Fastest Cadillac Ever

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My grandfather, Telford Seip, was a Cadillac man.

My father was a Ford guy.

This was just one of the reasons why they didn’t like each other much.

The other reasons are too numerous to mention.

Regardless, I have fond seventies memories of car trips from my uncle’s cottage south of Sauble Beach to my grandparents’ cottage near Miller Lake. I would sit in those pillowy Caddy seats, playing with the buttons, repeatedly opening and closing the electric windows for no reason at all, while watching in awe as Telford engaged the cruise control.

Two weeks ago, when I landed in Edmonton, it was a real treat to be handed the keys to a brand-new electric 2026 Cadillac Lyriq V.

It is worth noting here that my wife is a massive fan of the Lyriq. She doesn’t know much about cars, but she points out every Lyriq on the road. So she had some choice words for me when I called to tell her about my ride for the next couple of days.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the V trim of the Lyriq, but this is not your grandfather’s Cadillac. This machine accelerates like a bat outta hell. It has a 0-to-60 mph time of 3.3 seconds with Launch Control enabled.

This makes it the fastest Cadillac ever.

Full disclosure, I didn’t test that. However, the Lyriq still tended to accelerate effortlessly beyond highway speed.

In fact, it was so fast, it occurred to me that teenage Growdy would have unduly killed himself and his fellow adolescent hooligan passengers if he had access to a vehicle this fast.

Teenage Growdy drove like a fucking maniac (sorry, Mom). I’ve mellowed in my old age.

The Lyriq comes standard with Super Cruise, GM’s (level 2 autonomous) hands-free driver assistance tech.

I was cautioned when I picked up the vehicle that not everyone was comfortable with engaging Super Cruise on their first drive. I was also warned that Super Cruise didn’t handle on-ramps or off-ramps and wasn’t a fan of road construction.

So, I found myself and an off-ramp that was under construction, and I pointed the Lyriq at it with Super Cruise enabled.

And you know what? they were right. It didn’t like that.

Thankfully, I engaged the wheel before careening headlong into a concrete barrier.

Lesson learned (RTFM).

Outside of that self-induced episode, Super Cruise gracefully handled most of my highway driving from Edmonton to Calgary.

When we left the dealership, the Lyriq had just over 500 km of charge.

Putting it through some regular driving paces, I didn’t even try to conserve the battery.

The air conditioning was on, and the seat warmers were on.

I was running the GM infotainment system and Android Auto.

With fully engaged Super Cruise added to this EV’s battery-draining mix, I was ripping through those Ultium battery cells.

Still, I would have made it all the way to Calgary without needing to charge.

There really wasn’t a moment when I experienced any range anxiety.

Although I’ve driven several electric vehicles, I’ve never had to charge any of them.

So I thought it would be smart to figure out how charging worked while there was still some daylight.

I scanned the map around Red Deer for a charge station. The next available charge port was on the outskirts of the city. It turned out to be a Level 2 Flo charger in a VW dealership lot.

I plugged it in to see what the charging was like.

But I had no interest in sitting there for the next 7 hours waiting for it to charge. So, I set out to find a Level 3 charger closer to Calgary.

The next charger was somewhat hidden in a truck stop parking lot.

Much circling around was required before this more powerful charger revealed itself.

Twenty minutes later, I was back on the road.

The next morning, I couldn’t wait to get back behind the wheel.

The Lyriq is fun to drive.

With more drive modes than the average driver will know what to do with, I found that activating V-Mode and unlocking Competitive Mode quickly became my favourite.

My partner in crime left me at the airport the next day, and I wished I had more time to drive the Lyriq (the words “launch mode” still echoing in my head).

Cadillac has cracked a nut here with the Lyriq. It’s fast, it’s smooth, it’s got a decent range, and you’re gonna love driving it.

But I do wonder what Telford would think.

Special thanks to Wolfe Cadillac in Edmonton for arranging this experience for me.

BYD posts its first year-on-year decline in deliveries in 2025. cnbc.com

BYD starts offering deep discounts on its vehicles sold in Japan. bloomberg.com

Great Wall Motor (GWM) will introduce its first supercar at the end of 2026. carnewschina.com

Elon Musk’s business empire has been hit by a wave of senior departures, as the billionaire’s relentless demands and political activism accelerate turnover among his top ranks. Key members of Tesla’s US sales team, battery and power-train operations, public affairs arm, and its chief information officer have all recently departed, as well as core members of the Optimus robot and AI teams. arstechnica.com

SpaceX plans to acquire wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar for its Starlink satellite network for approximately $17 billion, a significant deal crucial to expanding Starlink’s nascent 5G connectivity business and potentially making it the largest space-born telco on the planet. reuters.com

Tesla begins selling Cybertrucks in Qatar. reuters.com

MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) cancels his Tesla Roadster order. theverge.com

Tesla’s quarterly sales increased for the first time this year, as consumers rushed to cash in on expiring federal tax credits for electric vehicle purchases. theverge.com

Tesla’s long-rumoured, affordable EV won’t be out until next year, but it was recently spotted on a highway in Texas. And yep, it’s just a cheaper Model Y. theverge.com

A wrongful death lawsuit alleges Tesla’s electronic door handle system trapped a 19-year-old inside a burning Cybertruck. theverge.com

Tesla’s insurance arm accused of ‘egregious delays’ and ‘systemic failures’ by California’s Department of Insurance (CDI). techcrunch.com

Burlington teen wins EU contest for robotic turtle using AI to monitor aquatic ecosystems and coral health. cbc.ca

A spider-like construction robot promises to build a home every day. newatlas.com

Tesla has released a new video showing its humanoid robot, Optimus, learning Kung Fu. interestingengineering.com

Kingston Health Sciences Centre has acquired a second surgical robot to add to its robotics program. thewhig.com

A new solar farm in Sweden, covering an area equivalent to approximately 185 football fields, is now the country’s largest utility-scale solar power plant. It is designed to generate about 100 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to power over 18,000 homes in Sweden. yahoo.com

The largest electric utility in Illinois is launching a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric school bus-charging pilot with three Chicagoland school districts, testing the functionality of bidirectional chargers that could make energy more affordable for customers and reduce grid load. arstechnica.com

Multiple units at Chevron's 285,000-barrel-a-day El Segundo refinery in southern California were taken offline on Friday. reuters.com

NextStar Energy says it is “marking the official completion of construction” of its $5-billion electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor, Ont., bringing it “one step closer to ramping up operations at its cell manufacturing facility this year.” cbc.ca

The US Department of Energy announced on Wednesday that it’s terminating $7.56 billion worth of financial awards that support 223 projects funded through several of its clean-energy offices. axios.com

The Lucid Air Sapphire EV sped to the top of MotorTrend’s all-time 0–60 mph leaderboard with a 1.881-second time. motortrend.com

Porsche’s electric Cayenne has so much screen that they had to bend it. theverge.com

Toyota plans to resume production at two Brazilian plants after damages and disruptions from heavy rain and winds halted operations last month. reuters.com

Ford and GM have apparently devised an interesting scheme to prevent the expiration of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit from negatively impacting sales. They are working with dealers on short-term programs that will allow customers to continue receiving the tax credit on leased EVs through the remainder of 2025. theverge.com

The Donald is considering implementing significant tariff relief for US vehicle production, which could effectively eliminate much of the costs OEMs are currently paying. reuters.com

Shares of the Detroit automakers jumped on Friday afternoon following a report that The Donald is considering “significant tariff relief” for vehicle production in the US. cnbc.com

Ford CEO Jim Farley went on The Verge: Decoder podcast. theverge.com/podcast

Ford decides to run its Le Mans program in-house. arstechnica.com

Renault plans to cut 3,000 jobs through a voluntary redundancy offer for staff in support functions. reuters.com

Rivian is redesigning the R2 SUV’s door handles for better safety. techcrunch.com

Nissan’s EVs have a charging problem. reuters.com

Trevor Longley leaves Nissan Canada. autonews.com

CanadaOne agrees to a $1 billion partial takeover by Australia’s Eagers Automotive Group. autonews.com

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