LAS VEGAS -- Cadillac will reveal its first electric vehicle -- a midsize crossover -- in April, Cadillac president Steve Carlisle told dealers Monday.

Cadillac executives encouraged dealers to begin thinking about their EV future while also taking advantage of a plethora of new internal-combustion vehicles in the brand's lineup.

The brand plans to give dealers a more detailed preview of the next two years at a conference in Austin, Texas, Sept. 1-4.

Cadillac showed a rendering of the midsize electric crossover during the unveiling of the XT6 crossover in Detroit in January 2019. The crossover will begin a swift cadence of EV launches for General Motors. The automaker has said that it plans to build 20 EVs globally by 2023.

"We want to start working with Cadillac and our dealers' future, which is EV," said David Butler, executive manager of Michigan-based The Suburban Collection and Cadillac's national dealer council chairman.

The dealer council created an EV future subcommittee, with three dealers and three Cadillac executives.

"We needed to study what electric vehicles are going to do to our operations now because they are coming quicker rather than later," Butler said.

Cadillac is living in two worlds—an internal combustion present and an electric future, Carlisle told Automotive News.

"We need to take the time between now and our first launch to get ready" for EVs, said Carlisle.

A good product isn't enough, he said. GM will continue to address the barriers to EV adoption and work toward improving the customer experience with EVs.

"The big-picture message [to dealers] is let's embrace the opportunity with the current portfolio," Carlisle said. "We enter this decade as an internal combustion engine brand. We want to position ourselves to exit as a battery-electric brand, so we have to manage both at the same time."