Why the Cadillac Lyriq has the world’s worst glove box design.

Not only is it more complicated than it needs to be, it’s just plain dumb.

Glove box design hasn’t evolved much in the history of cars and for good reason, car owners expect they deliver on the bare minimum of providing some kind of easily accessible storage space, that it.

Mess around with that simple formula and glove box design becomes more annoying than actually helpful.

Case in point, the new 2023 Cadillac Lyriq, Cadillac’s first all-electric car, that has what some consider (myself included) one of the worst glove boxes ever.

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There are two reasons why the Lyriq’s glove box sucks. First, like a lot of avante-garde glove box design, Cadillac makes you toggle through their infotainment system to open it.

There isn’t a physical button, you have to go into the Controls Menu and then push the “Glove Box Release” icon as Doug DeMuro’s video below illustrates.

I get how Cadillac and other car makers who do this (Tesla) are trying to achieve a clean, buttonless design, but I hate how they’ve made what should be an uncomplicated process even more so.

I’m sure the process becomes brainless and intuitive after awhile but does it have to be this way?

Can you imagine if you had to toggle through your fridge’s smart menu to open it?

This is regressive design.

The main reason Lyriq’s glove box sucks is if your 12-volt battery goes dead, you literally can’t open it.

Yes, that’s what the manual actually says, you’re S.O.L. if you don’t get a jump start.

"If the 12-volt battery is dead, the glove box will not open." ? pic.twitter.com/ULIDKELnQ1

— Paulo Acoba (@ferio_252) October 10, 2022

It doesn’t matter if your traction batteries have a full charge as those don’t run accessories.

Can you imagine if you had a life-saving shot of Glucogen or an Epipen in your Lyriq’s glove box, and, for some reason need it but realize your 12-volt battery’s dead?

What then?

Do you just croak?

Teslas, which also force you to toggle through menus to open the glove box, does allow you to manually open their glove boxes on a dead battery.

I think going through menus to open a glove box is just plain dumb.

But, if you’re dead-set on that route, at least let us open it if and when the 12V battery goes flat.