*This article is reproduced from the autocarweekly WeChat official account.
Author: Karakush
On a midsummer night in 1954, a young aviation enthusiast received a hot pink Cadillac, and was so excited that he didn’t sleep all night, admiring the tail fins in the garden.
The man was Elvis Presley, also known as the “King of Rock and Roll”.
Last night, Cadillac’s first pure electric vehicle, the Lyriq, officially started pre-sales, and this story was the opening.
~~The story actually has a second half that hasn’t been told: the pink car caught fire and was destroyed the next day…~~
But it also burned irreparably into the King’s heart. He immediately ordered another one, still hot pink, still a Cadillac. That’s the most sincere love in the world. Over the rest of his life, he bought nearly 200 Cadillacs and gave them to employees and friends.
This old story is not important if omitted. What’s important is to lead to a point:
Young people can easily be attracted by job opportunities with bosses who love Cadillacs.
“True luxury is in pioneering.” Pioneering makes steel bodies charming and industrial products look like they have some soul. The world’s first styling department was in Cadillac, and it was also the first to use colored car paint in the industry.
Even in the world of consumer products, the first to regularly launch new products to the market was not Apple, but Cadillac.
Pioneering has always been in the foundation of Cadillac.
To be precise, it’s very, very “basic.” In recent years, Cadillac has achieved solid results in the Chinese market, averaging more than 200,000 units per year, but it has nothing to do with its pioneering spirit. Its luxury is more like the signature sirloin at Wolfgang’s Steakhouse for ¥1600.
As for “pioneering”, it’s been folded together with the story of the King, never to be erased, but rarely remembered. Especially for young people today, perhaps it’s as distant, unfamiliar, and bewildering as seeing the name “Elvis Presley.” How can rock and roll be pioneering in the face of new century electronic music?
The Lyriq provides Cadillac’s answer. Cadillac proposes, “We don’t just want to make an electric car, we want to create an amazing journey.”
First of all, no internal competition, just focus on one’s own work.
For example, what I remember most from the more than one-hour press conference is the “33-inch panoramic curved OLED screen.” It has the picture quality to crush its competitors and challenge Apple, taking the car infotainment system to the ceiling of consumer electronics.
It features a curved screen. The images transmitted to the brain via the retina from a straight tablet are actually distorted because the human retina is curved. The angle of the curved screen matches the retina, allowing for more realistic images and more information to be transmitted, while the curvature of both ends makes tapping more convenient.
Its image clarity is not affected by light, using a multi-layer coating process with a reflectivity of 1.2%, which is lower than the industry mainstream of 2%. It also adopts a backlight partitioning technology with 3375 independently controlled zones per area. The rough screen of a straight tablet only allows for all backlight to be opened or closed, resulting in a whitewashed image in brighter environments. The Lyriq can clearly distinguish between light and dark areas even in bright sunlight.
Its parameters are very carefully calibrated, capable of displaying a billion color variations, such as the following image where the Lyriq can restore the gradation of a sunrise. Its pixel density is said to surpass that of Apple’s iPad Pro, achieving seamless switching between excellent smartphone screens, and adopts an 8155 chip to support image parsing capabilities.
After an introduction such as this, one would think they were listening to a speech by Lei Jun. The quality is similar to that of a smartphone launch event, even the streaming feels like that of Apple.
Currently, most high-end car screens pursue size and coolness. After the hype of super large screens, rotating screens, lifting screens, and various other features, Cadillac still manages to bring surprises to the table. This is not just a simple cost-cutting measure, as it is included as a standard feature across their entire range.
Similar efforts are being made in audio, where the Lyriq introduces AKG audio with studio-level fidelity. This brand known to audiophiles features 19 AKG speakers that create a high-fidelity soundscape, and finely corrects sound localization, restoration, resolution, and surround sound.The last time I saw a car buying promotion that offered a sound system was back in 2015, and it was the 34-speaker BOSE sound system on the CT6. Cadillac has always used BOSE sound systems, but since last year, they have introduced AKG, which is already used in the 2021 Cadillac Escalade. It is more elegant, more niche, and gives a sense of belonging to the elite. Cadillac is the only car brand in the world that cooperates with AKG, “You can only hear AKG in Cadillac.”
In addition, it brings a touch of classicism to the overly unified minimalist aesthetics of smart cars.
Its exterior lighting, in addition to the inline headlights, also includes a grille that is designed as a luminous body, with 58 LED light strips that can be magnificently illuminated one after another. With the glowing logo, there are a total of 736 LED light sources on the exterior of the car, it is like the offspring of the sun (dog head).
The door panel is engraved using laser etching on the 40-year-old white oak wood grain, with a metallic luster, and it goes through a tinting process with 26 ambient lights. With rich imagination, you can own a colorful forest of oaks.
Moreover, there are noble crystal knobs, noble duck decorations, and noble lighted storage boxes. Even placing ordinary soft items inside feels like wearing an ancestral Rolex watch. It itself is like a finely cut gemstone with a sunroof glass area of 1.83 square meters, which is sunshade-friendly with a UV blocking rate of 99.97% and a zero-light penetrating sunshade.
Thirdly, it also humorously mocks its peers.
For example, the seats. According to research, the comfort of electric vehicle seats is generally unsatisfactory. Lyriq’s seat foam material uses German materials, which are generally used to fill baby pillows, with better rebound and support, so that you won’t suffer from muscle strain after traveling long distances.
Another is the energy recovery mode for brakes, which can be turned off or adjusted for strength. There is a dial that lets you control the energy recovery intensity by the pressure of your hand, giving “the right to choose the driving mode back to the user”.It is difficult to compare which is more in line with the modern forefront, Cadillac’s many highlights are actually developing towards refinement instead of avant-garde when viewed from a realistic perspective, compared to the stubborn education of users. The rough, experimental, and bug-filled qualities that often accompany avant-garde things are fundamentally unacceptable for Cadillac.
Take SuperCruise for example, based on lane-level high-precision maps, millimeter-wave radar, and cameras, it can achieve a high level of intelligent driving on domestic highways and urban expressways. It has been widely promoted for many years and is quite mature in the United States, while its strategy in China is relatively conservative, but safe.
However, Cadillac is also struggling to balance between modern and avant-garde. It first needs to catch up and then surpass. For example, the new generation has added two features, command lane change and automatic lane change. During the cruise, you can use the turn signal to change lanes, or the system can judge the situation and overtake the slow-moving vehicle.
This kind of change permeates every aspect. For example, they have also established an APP and WeChat mini-program, which also issues reward points and red envelopes. Offline, they have IQ Spaces, which are channel-splitting direct stores. The first batch has five cities and six stores nationwide, with more expected by the end of the year.
The first model to be launched is the rear-wheel drive long-endurance luxury version, with a pre-sale price of 4.397 million yuan and a 96-kilometer range after 10 minutes charging, followed by a four-wheel drive version that can accelerate to 100 kilometers per hour in no more than 4.9 seconds. The current deposit is 1190 yuan. To commemorate Cadillac’s 119-year history, if you place an order before April next year, you can enjoy a public charging limit of 10,000 kilometers. Delivery will be made one after another by the middle of next year.
Cadillac says, “Where we come from largely determines where we want to go.” They have cited their heavy history to prove this point.
Lyriq is a variant of English Lyric, and unlike other brands, its name can be found in more than 3,000 song lyrics, from Johnnie Cash in the 1970s to Ariana Grande and the trendy TikTok song “Throw That Back Like a Cadillac.”
Perhaps this indicates that even now, people can always believe that it will go to the right era.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.