Cadillac adds dealerships, will boost production of Lyriq this year
General Motors said it is increasing production of its Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV this year after resolving battery module production problems that hindered sales in the last two years.
The brand also added new dealerships last year in New York, Texas, Los Angeles and Atlanta, where EV adoption is most common, said John Roth, vice president of global Cadillac, during a media roundtable Thursday.
Roth declined to say how many new dealerships Cadillac added. In 2020, about 170-180 of Cadillac’s 870 U.S. dealers, or about 20%, took buyouts from the brand to give up their franchise rather than make the investment to sell and service EVs.
But Roth said data showed there is strong demand for EVs among luxury buyers, even if demand cooled across the mainstream market last year.
“Not just in California, but ... in all the regions here in the U.S and even in Canada where we really have a great availability of the product now,” Roth said. “The luxury industry is operating at a little different level than the main market is when it relates to EVs. We still see in the data: 60% of the consumer base said that their next luxury vehicle will be an EV. So lots of clear data points to show there is strong interest and we have strong sales. We’re bullish on where we’re headed.”
That means Cadillac wants to have stores in the markets where the luxury customers and first adopters live. As an example, Roth said, last fall a new Cadillac dealership opened in the “heart of the city” in Manhattan, Roth said.
The vehicle’s sales have been improving too, Roth said. The Lyriq made up about 12% of Cadillac’s fourth-quarter retail sales and in January it’s tracking to be around 25% of retail sales. Analysts have said EV sales for 2023 comprised about 7% to 8% of all new car sales in the United States.
It’s good news considering GM has struggled to get the Lyriq — which is built at its factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee — to consum
ers. For all of 2022, the automaker delivered just 122 Lyriqs. Last year, it increased to 9,154, but still far below what it should be delivering.
In November, CEO Mary Barra said she was “disappointed” in the company’s launch of its new EV and blamed it on battery module production problems. She vowed to fix those and improve EV production and increase EV profitability in 2024.
Roth declined to provide details of Cadillac’s production rate as of January, but he said there is a “good availability” of inventory on the ground and in transit to dealerships, so a lack of supply is not “an impediment to sales.”
“Production continues to ramp,” Roth said. “We have a very solid day supply of selection especially in the key markets where you expect EVs to come from. I’d encourage you to step into a dealer in California, Texas, Atlanta or New York … you’re going to see a nice selection of Lyriq’s available for sale.”