It appears that some Cadillac Lyriq owners and prospective buyers are taken aback by the operation of the car’s charge port door, which seems to be influenced by a complicated set of variables related to the car’s production date and trim level.
In July, The Drive reported that Cadillac had addressed the Lyriq’s less-than-ideal charge port door function. At that time, Alex Doss, the lead development engineer for the Lyriq-V, mentioned that the hardware was an ongoing update that occurred at the conclusion of the 2025 model year production run, meaning that the final group of 2025 Lyriqs were equipped with the revised charge port door mechanism. It also indicated that all 2026 and subsequent Lyriqs would include this updated mechanism. However, this turned out to be a simplification of the change in process.
Over the weekend, The Drive was tipped off by a 2026 Lyriq owner whose vehicle’s charge port door utilized the older, less refined hardware. His Lyriq, a V variant, was built in May 2025. The tipster then found, while visiting a Cadillac dealership, three 2026 Lyriq non-V models equipped with the new charge port door hardware and two 2026 V models parked next to them with the outdated hardware.
On Monday, a Cadillac representative informed The Drive that the hardware change was more intricate and constituted a gradual change depending on model year and trim. The hardware switch for the updated port door function began on or around July 14, 2025.
More specifically, the Cadillac representative indicated to The Drive that when the hardware transition took place, the 2025 Lyriqs in Luxury and Sport trims were still being produced alongside the 2026 Lyriq-V. It wasn’t until the first week of August that the production of the Luxury and Sport trims transitioned from 2025 to 2026 models.
The video above illustrates a comparison between the previous charge port door mechanism function and the new, improved hardware operation.
Consequently, any 2026 Lyriq-Vs and 2025 Lyriq non-Vs manufactured prior to July 14 are equipped with the previous charge port mechanism hardware. The representative noted that this timeline suggests that all 2026 Lyriq Luxury and Sport trims should feature the new charge port door hardware considering the timing of the production commencement.
This implies that buyers interested in the 2025 Lyriq or 2026 Lyriq-V who are concerned about how smoothly, or slowly, their charge port door functions need to either verify the vehicle’s build date on the door tag or test the charge port door itself to observe its operation.
In these rapidly evolving times when automakers are making ongoing changes during production, things can become quite confusing.
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