(energetic electronic music)
- Welcome back to What's Inside? Family,
we were in Detroit a few months ago
and we were able to see the Hummer SUV that came out.
We toured the Ultium battery factory with the head engineer,
we even did a podcast about it.
Today we get to review another electric car,
a first of its kind from Cadillac.
It has good range, it has a good price and it's a Cadillac,
it's going to be a luxury vehicle,
so I'm really excited.
All right, this is the place right here,
we made it to the studio.
I have this car to myself for the next 45 minutes,
let's check it out.
(upbeat electronic music)
Okay, there it is.
This is the Cadillac Lyriq,
the only one in the world currently.
This is it, I get 45 minutes with this car, just me.
I'm at this studio in Los Angeles,
I drove out here last night,
and just like with the Hummer SUV,
it's the only one in the world,
so I'm gonna try not to break anything.
I know you guys know that's what we do
on our channel a lot of times is break things,
but not today.
We are going to take a look at this car,
see what makes it unique.
I'll let you know my thoughts on it.
First things first, let's see
what's inside of the all new Cadillac.
When you think about Cadillac you think of luxury,
and so I put this on par with maybe the Mercedes-Benz EQS,
which is a luxury vehicle, which you expect to see that.
But what's interesting in my mind,
when I think of the Hummer, I think of GM,
I think of maybe not as luxurious of a vehicle,
but the Hummer starts,
the electric Hummer starts at over a $100,000,
where this starts in the rear wheel drive version
with up to 300 miles range at $58,000.
On September 18th at 4:00 PM they open up deposits,
and it's very similar to what you do with a Tesla,
it's $100 for the deposit.
It is refundable, it's for them to get a gauge
of how many people are ordering it,
and it's going to deliver in mid 2022.
Okay, be careful with it.
(door clunking)
Sitting inside of the car for the first time,
let me give you my first impressions.
The seats I love.
You know that I have driven a Tesla and electric cars
for about five years now.
The seats in pretty much every other manufacturer
other than Tesla are phenomenal.
We've seen what's inside of the Mercedes seats.
The seats inside of the Lyriq have air cooled seats
and also heated seats,
but it's not just like air conditioned seats
where you have to change the filter and everything,
it actually sucks the air from the back.
So it keeps you cool, there's no air filters to change,
there's fans underneath it.
That is something that I feel like is a must
in whatever next car that I get.
I really like the heads up display.
It is one bow across, it's curved,
and it's not in your face too big.
You still have room to look out at the road.
And also, this may sound like a silly thing,
but I really like the steering wheel.
There are some manufacturers like the Tesla
that you can't buy a Model S or Model X
with a regular round steering wheel,
they literally reinvented the steering wheel.
Something unique about this steering wheel
is there are a lot of buttons on them
and there is a tactile feel to them.
So while they're kind of like an electronic button,
you can feel without looking down from the road
and you can feel where the different buttons are
which I really like about that.
There's a green light right here on the front
that you're probably noticing.
This is part of GM's Super Cruise,
which is something that a lot of you
may not be familiar with.
I just drove for six hours on Tesla's Autopilot.
There are a few differences with Super Cruise
from like, Autopilot for example.
When you're driving on the highway
and you put it in Super Cruise,
this light will turn on and it'll be green
saying that you are in Super Cruise,
but there are cameras that look at your eyes.
So say you have a show that you put,
and you're watching Netflix on your phone
and you look over at it,
It's going to look at your eyes
and it's gonna know that you're not looking at it,
and it does a couple of things.
One, the steering wheel turns red.
So this green light will turn red,
maybe start flashing at you a little bit,
and then the seat will vibrate at you to warn you like,
"Hey, you got to look up at the road."
As soon as you look up and you correct,
then the light will turn back to green,
it'll stop vibrating at you,
but it's a very smart way to ensure
that you're looking at the road,
because I have seen people and there's videos of people
trying to trick different autopilot systems
and they put different things,
I won't even tell you how they do it,
but they trick the autopilot system so that they can like,
literally take a nap in the car,
or watch a show the whole time
and they're not paying attention.
There is no autopilot in the world right now in a car
that is approved for full self-driving
where you just drive and don't pay attention.
A lot of you that have never had like Autopilot
or Super Cruise before, you're probably like,
"well, then what's the point. I'll just drive myself."
I will tell you, knowing that the car is looking
at everything with different cameras and radar
around every vehicle, and keeping you in line on the road,
it is a comforting thing
that actually takes a lot of the stress on road trips.
So I compare it to,
say I drive on a six hour road trip,
driving with Super Cruise or Autopilot
makes it feel like it's three and a half hours,
like you're not as fatigued afterward,
and you honestly feel a little bit safer.
If you're somebody that's had a Cadillac for a while,
you're going to feel a lot of comfort in the luxury
and the electronics inside of the Lyriq.
It has not just the screen,
which is beautiful and nice with Apple CarPlay,
but it also has a lot of buttons that you can use.
Personally, I prefer that.
I love cars that have the tactile buttons
that you can touch and move versus going to the screen.
Again, I don't want to bash on Tesla,
but the latest Model S and X,
you can't even put the car in reverse or drive
with a knob or with a button.
You have to reach over to the touchscreen
and move your finger on it.
There are sleek air vents
that go across this entire front of the car,
and they do have knobs that you can touch,
like physical knobs that you can turn and twist.
In the final version this knob will light up right here,
but you do have some knobs that are right here
along with your drink spot here.
But you could put a full on purse down here,
charge your phone, and then you also have a few drawers
that you can actually put stuff in here.
So throw your keys in here,
it's always hard to find a place to put your key
when you don't actually have to put the key in the car,
how nice to be able to put it here.
And you have a second drawer right here.
Throw some mints in there, some candy, some gum.
You do still have your standard glove box over on this side.
How do you get inside the car?
I know you use the door handle,
but not all door handles are made the same,
and that's the same here at the Cadillac Lyriq.
The door handles on the Lyriq, they are,
they don't come out, it's not something
that you grab and you pull.
These are power presenting doors.
So essentially you have the flat aerodynamic door handle.
You don't have to push on it
and pull from a different angle,
you can touch on it in one place and it's power presenting,
it pushes out a little bit for you.
And then as you open the door
there's a little knob right here
that is the thing that actually makes it power presenting,
it pushes it out a little bit.
The rear door does open automatically
either with the key fob or a button inside.
I was just sitting in the front seat,
I'm now sitting in the back,
and I have not moved the seats forward or back at all.
I was comfortable in the front,
there was a lot of knee and leg room
and I'm a tall guy, like six foot two.
And at first, honestly, when I was looking at these seats,
I was thinking, these are way too thick.
This is going to take away
from the actual comfort of the back seat.
But look, I have plenty of room,
I've got a few inches right there,
and the seats in the back of the car
are actually comfortable.
And when I think of a Cadillac, a lot of times,
I've never owned a Cadillac,
but I think of getting like a really nice ride in one,
and it's always comfortable in the back.
Almost like you have a driver that's driving you somewhere,
and so you would expect the seats to be comfortable
and believe me, they are incredibly comfortable back here.
There are going to be 19 speakers inside of this car,
so if you're being chauffeured around or driven around,
or your kids, you're driving them to school,
the audio should be really good.
It has noise canceling built into the car,
so like a lot of electric cars are trying to go that way.
Cars are so quiet, you don't hear the engine,
and so now you can put noise canceling in,
work that in with the speakers et cetera,
and make it a quiet, smooth ride.
And if you are the driver you have a special treat.
There are actually speakers right here,
two speakers inside of the headrest.
I'm not testing that out today, but believe me,
before I even drive the car for the first time,
I'm gonna be testing out the speakers to see
what they sound like with speakers in the headrest.
As far as storage goes, with these seats up right now
you have 28 cubic feet of storage in the back seat,
which looks like plenty of storage to me
for the irregular groceries and different things,
Lincoln's golf clubs when I'm traveling around.
you have 68 Cubic feet of storage with the seats down.
For charging the car you'll charge it right here,
and there is a home charger
that is the fastest in the business.
A 19.2 kilowatt charger that you can have at your house
that can get you 52 miles of range
in just one hour of charging, which is really fast.
And as far as a front trunk, a frunk,
there is no frunk in the USA model of this
because of the fast home charger
that they're putting inside of there
to help it charge faster,
but there's still plenty of storage in the back.
I think it's exciting.
I'm gonna put the information down in the link below
and so you can check it out and see
if you want to get a reservation yourself
on September 18th at 4:00 PM when it comes out.
For those of you that are like,
"oh, Cadillac, this is the first electric car.
They probably don't have experience making batteries."
No, no, no, no.
They're using the Ultium battery platform,
which is the same that the Hummer is using,
and it's the same process that GM has been using for years.
Like, I want to say since like 2013.
They can choose how many pods
and how many kilowatts they want in there
by just adding different sections in the battery.
So the battery technology is actually
really, really advanced,
and I would say one of the most advanced
out of any manufacturer that's out there.
You've got Mercedes-Benz
who's learning how to do the batteries
and they're partnering with people to try to figure it out.
You've got Tesla has been doing it for a very long time,
but GM has been doing it for probably about as long
as what Tesla has been doing.
Maybe not the same size and scale over the last few years,
but you can be confident that the battery technology
is really advanced inside of the Cadillac.
This is, might be their first electric vehicle,
but it's not their first time making electric cars.
Not breaking it, whew!
Thank you.