The future of Cadillac—and a new retail strategy—is just around the corner.
Cadillac
- Cadillac’s battery-electric Lyriq opens its order books this May, with production starting this month.
- Cadillac reduced its dealer network but is expanding online ordering with hopes of enticing customers through transparency.
- Cadillac claims over 230,000 people have signed up for information about the Lyriq ahead of its release.
Cadillac is a long way from the days of massive fins and domestic dominance in the luxury car market. While General Motors’ luxury brand has been trying to claw its way back to the top and is targeting the performance side of the luxury world, it’s hard to say Cadillac made leaps over the last few years.
That might change with the company’s expansion into electrification and the launch of its new all-electric Lyriq.
It’s impossible to say how much demand there is for Cadillac’s upcoming EV before the money starts to change hands and contracts get signed. Well, that is apparently happening on May 19 as Caddy’s Lyriq becomes available for order. The single-motor Lyriq variant goes into production on March 21 at GM’s plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee. The Lyriq also will be assembled at GM’s SAIC joint-venture plant in Yantai, China.
Cadillac says the car has over 230,000 hand raisers ahead of its launch. Hand raisers aren’t necessarily people who will buy the car but are individuals who have signed up through a dealer or online portal to receive updates. Although these numbers are financially fruitless, they do show significant interest in Cadillac’s upcoming battery-electric crossover.
The Lyriq—and Cadillac’s greater transition into electrification—is already impacting the company’s dealer network, which is being encouraged to embrace electrification, according to Rory Harvey, Cadillac’s global VP.
Some 300 US dealers have opted to exit their Cadillac franchise agreements, rather than invest in infrastructure and remodeling to sell electric vehicles—perhaps knowing the brand’s long-term plan is to no longer sell gasoline V8-powered Escalades. The Escalade SUV, by the way, is far and away Cadillac’s most popular vehicle, with more than 7000 deliveries over the past three months, according to Wards Intelligence data.
In the course of this retail reorganizing, Cadillac now has about 600 US showrooms—a 36% reduction from a few years ago. That’s a lot.
Though, as you can see from the rising success of brands such as Tesla, having fewer dealers isn’t necessarily a death knell. Cadillac executives likely looked at Tesla’s limited-retail model when devising its own sales strategy. For context, Tesla has about 130 US showrooms and galleries.
Cadillac’s Eric Cunningham explains the company is rolling out a new digital platform to help shuffle electric vehicles to new owners. Cunningham says this program is “all about simplicity, convenience and consistency.”
Effectively, it offers customers a more transparent way to buy a car, without the cloud of confusion that sometimes can fall on a dealer’s approach. Most importantly for buyers, Cadillac is promising full transparency on pricing. Though, you’ll still be able to do your best Don Draper impersonation if you want to hit your local Cadillac dealer.
Cadillac is betting big on the success of Lyriq. The brand is going so far as to revamp the end-user experience to accommodate the ethereal EV buyer. Though, it’s hard to say how successful the Lyriq will be on the sales charts—or on the road—until these electric crossovers hit the assembly lines and dealer lots.
Keyword: The Cadillac Lyriq EV Goes On Sale In May