Cadillac Lyriq

Published · Researched 2026-09-21

Cadillac Lyriq — review (Sept 2026)

The Lyriq is the best argument for buying a used EV in 2026, and the best argument against buying a first-year Cadillac. Both things are true. It's a handsome, quiet, genuinely luxurious crossover that Cadillac's software department spent two years using as a public beta test.

Start with what owners actually say. In the 10,000-member owners group, the dominant emotion right now is pre-purchase anxiety: shoppers posting that they're "very close to buying" but keep reading about "recurring issues that seem can't be fixed," asking strangers whether to walk away. The owners who stayed post the good stuff — "love my lux2, correction, my wife's," wheel mods, app tips — and they mean it. CarGurus owners rate the 2024 4.62 out of 5. Edmunds gives it 7.4/10 and calls it a "strong entry." Nobody disputes the fundamentals: 102 kWh, 285–312 miles of EPA range, 190 kW DC charging, Super Cruise standard from 2026, and a cabin that finally feels like the badge.

The anxiety isn't imaginary, though. The 2024 model year logged 114 NHTSA complaints — 32 of them electrical — and six recall campaigns. The headline recall: 41,376 Lyriqs (2023–2024) got an OTA fix because the driver display could go blank while you were driving. Speedometer, warning lights, rear camera — gone, mid-trip. GM says only about 3 percent actually had the defect and nobody crashed, but "your dashboard might disappear" is not a sentence you want associated with your luxury brand. Add an ABS that could activate unexpectedly (21,000+ cars), a rear drive unit with insulation defects bad enough to need hardware replacement, and the early-years 12V-battery wake-up failures, and you get the full picture: the hardware is good, the software shipped before it was finished. Owners add their own footnotes: Super Cruise that "will not turn on" even after dealer software updates, pop-up warnings with "nothing on diagnostics," and winter questions from owners facing −30°C in British Columbia. One member turned in a '24 Tech lease and leased a '26 Optiq instead — the lease-churn signal that the anxiety has a half-life.

Here's the thing that makes the Lyriq interesting instead of just cautionary: the used market has already priced in all of this, aggressively. A 2023 averages about $34,200 — roughly half its original sticker — and even the 2025s sit around $46,500, thousands under a new 2026. CarBuzz found 2023 Luxuries with 12,000–26,000 miles selling in the low-to-mid $30s. That's a lot of luxury EV for the price of a loaded Camry. GM is also fire-selling the new ones: $2,000 loyalty cash, 2.9% APR, $539-a-month leases on the 2026. A buyer's market is a buyer's market.

The community's practical advice, distilled: the 2023 is the cheap ticket but the buggiest (seven recalls, launch-year everything). The 2024 is the volume year with the biggest complaint file. The 2025 is where the curve bends — 18 complaints, three recalls, all the OTA fixes baked in — and at $46.5k used it's the sweet spot for anyone who wants the car without the science experiment. Verify every recall and software update is done before you sign, whatever year you pick; an OTA-unfixed 2023 is someone else's problem you just paid $34,000 for.

Should you buy one? If you want a comfortable, good-looking luxury EV and you're willing to do twenty minutes of homework, yes — the 2025 at used prices is one of the better values in the segment. If you want a car you never have to think about, get the Lexus. The Lyriq rewards the engaged owner and punishes the casual one, which is a strange thing to say about a Cadillac, but here we are.