Low sales start for America’s electric luxury brand seems to have sparked limited-time offer.

HARSH market conditions for premium electric vehicles appear to be felt by a freshly-landed American luxury dream machine, but the brand remains bullish.

Just four months on from launch, Cadillac has announced an inducement on the Lyriq (above), a flagship large and opulent electric sports utility with dual motors, lots of power and 530 kilometres’ range that removes at least $16,000 from the recommended retails.

The General Motors’ make had seemed set for rapid interest when it released the new model, designed to rival high-end German fare.

Prices are set much lower than the stickers cited for the BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz models it saw as rivals here, reinforcing the American proposal of being an aspirational luxury brand.

Yet the $119,000 Luxury spec and $125,000 Sport range-topper so far seem resistant to much interest, with just a handful registered.

Cadillac’s distributor has now announced that anyone purchasing between August 7 and September 23 will now receive a discount equivalent to the total Goods and Services Tax amount, so a 15 percent price cut.

A spokesperson for General Motors Australia and New Zealand, which oversees Cadillac here and in Australia, says the offer applies to “any Cadillac Lyriq orders currently in progress and not delivered.”.

Asked if this was recognition of the sector being a tougher terrain than Cadillac/GMSV might have anticipated when Lyriq release was in the planning stage, the spokesperson replied: “We continue to respond to market trends and price competitively for our customers.”

The EV market has been tough for all involvers since the end of 2023, when the tasty rebate for cars selling for less than $80,000 was removed, and conditions only worsened when Road User Charge hit these and plug-in electrics on April 1.

The premium sector has also likely be hurt by customers discovering the most expensive choices seem to be hurt most by poor residuals, worse than for internal combustion choices.

The condition of a 40 percent first year loss and 40 percent on top of that in year two appears to be worse now, with some cars losing half their value within 12 months.

GM has reluctant to discuss sales targets or tallies, and the spokesperson says “Cadillac will not be reporting sales data this year in Australia or New Zealand.”

Unfortunately for the brand, that policy is only effective in Australia.

Unlike there, registrations data is public record in New Zealand and, while that information limits to brand accruals, as Cadillac has just one product here, it’s easy to see what’s going on.

Data up to and including June show seven cars have been plated, a count which will include demonstrators and anything on press fleet, which is at least one car. June itself showed no registrations.

Asked if this recognition of the sector being a tougher terrain than the make might have anticipated when Lyriq release was announced almost two years ago, the spokesman said: “We continue to respond to market trends and price competitively for our customers.”

Cadillac plans to have - when counting the ‘V’ performance edition of Lyriq - four electric sports utility models here and the next in line is the Optiq (above). After that comes the Vistiq.

Both are sub-Lyriq products and the Optiq has been firmly signalled as a 2026 product.

Cadillac has just taken motoring media from Australia to the United States to drive the car, which logically aims at the Audi Q4 e-tron.

When asked if the challenging market environment might impact on local release planning, the spokesperson said “we don’t have any comment on our future product portfolio plans at this time.”

Cadillac is umbrellaed into, but kept separate from, the GM Special Vehicles’ sale push behind Chevrolet Corvette and Silverado here. The latter has so far shown the most success by far.

Cadillac isn't an electric-only manufacturer in its home market, intent is for it to remain that way in Australasia.

In information shared to media, the brand says it believes its current inducement - and a slightly different structured pitch for Australia - “offers present the Lyriq as a very attractive option for in-market EV buyers.”