Cadillac Lyriq First Drive Review | The new Standard of the World?

Cadillacs have always been seen as the epitome of American glamour and luxury. The storied brand has stood for refinement and extravagance. Not long after the brand's inception in the 1900s, it was proudly boasting it was the standard of the world in pre-war America. It's created some iconic cars. Just think of the winged Eldorado from the atomic age 50s, right up to more modern times when it capitalised on the blingy 90s noughties with the Escalade. More recently, it's even started reviving the Art Deco style with the CL concept, a car that's inspired the brand's design language for more than a decade. But times are changing, and Cadillac needs to change with them if it's going to survive. This is the Cadillac Lyric, and it's unlike any other Cadillac we've ever seen before. The Lyric is an all-new proposition for Cadillac. Why? Because it's the brand's first ever EV. General Motors knows that now is the right time to make one of the oldest names in the book, go electric, and it's doing it in some style. After Cadillac's design team crafted the Lyric concept car, GM executives liked it so much that the team then bent over backwards to make the production version look as close to it as possible. I mean, check out those sharp, tight vertical headlights, and glowing fascia at the front end, the huge wheels and wraparound rear lights. It's also clear that Cadillac's design team didn't want the car to conform to any particular body style. The Lyric looks part SUV, part estate car, part luxury saloon. And inside, the Lyric challenges all of those rather tired American car stereotypes. It's not chintzy or hollow in here. Care has been taken with material choices, every button and switch feels solid, and the layout isn't confusing for newbies either. I mean, this interior is something else. I mean, there's bits of Ioniq 5 going on with this sort of center console. There's this really big sweeping screen that sort of curves very much like BMW's i4 and iX. It's got all the technology you could ever ask for on it. I mean, it even has GM's Super Cruise, which is almost up there with Tesla's Autopilot in terms of how developed and how up to date it is in terms of an autonomous driving system. All of this tech and design progress is underpinned by the new General Motors Ultium platform. Surely you know the drill with electric car platforms by now. It's basically a flexible battery skateboard that allows GM to build cars of different sizes for its different brands with one simple component set. With the Lyric, GM says it has 190 kilowatt fast charging and is capable of more than 320 miles on a charge. And while GM doesn't give us exact performance numbers, a zero to 62 time of around six seconds from this 342 brake horsepower rear wheel drive version feels about right. And even with all this technology on board and the sophisticated platform underneath, it's still a Cadillac to drive. Definitely. It's very stodgy, very soft. The seats are really comfortable, but that's what people want. They want luxury. They want premiumness. And even out here on Milford Proving Ground, GM's own facility, I mean, you know, I'm on quite a rough road and it's nice. It's comfortable. It's even with all these big bumps. It's not the kind of car you drive in anger, that's for sure. The Lyric rolls so much in the corners, you can tell it's mainly designed for North America's expansive highways and grid like city streets. But the Lyric might not just be exclusive to North America. General Motors plans to properly re-enter Europe after years of being relatively dormant and plans to sell nothing but electric cars in what it says is the second fastest growing market for EVs. The Lyric we're driving here may well be one of them. And to our eyes, at least it could be an interesting alternative to the likes of the BMW iX, Jaguar I-PACE and Audi e-tron. Honestly, I think Cadillac's on to a winner here. It looks fantastic inside and out. And yeah, it's a little bit soft and squishy to drive, but then it's kind of what Cadillacs have always been. And maybe that's exactly what we're looking for in a posh, neatly trimmed electric car. Refinement and tech all wrapped up in a sharply designed package. Could this be the dawn of a new standard of the world? If Cadillac's first electric car is this convincing, it very well could be.