“Nobody wants electric cars!” That has been the refrain from car dealers for at least a decade, even as sales of electric cars have exploded. EVs are a threat to many dealers, who look longingly to the past when selling cars was an art form built around soaking the customer for as much money as possible on every transaction.
Yes, those dealers sponsor a lot of Little League and Pop Warner teams, but that is just to burnish their reputation in the community while they rake in money hand over fist. For many people, car dealers are about as far down on the social scale as you can get — even lower than lawyers, if you can believe such a thing!
The truth is quite different. When Tesla announced the Model 3, people all around the world stood in line for hours, often in the rain and cold, to reserve one. Ultimately, more than 450,000 reservations were received. When Ford opened up reservations for its F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, it quickly booked more than 150,000 of them and announced it was raising its production targets and hiring more workers to build them.
Now comes the Cadillac Lyriq, the first battery electric vehicle from the company that used to call itself “The standard of the world!” Reservations for the Debut Edition of the car, which starts at $59,990 including destination charges, opened yesterday, September 18. Just over 10 minutes later, they were gone.
That was fast.💨 Every all-electric 2023 #LYRIQ Debut Edition has now been reserved. To learn more about #LYRIQ visit https://t.co/zP3V2LbpCp pic.twitter.com/vOKU73bkMr
— Cadillac (@Cadillac) September 18, 2021
In a statement, Rory Harvey, vice president of Global Cadillac, said, “Today, reservations for the 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ Debut Edition sold out in just over ten minutes and we continue to see a lot of enthusiasm around the brand — both current product and in our all-electric future. The initial response for LYRIQ has been extraordinary. Since the show car unveiling last year, more than 200,000 people have expressed interest in learning more about the vehicle and our electric future.
“The opening of reservations for the 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ Debut Edition represents just the beginning of Cadillac’s journey to become an industry-leading, all-electric luxury brand. While 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ Debut Edition reservations are full, more vehicles will be available to order through the Cadillac dealer network starting summer 2022. I can’t wait to share even more about our future EV lineup next year.”
Cadillac Lyriq. Image courtesy of Cadillac.
Cadillac Lyriq. Image courtesy of Cadillac.
Sharp-eyed readers will notice that nowhere does Cadillac say exactly how many Debut Edition reservations were available, but no matter. The point is, there is lot of interest in electric cars. One can only wonder what those 150 Cadillac dealers who decided to give up their factory franchises rather than sell electric cars are thinking today. Talk about being on the wrong side of history!
The Lyriq will be built at GM’s former Saturn factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee, where a Honda-badged electric SUV will also be manufactured. It is based on GM’s new Ultium electric car platform and will use batteries made at factories that are jointly owned and operated by GM and LG Energy Solution.
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