2025 Cadillac Lyriq Review + Video

With everything feeling criminally expensive these days, it’s rare to be happily surprised by an excellent value-to-dollar ratio.

The all-electric 2025 Cadillac Lyriq breaks through the too-expensive trend with a stylish, polished, high-tech, and well-rounded SUV that’s packed with value.

Styling 9 / 10

The Cadillac Lyriq is a properly good-looking SUV with excellent proportions, making it unique in its segment because it’s not designed like a bar of soap or some ultra-angular aggressive spacecraft. Its sleek, modern design is striking and stands out, but the details are also intentional and make the Lyriq look sharp. 

The front end is particularly pretty, with the unique lighting design giving an illusion of a grille and adding a very cool light signature at night. The Lyriq looks sleek and modern from every angle.

The interior is also thoughtfully designed, with a mix of higher-end textures, finishes, and customizable ambient lighting combining to make it feel luxurious and modern without being alienating or sacrificing usability.

Fuel Economy 9 / 10

The rear-wheel-drive (RWD) Lyriq offers 525 km of estimated range in ideal conditions, while the all-wheel drive (AWD) version with the 11.5-kW onboard charger has 513 km, so it’s a bonus that you don’t have to sacrifice too much range to get extra traction, which is usually the case with electric vehicles (EVs). (An AWD version with a faster 19.2-kW charger has an official range estimate of 488 km.)

Every Lyriq comes standard with a Level 2 charger that can be used with a 240-volt appliance-style four-prong outlet for an overnight charge at home, but there’s also a regular household adapter for a 110-volt outlet included as well. For public charging, it can accept speeds as fast as 190 kW, which will add about 138 km of range in 10 minutes or so in ideal conditions. 

After about 520 km of mostly highway driving, the indicated efficiency was 27.0 kWh/100 km, which seems a bit high, but the Lyriq was tested during a week of cold winter weather and on winter tires.

Power 9 / 10

All Cadillac Lyriqs come standard with RWD, and AWD is a $4,500 upgrade for each trim. With the RWD setup, output is rated at 356 hp and 325 lb-ft of torque, but jumps to 515 hp and 450 lb-ft with the AWD model’s additional front axle-mounted electric motor. The AWD model tested here offers that instant slingshot acceleration that you can feel in your stomach that performance EVs have become so well known for.

Driving Feel 6 / 10

Power in a straight line is abundant, so passing slower traffic is effortless, but that’s about where any performance inclination ends. The Lyriq doesn’t feel sporty at all, and that’s not a criticism, but if you enjoy bombing through back roads on the weekend, this isn’t the SUV for you. The Lyriq is focused much more on luxurious and comfortable cruising than corner-carving performance. (There’s a performance-oriented Lyriq-V on the way, if something sportier is what you want.)

The Lyriq’s steering is unnervingly numb and light, providing close to zero feedback and needing constant corrections. Putting it in sport mode helps, but only marginally, and you can really feel the SUV’s weight and long wheelbase in a corner. It has a lot of body roll in corners and feels like it’s wafting, even in sport mode. It also reverts to normal mode each time it’s turned on, but there is a hack: you can customize the individual mode to firm up the steering along with other settings, and this mode will remain engaged until you turn it off.

One-pedal driving is offered, with the ability to turn it off or pick between two strength levels. The system is smooth and easy to modulate, with on-demand regenerative braking also available via a steering wheel-mounted paddle.

The Lyriq feels much more in its element when driven calmly; the suspension soaks up road imperfections so you can barely feel them, and the whole experience just feels more natural and less frustrating when you’re not in a rush.

Comfort 9 / 10

Active noise cancellation in higher trims helps with that feeling of serenity, making the cabin eerily quiet. The seats are comfortable and supportive, and the long wheelbase gives all passengers generous legroom. Headroom is also surprisingly good in the back seats — an impressive feat considering the stylish roofline.

The Sport 3 trim tested here also comes with front-seat lumbar massage and memory, a heated steering wheel, heated and ventilated front seats, and heated rear seats. The system also remembers the settings, so if you’ve been driving with the heated steering wheel and heated seats on, they’ll be on the next time you get into the vehicle.

Practicality 9 / 10

Except for not having a frunk, the Lyriq was made with practicality in mind. The large trunk has 793 L of space — or 1,722 L with the 40/60 split-folding rear seats stowed — and there’s a huge compartment under the console that can hold a handbag or some takeout, the door pockets are large, and there’s also a shallow leather-lined drawer under the climate controls that can keep small valuables hidden. Oddly, the glove compartment must be opened using a shortcut in the touchscreen — there is no physical button or lever.

The rear seats can be folded down using a release in the trunk but they must be replaced manually. The big Cadillac shield on the tailgate doubles as a trunk release button that’s easy to hit with your elbow if your hands are full, but a light also projects a Cadillac crest on the ground where the kick sensor is located. There’s also a washer for the reverse camera.

User-Friendliness 9 / 10

A huge 33-inch screen combines the driver’s information cluster as well as the touchscreen — a setup that looks high-end. The leftmost section also doubles as a touch-sensitive control panel for lighting and the trip computer, and there’s a row of hard buttons just below the vents for climate controls.

The touchscreen is quick to react to inputs, the menus make sense, useful shortcuts are always visible, and it makes great use of all the screen real estate right up to the rounded bevels, except for when using Apple CarPlay, where there’s an awkward-looking border of dead space. Cadillac also includes a rotary dial control and shortcuts for the infotainment system beside the cup holders, which is easier to use than the touchscreen when in motion.

The system is Google-based, so Google Maps is the standard navigation, which is inherently user-friendly because everyone knows how to use Google Maps. Although you could use Google Maps through wireless Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, using the embedded system offers more features. Not only does it show you the remaining state of charge when you will reach your destination, but it also helps with trip planning by suggesting chargers along your route if you don’t have enough range. If you input a fast charger as your destination, the powertrain will pre-condition the battery for optimized charging, and you can also filter charging stations by location, service provider, speed, or availability.

Features 9 / 10

The Lyriq has a lot of great features and tech, but the highlight is Super Cruise, the hands-free adaptive cruise control system from Cadillac parent company General Motors (GM). Super Cruise can be used on hundreds of thousands of kilometres of pre-mapped highways and is one of the only systems available today where you can take your hands off the wheel. Combined with GPS data and an arsenal of cameras and sensors, it can follow the vehicle in front at a safe distance, keep the Lyriq centred in its lane, steer through curves, change lanes on its own to pass slower traffic, and even return back to the original lane when safe. 

The system monitors your face and eyes to ensure you’re still paying attention and can intervene at all times, but it does a great job communicating so you always know what’s going on and are aware of what it sees, which helps you feel more at ease when using it. It’s probably one of the best adaptive cruise control systems out there, and if you do a lot of highway driving, no automaker except Ford can currently compete in terms of how advanced it is. Super Cruise comes standard with the second and higher Lyriq trims, but after three years, it becomes subscription-based.

Safety 9 / 10

I’m a big believer that drivers shouldn’t rely on safety systems, but a big blind spot makes doing a left shoulder check impossible, so you’re forced to rely on blind-spot monitoring to ensure there’s no one lurking there. There’s also no rear wiper, which is a bit annoying seeing that we’re in Canada. The camera-based rearview mirror view seems like a high-tech solution when a low-tech one would be just fine.

Luckily the systems work really well and rarely give false warnings, and having Super Cruise means all the safety systems are included (automatic emergency braking front and rear, steering assistance, forward collision alert, pedestrian and cyclist detection, surround-view cameras, lane-keep assist, OnStar SOS connectivity, teen driver settings, intersection assist, rear cross-traffic alert, and more).

Value 9 / 10

The 2025 Cadillac Lyriq starts at $71,999 plus the non-negotiable $2,500 destination fee. All-wheel drive is an extra $4,500 on all trims. The top Sport 3 trim with AWD goes for $82,499 and with options, the pre-tax total comes to $87,689 before tax, which represents an immense value. You can’t get into a competing EV for this price without making big sacrifices to range or features, so dollar for dollar, this might be the most well-rounded luxury EV out there with the most value.

The Verdict 

The 2025 Cadillac Lyriq offers tons of value for what it is. Considering the range, pretty cabin, all the tech, generous features, and stylish design, it’s very worth the asking price and undercuts its competition by a healthy margin while also not making big sacrifices to get there. The Lyriq is seriously worth considering if you’re looking for a luxury electric crossover.