Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV debut delayed due to coronavirus

It’s been over a year since Cadillac announced its intention to spearhead General Motors’ march into a totally electric future. We were supposed to see it in the metal in less than a month’s time, but that’s all changing, according to new guidance from GM. The Cadillac Lyriq EV’s planned April 2 debut in Los Angeles has been postponed indefinitely due to coronavirus outbreak.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the Cadillac Lyriq reveal in Los Angeles, California, on April 2. We are currently evaluating future plans and will be touch soon with an update,” GM representatives said in a statement Monday. “Our top priority is the safety of our media guests and employees. We have been working with GM Medical and Security to monitor the situation closely and have been following recommendations for the US Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.”

Last Wednesday, Cadillac issued a couple of teasers and an invitation for the reveal of “the first step toward Cadillac’s electric future.” The first teaser shows the Cadillac crest lighting up and doesn’t give away much at all, but the second shows the silhouette of the brand’s previously teased electric SUV. Cadillac first showed sketches of the model in January of 2019, depicting a sharp EV with obvious design cues taken from the Escala concept.

Cadillac also confirmed that the crossover will be called the Lyriq. That aligns with Cadillac’s plan to give its electric cars real names instead of alphanumerics, and we couldn’t be happier about it (even if Cadillac does have some better names in its parts bin sitting unused).

Most importantly, Lyriq will boast GM’s new dedicated EV architecture, called BEV3. The automaker has engineered the platform to support front-, rear- and all-wheel-drive electric cars. So yes, it’ll be highly versatile. The platform makes use of GM’s new Ultium battery packs, which are modular and can range from 50 to 200 kWh and offer over 400 miles of range and a 0-to-60-mph time of just 3 seconds.

We had originally anticipated that this particular model would debut at CES 2020 back in January, but that ended up not being the case. GM confirmed to Roadshow at the time that the automaker originally planned to have quite a presence at the event, though plans changed and the automaker’s involvement had “been reduced.” At the time, reports speculated the UAW-GM labor strike left the automaker with insufficient time to complete a prototype version of the electric Cadillac SUV, and now, it appears we’re going to have to wait a bit longer.