GM only delivered 122 Cadillac Lyric EVs in 2022, here’s why that’s about to change soon
After delivering only 122 Cadillac Lyriq EV models in 2022, General Motors says it was purposely slow with the rollout as it worked through issues with its new electric vehicle and to ensure customers receive the best quality. With a stockpile of 2023 Cadillac Lyriq models, GM says it’s now confident in its process going forward.
GM wants to accelerate Cadillac Lyriq rollout
When GM revealed the Cadillac Lyriq in 2020, it was designed to “redefine American luxury” with over 300-mile range and a starting price of under $60,000. The Lyriq is also set to play a pivotal role in carrying the Cadilac brand that’s set for an all-electric future by the end of the decade.
However, despite announcing it had its best sales year ever last week, GM only delivered 122 Cadillac Lyriqs total. The delivery count was disappointing after early demand caused GM to close Cadillac to orders after only 19 minutes in May.
Although GM would not specify how many orders “sold out” indicated, the company reported about 233,000 people expressed interest (but did not necessarily put money down).
President of GM North America, Steve Carlisle, said at the release in 2020, “Production will be a bit restricted as we ramp up.” According to a new report from the Detroit Free Press, the slow rollout was deliberate.
A spokesperson from Cadillac, Michael Albano, said as the company worked through learning curves, only a few deliveries went out to ensure quality.
We deliberately ramped up Cadillac Lyriq production slowly and methodically last year to ensure quality for our customers. Looking ahead, we will continue to ramp up production in 2023 in order to meet the strong demand for Lyriq.
Cadillac has also required engineers and specialists to inspect the Lyriq while teaching technicians how to work on it before dealers are allowed to deliver them.
The luxury brand has gone as far as recruiting early customers to aid in studying the car. According to the Detroit Free Press, GM gave some early buyers a $5,500 incentive, having them sign a nondisclosure to allow them to track activity.
Now that GM has cleared up any issues, it’s time to get back on track. Albano says, “We are confident in our process,” and that the company has a stockpile of Cadillac Lyriq models that will be shipped to customers very soon.
Electrek’s Take
I understand GM’s approach here in ensuring quality for the customer, but after delivering only a little over 100 Lyriqs last year, it’s time for Cadillac to get cars in the hands of customers.
The Cadillac Lyriq hits the sweet spots in several areas (luxury interior, long-range capabilities) for a decent starting price, but with several highly anticipated EV models in its segment expected to hit the market this year, Cadillac may need to start prioritizing accelerating the rollout.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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