Amid uncertainty, Cadillac continues to bet on performance EV strategy with Lyriq V

The Lyriq V is the quickest Cadillac ever produced.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

Hope is on the way for an electric vehicle rebound, but the recent year has been a challenging one. Automakers are scaling back their EV ambitions and losing billions of dollars in the process. Sales in Canada have slowed significantly because of the pause in rebates, high prices, consumer hesitancy and a shift in demand in favour of hybrids.

However, Cadillac is bucking the broader national industry trend, confident that its EV strategy will reap dividends and so far it is paying off.

Cadillac, the luxury division of General Motors, has launched five EVs in quick succession and achieved six consecutive years of growth in Canada. It is the top luxury brand for EV sales and 60 per cent of what it sold in the first quarter of 2026 were EVs.

Now, Cadillac is adding its legendary performance to its EV, starting with the 2026 Lyriq V, the first EV to wear the company’s high-performance “V” badge. With 615 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque from dual electric motors, it’s the quickest Cadillac ever produced, able to accelerate to 96 kilometres an hour in 3.3 seconds.

The Lyriq V starts at around $95,000, which is lower than its rivals.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

The V sits lower on a modified suspension.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

“While the consumer might not be moving quite as fast as we would have originally predicted or liked, we’re winning in the market that is there,” says Mike Speranzini, Cadillac Canada’s managing director.

General Motors is the largest seller of EVs in Canada and Speranzini attributes that to the several brands under its umbrella, including Chevrolet and GMC, working together to deliver the right products in the right segments.

Cadillac is no stranger to risk and it hasn’t always paid off. With the exception of the Escalade, it struggled to gain recognition on the global stage despite producing some good vehicles. The 2004 CTS-V was the first Cadillac to wear the V-badge and a legitimate competitor to the BMW M5, considered the benchmark in its segment.

It was a gutsy play because U.S. automakers weren’t seen as a threat to German sport sedans. But the CTS-V had the right ingredients: a 400-horsepower V8 sending power to rear wheels and a mandatory six-speed manual transmission. Today, its direct successor, the CT5-V Blackwing is the only V8-powered sedan that’s equipped with a manual gearbox.

“We identified early on that performance was something our luxury consumers were looking for,” says Speranzini. “We debuted it on our gas-powered models and it became a natural extension into our EVs.”

The V badge on the steering wheel is one of the first things you notice when getting into the car.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

The front seats on the new Lyriq V.Kunal D'souza/The Globe and Mail

The Lyriq V takes a subtler approach to performance, compared with the beastly Blackwing and its supercharged V8.

It sits lower than a standard Lyriq on a modified suspension with new adaptive dampers, larger Brembo brakes and a quicker steering rack. There are V badges on the rear doors, tailgate and steering wheel but little else to identify it as a performance model.

Even with the stiffer suspension, the new dampers maintain the ride quality of the regular Lyriq but there is less body roll in the corners and dive under heavy braking, and greater stability at highway speeds.

The steering provides little road feel and is too heavy at low speeds but it’s quicker and more responsive to inputs, significantly altering how the Lyriq V feels when entering a turn.

The V-specific Competitive drive mode loosens the reins of the stability and traction control, allowing for more oversteer before intervening. The Lyriq V adds just enough extra performance to make it fun without overwhelming you.

Under the floor you get a 102-kilowatt-hour battery good for an estimated 458 kilometres of range, but not in winter when I was driving it during a particularly frigid week. A heat pump and battery preconditioning system help but I easily lost about 100 kilometres. It’s good that it can charge at up to 190 kilowatts, which wasn’t too far off the 170 kW I saw when plugged in at a Level 3 charging station. It took about 38 minutes to charge from 22 per cent to 80.

Prices for the Tennessee-made Lyriq V start at $94,943, which is pricey but rivals in this space such as the BMW iX, Audi SQ6 e-tron and Tesla Model X are significantly more expensive.

Cadillac has already released the smaller Optiq V and says a next generation CT5 is in the works, meaning that performance will continue to form a big part of its strategy.

And then there’s Formula 1 racing. Cadillac has entered the unforgiving crucible, a risk that could cost the brand untold billions if it isn’t successful. If it prospers, then Cadillac will be a step closer to restoring its historic standard-of-the-world reputation, something Speranzini says it is working diligently toward.

“[F1] is an investment that [GM] and Cadillac have made and it has given us instant recognition on the global stage,” says Speranzini. “But it’s going to be a long journey.”

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