I took a Cadillac Lyriq and charged it from 20% to 80% on an Electrify America 350 kW DC fast charger to see just how capable Cadillac's first all-electric vehicle is at fast charging.
Cadillac only recently began delivering the Lyriq to customers, and there isn't much information available yet on how well it can DC fast charge. The Lyriq isn't available for loan in media fleets yet, so I rented one to perform range and charging tests.
Last week I posted the results of the Lyriq's 70 mph range test and the vehicle outperformed its EPA range rating of 312 miles and finished the test with 330 miles driven.
With the highway range test in the books, I'm now focusing on analyzing the charging test recordings to see just how well the Lyriq can fast charge. The first test I performed was the 20% to 80% fast charge session as this would represent a typical DC fast charge stop while on a road trip. I'll follow this up with a 0% to 100% charge recording to plot out the full charging curve next, so look out for that sometime next week.
Cadillac states that the Lyriq has a maximum DC fast charge rate of 190 kW, and we can confirm that's accurate, as we were able to pull very close to that and topped out at 188 kW in our test.
Unlike most EV manufacturers, Cadillac (and General Motors in general) doesn't offer charging times to 80% on a DC fast charger. Instead, it claims "the Lyriq can charge at up to 190kW, which allows it to add 76 miles of range in just 10 minutes! In 30 minutes its range can reach up to 195 miles."
In my test, I was able to add back 76 miles in the first ten minutes of charging, but I wasn't able to add 195 miles in 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, I increased the state of charge from the 20% starting point to 68%. That's a 48% increase and if you use the 312-mile EPA range rating to calculate the miles added, that would come out to 150 miles of range replenished in 30 minutes of charging.
Cadillac doesn't specify at what state of charge you need the vehicle to be when you plug in to gain 195 miles of range in 30 minutes, but it's fair to say it would likely need to be lower than 20%, the starting point of my test. Once I complete the 0 to 100% charge test analysis I'll be in a better position to comment about its ability to add 195 miles of range in 30 minutes.
Upon plugging in, the Lyriq jumped up to 186 kW within a minute and climbed up to 188 kW but after only two minutes of charging started to gradually reduce the power it was taking in. After 13 minutes, when the vehicle was at 51% state of charge, the charging rate plummeted all the way down to 29 kW.
Gallery: 2023 Cadillac Lyriq First Drive
After a short time, the charging rate did slowly climb back up to 97 kW. However, after a couple of minutes of charging at 97 kW, the charging rate once again dropped significantly, this time down to 33 kW before climbing back up to 42 kW just as the vehicle reached 80% state of charge and the session ended.
It took 40 minutes to add back 60% of the battery, from 30% to 80%, which isn't particularly good and translates to 187 EPA-rated miles added in forty minutes. Once I've had the opportunity to charge the Lyriq a few more times, I'll have a more complete picture of it's charging capabilities, but my first impression definitely wasn't very impressive.
So check out the full video analysis above and let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
