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Jay Leno welcomes a 2016 Cadillac CTS-V into the garage

After checking out a multitude of classic cars and customs over the past few weeks, Jay Leno switches things up with a modern performance machine in the latest video from the garage – a 2016 Cadillac CTS-V. Leno is curious about Caddy's attempt to challenge the BMW M5 and Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG S, and he takes a long, technical look at the sedan with chief engineer David Leone. Not content to just peek under the hood, Leno puts the CTS-V up on the rack to see what it packs underneath the svelte body. Once he gets the lowdown on the Caddy's engineering, it's time for a drive. Leno also flexes his interviewing skills while behind the wheel and gets even more info about the CTS-V's capabilities from Leone. He seems fairly impressed, but Leno's most entertaining question about the 640-horsepower sedan is whether it can do a burnout. He provides a definitive answer to that at the end of the clip. Related Video:

About 150 Cadillac dealers would rather leave the brand than sell EVs

Dealerships might hamper GM’s plans to electrify its cars. Wall Street Journal tipsters claim that roughly 150 GM dealerships in the United States have decided to drop the Cadillac brand and accept a buyout (ranging from $300,000 to over $1 million) rather than spend about $200,000 to upgrade the dealerships with charging stations, repair hardware and other equipment needed to sell EVs. Many of these dealerships only sell a few Cadillacs per month versus more for Buick, Chevrolet and GMC, but itÂ’s still a significant blow when GM has 880 Cadillac dealers in the country. Cadillac brand leader Rory Harvey confirmed to the WSJ that GM was offering buyouts, but didnÂ’t say how many dealers took them or how much they were worth. The exodus underscores the challenges for conventional car brands as well as the potential advantages for alternatives like Tesla. As brands like GM are heavily dependent on dealerships, they have to please owners to have a chance of strong sales — and thatÂ’s difficult when theyÂ’re not certain about demand, even without the pandemic. Tesla and other direct-to-customer EV makers arenÂ’t bound by physical stores and already have the infrastructure in place for service centers. Dealers might not have much choice in the future. California is banning sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035, and that will likely force automakers to electrify no matter how dealership owners feel. The buyouts now arenÂ’t necessarily temporary, but we wouldnÂ’t rule out some shops having a change of heart as the effective EV deadline approaches. Related video:

2022 Cadillac Lyriq launch is running ahead of schedule

General Motors says all of the components and technologies in the Cadillac Lyriq electric crossover have passed the 80% validation benchmark. As a new video shows, getting to this point has included plenty of real-world driving on gravel, ice, and snow at the Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds in Wanaka, New Zealand, as well as hours of jostling on suspension rigs and aero work in the lab. A voiceover in the video has a GM worker saying the Lyriq has "a lot of potential as far as setting a new benchmark for ride and handling in the segment, the brand's ride and handling mission statement said to be called "Isolated Precision." Having proved the substance of the foundation, engineers can spend the next six months or so fine tuning the vehicle's touchpoints. Lyriq customers will get the final say on all of this early next year, around eight months earlier than planned. In August 2020 when Cadillac officially revealed the Lyriq, the automaker said it wouldn't hit the market until late 2022. According to General Motors, the compressed development schedule is thanks to the "modular and highly flexible qualities of the Ultium system, along with engineering advances in battery technology, use of virtual development tools and lessons learned during the Hummer EV development process." The model that comes first is the Lyriq Debut Edition, its single motor on the rear axle providing 340 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque. Juice comes from a 100-kWh Ultium battery pack that GM believes will be good for 300 miles of range on a charge. Home charging with the standard 11.5-kW charger restores needs a full overnight session to refill from empty, the optional 19.2-kW onboard charger takes about six hours, restoring roughly 52 miles or range per hour. Plugged into a DC fast charger, at the max 190 kW the Lyriq gains about 76 miles of range in 10 minutes. Production starts in Q1 next year at GM's Spring Hill, Tennessee facility that will built the other five Cadillac electric vehicles planned by 2025, and their batteries. Next summer Cadillac will reopen the Lyriq reservation system for series production models, among those being the dual-motor, all-wheel-drive performance trims. Related video: