actually going to be able to give this thing. A spin take it out for a drive and there’s a couple features in there that I’m curious to check out, because it’s a slightly different approach to some things that I obsess over, such as regenerative braking, but before we get into driving it.
I want to recap a couple of features here on this particular vehicle, so let’s take a little walk around up front. You have like a futuristic version vision of Cadillac, this whole grill lights up in fact, there’s an entire sequence that takes place. It really kind of gives it like a special feel comparative to some of the other stuff. That’S on the market.
Now they kind of struck a balance here, as far as making it look, uh, streamlined and modern without going too far in the minimalist directions. This is where you’re going to charge the vehicle up robotic. Let’S appreciate the shape here. This is what it’s really about figuring out a way to get the utility, but to do it in such a fashion that still gives you that low sort of sporty appeal. It’S sharp it’s angular and I think that really increases the appeal of utility vehicles from my perspective, get the space to put stuff but then, at the same time you’re still driving around something that has that sporty aesthetic. So you open this up right here by pressing on the emblem, which is a nice natural kind of hidden place. This is a really decent cargo area. Plus you have the power motorized, so I can quickly get even more cargo.
As you can see, this is tons now, plus, if I lift up over here, it’s another area. I think this is going to be a great spot for smaller items, groceries and things that you don’t want to have kind of rolling around. Obviously, the situation gets even better in the front. I like the fact that we still have some analog inputs touch screens are great, obviously functional and intuitive. Sometimes you want to reach for something tactile.
Sometimes you want to reach for something: that’s almost muscle memory, and so what they’ve done here is they’ve capped, like audio volume in the most obvious location, with a tactile feedback, as you make your adjustments and you can actually interact with the entire interface via this knob. Here as well, you can see I have back button navigation, home and answering and ending phone calls. Some of these controls are also mapped onto the steering wheel, so other things that just make sense that you wouldn’t want to dive into an interface 4 heated steering wheel.
Yeah that should be right there. It makes a lot of sense. It’S on the steering wheel, I’m not going to be able to miss it. I feel the same way about climate, particularly when you have multi-zone climate. If the passenger I’m with, wants to make a quick adjustment, I don’t necessarily want to take over my entire display in order to do that, I can do that with a couple of TAPS as soon as they enter the vehicle. So that’s lovely stuff.
Listen to that click, you see that these are displays as well I’ll just be clicking for a while here I think I might have missed this last time, but you have a pretty nice storage bin here in an unusual location, but also an easy to access place. It’S like a nice little drawer. I believe this is a wireless charger and I’m going to just give that a crack right now. Oh, it kind of squeezes your phone a little bit, so it doesn’t really move around too much once it’s in there. When I get into a vehicle, I often will put my phone into the cup holder I’ll, always take my phone out of my pocket. I’Ll often connect it to a charger, but sometimes it’s just Out Of Reach or in a slightly less comfortable location.
Right here is Kind of Perfect. That is just smart design. A lot of little details in here that you might take for granted like you might not pick up on immediately but living with the vehicle. You can imagine yourself using and enjoying them. Obviously, Android auto Apple carplay, don’t even get me started, don’t even get me started, it’s got to be there. I need to have it hold towards yourself and then up to reverse and pull towards yourself down for Drive.
Once you get the hang of it, it feels pretty natural. Of course, companies have gotten kind of funky with how they’re working with this on electric vehicles. This one is going to be a familiar type of interaction for people coming from gas powered vehicles. Oh and before we go out and take this for a drive, this is one of the more interesting features on the vehicle that I haven’t personally seen before. There’S controllable, regen braking this is called regen on demand. What this does is it essentially allows me to break the vehicle using regen by using this little handle on the steering wheel, and I can control the amount of it. One pedal driving is currently on, but you can set the level permanently or you can turn it off completely. So there you go when on your vehicle was slow or stop when you let off the accelerator.
So it’s currently in the on mode, there’s also a high mode. If you want a more aggressive approach, you can turn it completely off. If you want to have that experience of rolling or you can use the little handle, on the left hand, side to do some sort of hybrid manual version of it, so I like having a variety of ways of interacting with this particular feature. This is going to kind of allow you to configure it in such a way. That’S going to be a more comfortable transition for you as it is with any personal preference. You want to have the options available. You don’t want to have it exclusively enabled without the ability to tweak it in any way. Okay, so that’s a quick recap on everything the vehicle has to offer.
Of course it is a vehicle and therefore we should drive it, and that is something we can do. This time around – and that is something we can do right – foreign test with the new Cadillac lyric, I’m gon na be testing out regen on demand, which is the feature that I’m most curious about. We can have one pedal driving turned on off. We can have it in high mode as of right now in touring it is set to on, but in order to feel the manual regen, the most I’m actually going to put it into its off setting right now. That means that the car will have a roll to it kind of like a typical gas powered car.
Without this kind of immediate braking, as your foot is pulled from the accelerator, that’s what would be frequently associated with one pedal driving now one thing you’re going to notice just how quietly this vehicle moves smoothly. I mean that’s kind of what you would expect with a Cadillac like refinement, it’s extremely quiet in here. Okay, I’m gon na try, the oh.
You can come to a complete, stop simply using the brake on the steering wheel. It’S a soft like I’m braking right now. Look, my foot is not on the pedal looking at this little meter over here.
So I pull my foot and you can see it Go Green there. Of course, we’re stopped now, so there’s no longer any regen happening, so the top meter is consumption and then below. That is the regenerative braking what’s interesting with this is even when I have one pedal driving and it’s offsetting.
It looks like we’re still doing some degree of regen. It’S really interesting the way that these new vehicles are implementing regen, because they’re, not all the same. Some of them are one pedal driving and that’s it without a lot of configuration.
Others allow you to fine tune. It craving like a comfortable ride but at the same time maximizing the range and efficiency of the vehicle by recapturing that energy, I’m currently showing 482 kilometers of range. As you can see, we’re not quite 100 charged at this moment.
That should give you an indication of range expectations on the new Cadillac lyric. So the default like in this display, which is configurable, is this sort of gauge cluster. You can see some of your adaptive cruise stuff below there, but you can change this as, as you saw to this energy gauge.
Instead, you can also bring up a map over here. We end up with this really nice big representation of Google Maps in the center and then there’s another setting called clean, which is going to really minimize what you have on the display. This is kind of nice.
If you just want to see the speed that you’re traveling and not have too much else on there, what you’re looking at right now is Wireless Android, auto, which you know I’m into it’s, my sort of favorite in-car setup. It’S getting your Google Assistant, it’s having all of your apps and it’s happening wirelessly. My phone is charging wirelessly, there’s no cable to connect, and I have everything I’m looking for there. Allow me to adjust the volume you can do it here. I’M going to click on this audio button. Equalizer sound mode surrounds even more surround; oh definitely, yeah wow intimate. I should put my massage seat on over here. Well, there’s lumbar going on and there’s like a rolling motion to it: lovely, okay, yeah, lovely, listen, refinement! Look at me picture me all right picture yourself.
You understand smooth car like this, it’s so smooth so refined. I don’t want that abruptness. I want something that feels gradual and smooth, I’m still getting a massage in case you’re, wondering because that’s what you would do in your Cadillac lyric.
Yes, here we are a wonderful fall day, season’s changing Everything Changes. So once again, thank you to Cadillac for bringing over the brand new lyric. It was a pleasure to drive around extremely smooth nice and quiet. I’M really looking forward to what this means for the entire Cadillac lineup going into the future. If you guys are interested in the lyric yourself check the description of this video there’s going to be links down there, what a time to be alive, the electric future, it’s now it’s happening.
It’S happening at Cadillac, .