Cadillac Lyriq vs Rolls-Royce Cullinan

What's the difference?

It's got a couple of quirks, but the Cadillac Lyriq is a pretty convincing, and definitely American, take on a premium electric vehicle in Australia. The only issue, I think, is that, while the brand is obviously iconic in the USA, it's not that well known in Australia, and we are a market now awash with pretty good, and often much cheaper, EVs from China. It's a hyper-competitive market. Only time will tell if Cadillac can convince Australians that its badge belongs among the European premium marques.

The Cullinan might not be the most beautiful or traditional Rolls-Royce, and it’s a shame modern success means providing an SUV option to everyone, but it’s still a remarkable machine, either to drive or just to sit in. It remains not just a marvel of engineering, but a marvellous of engineering. Hats doffed, old bean.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The Cadillac looks… well, it looks American, right? A kind of difficult-to-describe Americanness that’s somewhere between an SUV and state car.

That’s not an insult, by the way. I personally think the Lyriq looks kind of pretty, with its bold elements countered by the surprisingly gentle touch applied in places, like its razor-thin daytime running lights (DRLs).

I’ve got to say, it doesn’t look much like any of the other new SUVs arriving, or a knock-off German brand. It’s got its own persona.

The cabin of the Lyriq is predictably plush, with comfy massaging seats, soft-touch materials and plenty of tech, but it is a little shiny and busy in places for my tastes. Minimalist this is not.

But I do like the fact that – when I’ve got Apple CarPlay hooked up – I can just leave the screen be. My driving stuff is accessed by the wheel, and everything else I want is accessible through physical buttons.

There are some strange elements, though. The grab handle on the driver’s side, which isn’t replicated on the passenger side, is odd, and likely a byproduct of the factory moving the steering wheel. Some of the central storage bins are too small to be really useful, and I hate gloveboxes that can only be opened through the screen.

It is something of an achievement when a team of designers manage to make a facelifted version of a vehicle less ugly, daunting and disappointing than the original.

I thought the first Cullinan, launched five years ago, looked like a London black cab that had been mounted and inseminated by a double-decker bus. Big? Sure? Impressive? Yes. Beautiful? Only if you think Boris Johnson is sexy.

There was a lot of chat at the launch about the changes made for Series II, but in summary they tried to make it look more… like a boat, according to Exterior Design Lead Henry Clarke.

“We don’t look for speedy, overcomplicated lines, we take our inspiration from the luxury world, and it’s often from yachts, it’s that same sense of scale and grandeur, that’s the key to the timelessness of a Rolls-Royce,” he explained.

“We’re not focused on the world of automotive design, and if you look at the Cullinan it has that ethos you think of with a yacht, that strong, vital bow and then everything rearwards, the back of a yacht, has an elegance and grace to it.”

Fair enough, but what I appreciated was that they’ve squared the front end off a bit more, by outlining the grille, adding some gills beneath it and putting in some natty DRLs, and then rounded off the rear a little as well, so that it looks less… awful.

Indeed, after a couple of days of staring at it (and particularly admiring how good it looks in your rear-view mirror when behind you), I did come around to its looks. Certainly a lot more than last time.

And strangers driving past seemed to really like it, because they keep smiling and clapping at me. 

It’s a big boat, the Lyriq, stretching more than five metres long and almost two metres wide. That’s not much shorter than, and in fact slightly wider than, something like a Nissan Patrol, just to put it into perspective. Though of course it’s nowhere near as high as a proper 4WD.

Predictably, though, its dimensions mean plenty of room in the boot, which opens to reveal a very useable 793 litres of luggage space. Drop the seats, and that number grows to a massive 1722 litres. 

But the Lyriq does without any spare wheel of any kind. A tyre repair kit is your only option.

Now, the backseat. And I know this is likely only of interest to parents of newborn babies, but that’s me, so I noticed. These are some of the best ISOFIX attachment points I ever used. Usually you’re fumbling around between the seat cushions trying to line up the latch points, but the Lyriq's solution — while perhaps not the most visually alluring – puts the brackets beneath plastic lift-up flaps, and they're so damn easy to use. 

But there are some quirks in the backseat, too. Those same ISOFIX attachment points, which are so great for baby seats, are less great for the adults actually sitting in the back. You can feel the hard plastic covers, and what feels like the bracing bar running across the backseat, beneath the cushions. It's not diabolical, and if you shift your rear-end forward slightly you can't feel it at all, but it's a strange quirk all the same.

Elsewhere in the backseat, there is plenty of room for backseat riders, and you can control your own temps, too.

In terms of being a vehicle you might actually use - and keeping in mind that if you can afford one of these you’ve also got at least a half dozen other choices - every day, the Cullinan is the pick of the Rolls-Royce enclosure.

From the big boot space - 600 litres with the seats up, 1930 litres with them down - and its lovely little Viewing Suite, through the spacious rear relaxing zone to the absurdly comfortable and plush front seats, there’s a sense of grandeur about the whole Cullinan experience.

You can opt for a champagne fridge between those rear seats, if you like, or you can just lie back and stare at the blinking pins of light in your 'Starlight Headliner' and imagine that each one of them represents one of your millions, smiling down at you.

It’s a lovely place to be, in short, and with its super-thick double glazed glass, coated with an acoustic layer on top of that, and carpets thick enough to keep out road noise on their own, it’s also a very pleasantly quiet one.

Value? Price? What are these things you speak of, little plebeian person? Such is the disdain for such things at Rolls-Royce that they wouldn’t even tell us what the Series II is going to cost when it lands in Australia later this year. 

The people who can afford one don’t much care, of course, but for the rest of us, who like to shake our heads and make low, whistling noises, you can bet the price will rise just a little from where it was with the original Cullinan - and that was $705,000 for the basic car, or closer to $795,000 for the sportier, and blacker, Black Badge variant.

In terms of value, it’s hard to grasp that any car could cost that much, but for a Rolls buyer the equation is very different. They don’t need a Rolls, no-one does, but it makes a nice change from buying art works, gold or small countries. 

In terms of features, it has almost too many to mention, but let’s pause on the marvellous massage seats, the bespoke sound system, entirely unique to this case and built by Rolls itself, with incredible levels of detail, the Rolls umbrellas tucked into each door and the very lovely 'Viewing Suite'.

This consists of two pop-up seats in the rear, with a little champagne and canapés table in between, where “you can watch your children play football”.

Try that in Australia, at the rugby league, and you’ll be covered in half-time oranges and abuse spittle in no time. Stick to the polo, perhaps.

All Aussie Lyriqs are dual-motor affairs, with an electric motor at each axle producing a total 388kW and 610Nm, which in a car this big, which weighs just under 2.7 tonnes, is more than enough to get the Caddy up and moving, but not enough to make it feel like a supercar. The two motors mean AWD, of course.

Rolls-Royce has committed to being a fully EV brand by 2030, so it’s a safe bet this Series II Cullinan will be the last one offered with its storming, staunch V12 engine. 

Indeed, Rolls hinted the only reason it hung around in this version is that this is only a mid-life face-lift for the Cullinan, and the car that replaces it will arrive on an entirely new, all-electric platform.

As good as the EV Roller, the Spectre undeniably is, driving this old-school Cullinan with its 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 making the kind of thumping, torque-thick, nothing-is-too-much-trouble acceleration is a hoot.

It’s not loud, but it’s just loud enough that you can enjoy its deep, brassy tones, and it’s got plenty of power in reserve to hurl even this 2.75-tonne machine past lesser vehicles with ease.

There are two Cullinans to choose from, of course, with the base model providing a very pleasant 420kW and 850Nm or the sportier Black Badge version (Rolls calls it the brand’s “alter ego”) with 441kW and 900Nm. 

The Lyriq is equipped with a 102kWh lithium-ion NCMA battery, which delivers an ok 530km on the combined cycle. I say 'ok', because the BMW iX offers 600km-plus, while the dual-motor Polestar 3 is more like 630km claimed. Energy consumption is a claimed 22.5kWh per 100km on the combined cycle. 

When it comes to plugging in, the Lyriq is set up for 190kW DC fast charging, with the brand promising 128km of range in 10 minutes, or 10 to 80 per cent in just under 30 minutes. At home, a 7kW wall ox will deliver more like 43km an hour.

Rolls-Royce claims the Cullinan will provide you with between 16 litres per 100km and 16.8L/100km, but I believe you’d have to drive it quite steadily to achieve even that quite appalling figure.

Twelve cylinders, 2.75 tonnes, you do the math, but it's interesting to note that with a nearly full tank - and we’re talking 100 litres of fuel - my distance to empty was looking like barely more than 500km - that’s an EV-like number.

The first thing you notice behind the wheel of the the Lyriq is just how whisper-quiet it is on the road. Cadillac makes a big deal about its 'Active Noise Cancellation' tech that's deployed here – it uses sensors to monitor road vibrations and the like, and then uses the car's stereo to create what it calls an 'anti-noise' signal.

It all sounds pretty high-tech and complicated, but it also works, with the Lyriq a seriously quiet and composed way to get around, with only the artificial EV noise really noticeable in the cabin.

Even travelling past freeway speeds, the Lyriq remains quiet, which does lend the whole experience a sort of premium vibe.

The Cadillac is also one of those cars that thinks solidity means premium, from the solid 'thunk' of the doors shutting to a general heft and weight to the steering, there's nothing feather-light or agile about the Lyriq experience, but it does all feel a little artificial, and like it's trying to be heavy on purpose.

The Lyriq, then, is no out-and-out performance car – it's 2.5-tonne-plus kerb weight and Olympic swimming pool dimensions largely put an end that – but it's more than brisk enough to get up and moving, with its twin-motor powertrain finding grip even in slippery conditions. It's brisk, but not brutal.

The Lyriq hasn't been tested or tuned in Australia, but happily it doesn't have that floaty, wafty suspension style so popular in the USA. This one feels to have at least had an international tune, which removes some of that marshmallow softness and makes you feel connected to the road.

The steering, too, feels direct enough and easy to predict, and the overall impression is one of quiet, calm motoring, which is probably what it says on the tin of any premium vehicle.

The first word that comes to mind when describing the experience of driving a Rolls-Royce the size of a small housing estate is 'intimidating', because it's one of those cars where you take a few deep breaths before setting off (while muttering “please don’t crash it”) and then some sharp intakes of breath the first few times you find cars coming towards you on a narrow road, of which there are many on Ibiza where we were summoned to drive it.

I followed a panicked young man from India who had never driven a Rolls, nor a left-hand-drive car before, and boy, he sure looked intimidated, even if he didn’t ever get above 30km/h.

The incredible thing about the Cullinan, however, is how quickly it relaxes you and how astonishingly light and easy it is to drive. The steering feels almost absurdly light at first, you really can drive it with just one finger, two if you’re feeling cautious, but once you get used to it it just feels very Rolls-Royce.

The whole brand lives on the idea of effortlessness, wafting over the world, and the much-touted 'Magic Carpet Ride', and it really does deliver that sense of ease. You’re almost as relaxed at the wheel as you are in the rear seat (and the massage functions only make you feel more so). 

Speed humps do upset the Cullinan, but only a very little, and you’re aware when the car finds broken surfaces, but only distantly so. It feels like someone is dealing with bumps and imperfections in a far-off-place, perhaps the car’s basement, and it shouldn’t worry you too much.

When traffic annoys you, you can just make it disappear by engaging your whumping V12 engine and making the world go briefly blurry. 

Attempt to throw the Cullinan through sharp bends at speed, however, and it reacts in much the same way you’d expect the cruise ship it somewhat resembles to.

There’s a bit of body roll, but it’s all quite polite and a sense that if you need to drive like that, perhaps you should go and get one of your other cars.

The Black Badge version does feel just a trifle sportier than the base Cullinan but we’re splitting very grey and expensively coiffed hairs here.

The overall experience is one of grand relaxation, imperiousness and a certain touch of superior glee.

The Rolls-Royce Cullinan SUV has not been ANCAP tested, but it feels safe because it’s bigger than a tank. It has eight airbags - driver, front passenger, two curtains, driver side, front passenger side, two rear passenger side), and a full-suite of active-safety tech including Forward Collision Warning and Automatic Emergency Braking. 

Cadillac has built a pretty convincing ownership package around the Lyriq, which begins with a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, and an eight-year, 160,000km battery warranty. Beyond that, you also get five years of servicing, and five years of roadside assistance, free. 

Then you get a year’s free public charging through the Chargefox network and a free home wall box charger. If you have a wall box, or don’t want one, you can trade the home charging for an extra two years of free public charging.

Questions about service intervals and warranties seem to confuse the people at Rolls, as if none of their customers have ever bothered to ask.

Yes, you would think servicing would be free when you’re pushing a $1 million price tag, and that the warranty would be for life, particularly considering the low mileage on these things, but it is, in fact, just a four-year servicing and warranty offer for Australian customers of this vehicle. So that means an unlimited-mileage warranty, including all services, for the first four years (at which point you obviously buy a new one). "Rolls-Royce Motor Cars will offer a service inclusive package but no pricing available yet and this will not be required until the fifth year of ownership."