This electric powder keg spins up 650 hp and 20,000 rpm from a motor, reduction gearbox, inverter, and differential that weigh just 163 pounds. Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson, the former Model S chief engineer and current thorn in Elon Musk’s side, tells me the Air’s drive unit brings nearly three times the power density of Tesla’s, at 41 hp per liter. Buyers will enjoy three years of free charging at those Electrify America stations. We’re unable to test the claim, despite a 350-kW Electrify America oasis in nearby Tempe, because our pre-production model’s software isn’t fully operational. So much for range anxiety and thumb-twiddling charging stops-at least when the 350-kW DC chargers required for such replenishment become more common. Its 924-volt architecture and onboard Wunderbox charger can add up to 300 miles in 20 minutes, or 20 miles in one minute. The Air is almost surely the fastest-charging EV ever. An EPA-rated 520 miles for the 933-hp Dream Edition Range version whips Tesla’s best by 115, enough for nearly two bonus hours of highway cruising.Īn 800-hp Air Grand Touring earns a 131-MPGe rating, besting the 120 MPGe of the 670-hp Model S Long Range that seemed insurmountable. But talk about a first-pitch grand slam: The Air is the longest-range EV in history. Lucid has miles to go, in everything from brand awareness to sales and showroom choices, before it can claim similar success. Tesla is on track to sell about 800,000 EVs worldwide this year. We’ve become used to such ICE-melting antics from EVs, including the tri-motor, $131,190 Tesla Model S Plaid. ![]() The Lucid Air Has More Range Than Any Other EV Lucid figures the Air can hit 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. ![]() Lucid’s stretch-your-legs sedan will beat them all in a drag race. They include an excited pickup driver who’s been buying up Lucid stock hoping for the next Tesla and a posse of young outlaws in a Corvette Z06, a Mustang Shelby GT500, and a Dodge Hellcat. SIGN UP FOR THE TRACK CLUB BY R&T FOR MORE EXCLUSIVE STORIESĪt rest in Tortilla Flat, Arizona, population 6, along a knotted lasso of a road through the Superstition Mountains, the Lucid makes fast friends as it breaks cover in public. This story originally appeared in Volume 8 of Road & Track. You know how you flick a stray ant off a picnic table? In the Lucid Air, you are the ant. With the Air in its electron-huffing Sprint mode, I struggle to put the spatial dislocation into words. Here in the Arizona desert, just a few hours from Lucid’s greenfield factory in Casa Grande, I content myself with lung-squeezing whomps to 120 mph in the time it takes many cars to hit 60. ![]() That’s how long the 1111-hp Lucid Air Dream Edition Performance needs to crack the quarter-mile, specifically 9.9 seconds at 144 mph. It takes less than 10 seconds to realize it’s been worth the wait. It’s taken Lucid 13 years to get here, from a humble battery supplier to an American EV start-up that’s valued at roughly $39 billion before delivering a single customer car.
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