Latest / Revisionist History / The Cadillac LYRIQ: Malcolm Gladwell meets an Electric Icon – Part One

Transcript

The Cadillac LYRIQ: Malcolm Gladwell meets an Electric Icon – Part One · Revisionist History

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: This episode is sponsored by Cadillac.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Do you have any guesses about what we're going to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: show you? Yea, no guesses, No guesses. The only thing
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say in preparation is well, I'm not
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: even to say anything. I just want your I just
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: want your reaction. I want to know whether you want
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: one of these.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: You're ready.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I'm walking down the streets of a small town in
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: upstate New York with a five year old boy who
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: is all the typical five year old boy's enthusiasm for
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: things with wheels. He's wearing a blindfold. We stop and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I can turn him around to face the street in
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: front of a shiny, elegant, sleek SUV. What you're going
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to see is something that almost no one in America
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: has seen. This is brand new. Okay, take my arm,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: lift off your blindfold. Let me just say he was
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a little bit shy and a little overwhelmed. He's blindfolded
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: by some random guy who's friends with his parents. So
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: he looks up and there's a pause as he contemplates
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the apparition in front of his eyes. What do you
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: think brand like? The look on his face did not
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: just say I like it. It said, Holy Toledo, No, no,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Holy Detroit. What is this now? I know what you're thinking.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: What's going on here? Well, to answer that, we need
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to go back in time not long ago, we got
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to call a Pushkin headquarters from Cadillac. They knew that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: we take cars very seriously here. In fact, I think
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: they knew that the car I drive to work every
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: morning is a Cadillac. I tricked out twenty twenty one
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Cadillac CT five V a monster. So they say, have
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: you heard of the all electric Cadillac Lyric?
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I had my friend Dan, the most serious gearhead I know,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: had driven one in Detroit and texted me immediately, this
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: thing is the best car Cadillac ever made. My friend Eddie,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: second most serious gearhead I know, spotted one in his
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: neighbor's driveway and said it looks like the Barcelona Chair
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: of cars. I've no idea what that means. Anyway, Cadillac says,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: would you like to borrow a Lyric for a few days?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: We gave their request a great deal of thought, held
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a dozen meetings to discuss, made a spreadsheet to evaluate
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the pros and cons. No, are you kidding me? We said,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: bring it now. I'm Malcolm Glawell, and you're listening to
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the first of two very special episodes for revisionist history listeners.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Come along on an all electric road trip with me
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and a few friends. So the lyrics shows up at
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Pushkin HQ, and let's just say we have plans for
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the next few days. Road tests, but not boring road tests,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: my kind of road tests. The things that matter to me.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: How much can I fit in this thing? Is it
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: fast enough? Is it better than what I have in
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the garage already? And first and foremost, will it impress
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: my friends? We started with the five year old down
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the street. Then we parked and waited for the general
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: public to weigh in, which they did like flies on honey.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: First up, a dude in an escalade literally stops in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the middle.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: Of the street. Yeah, sharp, right out right out from
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: the factory.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Look at that thing, man, I yes, I remember looking
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to it now, so.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I won't work about it a little bit.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful, all right, All right, enough, we realized we
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: had to drive it for ourselves. We piled in first thoughts.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: It is suv presence, but drives like a car, an
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: electric car, which means that insanely smooth, uninterrupted instantaneous acceleration,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and all in a kind of hushed splendor, powered by
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: GM's brand new ultium battery system. We called our contact
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: back a Cadillac. Melissa Grady, Cadillac's chief marketing officer, put
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: her on speaker. Wait, we're gonna drive down the blog
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: because I want you to explain this sound. This thing
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: is so insanely quiet. So there's like this kind of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: quiet hum. Yes, I'm referring to this sound. What am
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I tell me about what I'm hearing? The future? Ah,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you were trained to say that. Oh, yes, was It's
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: actually the sound the sun emits has recorded by NASA.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not making that up.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: So what that noise is is, you know, with anyv
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: there really isn't a lot of audible sound, and so
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: we put that sound in so that pedestrians and others
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: can hear that the that the vehicle is approaching.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the noise machine I use for my baby.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: It's like this calming. Next, I got fixated on the dash,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: so just so to describe for so, I'm looking at this.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: We've got this console, this screen that stretches from the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: driver's side all the way almost to the edge of
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the passage. It's like a long how long is this
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: It's like a do you know how long? This screen
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: looks like it's like over two feet long. It is
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: thirty three inches thirty three inches, so everything as I'm driving,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: everything is in front of me, and then I have
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: we just open the map function. Oh my god, that's fantastic.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And then we've got the rearview mirror is a is
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a continuous HD camera. So in case you're keeping count
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Test number one, the five year old boy test past
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Test number two, the eyeball first impression test passed. But
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: now for the hardest test of all, we returned to
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Pushkin HQ and pick up my friend Michael, who for
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the past three and a half years has been the
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: devoted owner of an electric vehicle made by a company
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: whose name will not pass our lips.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Michael, where do I get myself for coming for you?
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you need to come downstairs and then we're going
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to put a blindfold on you and go for la ride,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the same blindfold we use for the kid. Is this
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: going to end our thirty five? It is absolutely not.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: This is gonna be an educational and enjoyable experience for you.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Michael is a skeptical, perceptive, hard bitten professional journalist, a
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: man of the world, and he loves his current ev
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: He's an evangelist for the brand. And we told him
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: nothing except that we've got something very new parked out
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: front that he's never been in before. We put him
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: in the passenger seat. Let me remind you, he's blindfolded.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: We want him to hear and feel the lyric without
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: his judgmental vision getting in the way. He starts running
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: his hands over the dash, the door, everything around him.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: How does that? How does that seat feeling?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: It's it's.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It's very luxurious.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: I hate.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: This, can't be it. Now. We weren't trying to rag
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: on the competition. I mean, I've driven into Michael's car.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: It's a fine bit of engineering, lots of great software,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: pioneer in the field, blah blah blah. But it's an appliance.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: And now his sense is heightened. Michael sits and touches
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and feels and realizes, Dorothy, You're not in an appliance anymore. Okay, Now, Michael,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I want you to remove your blindfold. Really, yeah, I
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: want you to observe the interior, Wow sleek. Yeah, I
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: love the Yeah.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: This is very nice. It's very different than mine.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: My concern is that you're gonna go back, You're going
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: to get into your.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Your car seeing me is just drive into a leak.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: You'll just be so desponding that I'm gonna be like, I'm.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Gonna be like, what did I know? Are you going
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to make I can't do it. I can't go back.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: You can't go back, Michael, don't do it. Don't go
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: back next time. On our special series made in collaboration
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: with Cadillac more road tests, Comparero with the German Classic
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and with Cadillacs of R A little bit of a
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: road race and babies crying Speedy, Speedy, I Like Newer.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Twenty twenty three lyric orders are full. Go to Cadillac
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: dot com and complete a pre order from model year
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: twenty four to be among the first to order a
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: model year twenty four win available. This episode was produced
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: by Jacob Smith and Joey Fishground. Our editor is Julia Barton,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Engineering by Nina Lawrence and mastering by Sarah Buguier. Special
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: thanks to Melissa Grady at Cadillac and Carly Megliori. I'm
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Malcolm Glappa.