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Cadillac Lyriq teased ahead of debut next week

The Cadillac Lyriq is just around the corner, set to be fully revealed on August 6. Cadillac just released a few teaser photos and videos as preparation for the big debut a week from today. It’s our best look at the production version of the car yet. Of course, you may remember photos of the EV concept released over a year ago, but the production crossover is shaping up to be a little different. This carÂ’s most intriguing element so far is the charge outlet panel integrated into the front fender. The large piece appears to lift up and slide out of the way when itÂ’s time to plug in. This reveals a decorative LED light strip that outlines the outlet, ultimately leading into the Cadillac logo above. Below the panel is a small, silver GM badge that if our guess is correct, says “Ultium” for the Ultium battery technology going into the Lyriq.  The wheels feature a unique silver and black two-tone design. Those black inserts are ridged, and the wheel is likely designed for better aero performance and increased range. ItÂ’s tough to say much about the design itself, but the silhouette is giving us crossover coupe vibes with its heavily raked rear window and sloping roofline. It appears to have a couple spoilers, one on the roof and then another as a ducktail below the rear window. CadillacÂ’s video teasers provide for the briefest of front end glimpses. Still, we can see the fancy lighting signature that Cadillac has created. ThereÂ’s both a light-up Cadillac badge and small LED lighting strips integrated throughout the grille. ItÂ’s concept car-like in appearance, so we do wonder whether this will find its way into a production Lyriq. The vertical DRL weÂ’re used to seeing on other Cadillacs has also made an appearance on the outer edges of the front bumper. ItÂ’s been previously stated that the Lyriq would enter production in 2022, so even when GM does reveal the electric Cadillac next week, itÂ’ll be a long while till we see the vehicle on the road. Related Video:

How the demise of Lincoln's Town Car has kick-started a limo revolution

The deaths of the Ford Crown Victoria and the Lincoln Town Car have meant overhauls of three high-profile American fleets: police, taxi and livery car. Just as police fleets are more open to considering other options and a Nissan van is the new face of the NYC taxi, livery car companies are looking at replacements for the Town Car beyond The Blue Oval. Ford, via Lincoln, has made an MKT Town Car (pictured), but an article in the Detroit News claims "it has failed to win over most of the big limousine companies." The upstarts trying to move in include livery and limo editions of the Cadillac XTS, and livery specifications of the Toyota Avalon and Chrysler 300.
Each of those challengers, however, faces challenges. The Town Car was a workhorse, American, rear-wheel-drive sedan with plenty of rear legroom. Cadillac has been in the livery space before but with decontented models that were about selling the brand, not its luxury. It is taking the opposite approach with the XTS, pointing out that its livery edition is "contented in the upper half of the XTS range." Still, the CEO of Michigan's largest livery company says "it's quite a bit smaller than what we're used to," and he also prefers rear-wheel drive.
The Chrysler 300 is rear-wheel drive, and American, which matters to some companies, but Chrysler hasn't yet revealed the livery package for it. The livery Avalon marks Toyota's first time getting into that business in the US, a natural step after having done so well with taxi clients and with the Town Car out of the way. Still, the livery client is a different to taxi buyers, so the Avalon could face other soft-touch hurdles.

Cadillac's XT6 is not, for better or worse, a mini Escalade

In its latest attempt at reinvention, Cadillac has created a trio of admirable sedans — the ATS, CTS, and CT6 — cars that challenge or beat the competition on their own terms, and do so with audacious exterior styling rendered in a distinctly American idiom. But American customers have been ditching cars in favor of high-riding crossovers, and what Cadillac has not had up until recently is a suite of appropriately (or bizarrely) sized crossovers to offer potential consumers, something competitors have been deploying for years or even decades. And so the new, full-size(ish) three-row Cadillac XT6, unveiled officially last week at an event in Detroit, is intended to help address the premier domestic automotive luxury brand's current product shortcomings. "I guess we had so many priorities and had to decide what's the most important thing," says Andrew Smith, Cadillac's executive director of design. "We decided to approach this one from an interior perspective, to do things like provide ease of use for owners, upgrade the infotainment, and allow time for ourselves to learn lessons from the launch of XT4." The XT6 doesn't exactly break any new ground within the segment, but that's not necessarily a criticism. Though huge from a sales perspective, the two-box crossover category is not the industry's leader in beauty or innovation. Still, Caddy's most recent previous crossover, the size-Small XT4, managed to create handsome proportions and a premium appearance at first glance. The XT6 doesn't feel quite so ambitious or coherent, with a front end that is at once sneering and soft, a lengthy flank that feints at muscularity without delivering, and a rather abrupt tailgate that blends the rectilinear and the anodyne. Maybe consumers won't notice? "Our biggest challenge was giving the vehicle a character that works on this scale and platform," says Smith. "We want to make sure all of our cars feel different. We didn't want it to be a mini Escalade. No one wants a mini anything. But we wanted to give it Escalade presence, but in scale. So it's this combination of nice, and aggressive. I'm convinced we will sell more than we think we'll sell." Maybe he's right, and we definitely don't see this vehicle cannibalizing sales of the Escalade. People who want a bold Cadillac can still get that one, and will have a brand new option later this year, we expect, when a new Escalade is released.