The Cadillac Lyriq is one of the growing number of electric vehicles on GM’s Ultium platform, and like the other midsize SUVs on that platform (Chevy Blazer EV and Equinox EV, Honda Prologue, Acura ZDX), a priority was placed on rear passenger space and an aerodynamic, tapering roofline over cargo capacity. Despite being comparable to midsize SUVs in terms of exterior dimensions, their cargo capacity numbers would all be on the small side for non-luxury compact SUVs.
Now, as I found in the Blazer EV luggage test, its 25.5 cubic-feet was still just sufficient to hold all the standard luggage test bags. You couldn’t really hold anything else, though. The Lyriq, however, is listed as having 28 cubic-feet of cargo space. Let’s see if there’s a difference.
Here is the cargo area in question. You can see pretty clearly how much that tapered roofline cuts into the space, resulting in a cargo area that’s almost more akin to the sport-utility “coupes” of the world.
There’s no frunk. Moving on.
Like other EVs, though, there is a deep underfloor storage area. It is more voluminous than what you’ll find in the Blazer. The duffle bag shown here in the Lyriq wouldn’t quite fit in the Blazer.
Above right is the charge cord’s briefcase that fits neatly in its own little area also under the floor.
There is a cargo cover, a roller-style one that comes out of a fixed cartridge. Theoretically, I’d be testing with and without this cover. Theoretically. More on that in a second.
As with every Luggage Test, I use two midsize roller suitcases that would need to be checked in at the airport (26 inches long, 16 wide, 11 deep), two black roll-aboard suitcases that just barely fit in the overhead (24L x 15W x 10D), and one smaller green roll-aboard that fits easily (23L x 15W x 10D). I also include my wife’s fancy overnight bag just to spruce things up a bit (21L x 12W x 12D).
The four largest bags fit underneath the cargo cover, but as you can see above left, the cartridge is quite low. My medium bag couldn’t even fit underneath it, let alone the larger ones. This results in a lot of unused space.
This would normally be where I take out the cargo cover and see how much I can fit …
Except all the bags fit AND there’s still room left over for the cargo cover, albeit removed and plopped on top. You’d probably just keep it at home if loading from home, but if you forgot to take it out when picking someone up from the airport, rest assured, it can fit lots of bags and the cargo cover.
While I could’ve added another duffle bag under the fancy bag to fill things out a bit more (remember, there’s already a duffle under the floor), that would still be all she wrote here. No bigger suitcase, no cooler, even when totally removing the cargo cover. The roofline just makes it impossible.
So this is definitely a more spacious cargo area than what you’d find in the Blazer EV, but the advantage sure seems like the 3-ish cubes the specs suggest. It’s fairly similar to the Mercedes EQE SUV and Audi Q8 E-Tron Sportback, too, though the big Audi has a slight advantage. Basically, par for the course.