Targeted marketing has proven to be a highly effective strategy, and Cadillac is taking it to the next level by setting up a Lyriq test drive demo where electric vehicle owners are likely to congregate: at a Tesla Supercharger station in China. Although this move is not the first of its kind, it demonstrates Cadillac’s eagerness to gain an edge in the electric vehicle market.
The marketing stunt reportedly took place outside of Shanghai Jinqiao in China. The Lyriq has Chinese writing on the side though we haven’t been able to translate what it says. Notably, a video included in the series of photos reveals at least one individual wearing a Cadillac Lyriq jacket, suggesting that GM employees may have been present at the event to offer demo test drives to Tesla owners.
According to Jay In Shanghi, who first spotted the event and shared it on social media, Cadillac employees were offering demo test drives to Tesla owners while they waited for their cars to charge. Jay, being a Tesla owner and founder of a Tesla fan club, criticized the move as “shameless cold calling by Cadillac”.
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The Lyriq certainly has a lot of ground to make up if it wants to truly rival any Tesla model worldwide. GM is still working hard to ramp production of the luxury SUV while Tesla sold more than 1.3 million cars, of which over 430,000 in China, during 2022.
At the same time, Cadillac does well in China with almost 200,000 total sales last year. That figure is only a small chunk of the 2.3 millions cars GM sold in the country.
It’s also worth pointing out that Cadillac isn’t the first to pull something like this off at a Tesla Supercharger station. One commenter on the Twitter thread posted photos of Audi parking an e-tron next to Supercharger stations back in 2019.
In both cases though there might be an unintended consequence though as neither Audi nor Cadillac can offer the robust charging network that Tesla can.
Image Credit: JayinShanghai