In New York terms, that’s a dead stop to 2.4 miles a minute in the space of two crosstown blocks - though it requires dialing up the Sprint Mode launch control, which unleashes a Bugatti-esque 1,025 pound-feet of torque. Lucid says the quarter-mile drag race is dispatched in a ridiculous 9.9 seconds at 144 mph. More affordable Airs should follow in 2022 the dual-motor Grand Touring I rode in will start at $139,000, while the single-motor, rear-drive Air Pure with 480 horses and a roughly 408-mile range should start at $77,400.īut no gas-powered luxury sedan can touch the Dream Edition’s electrified crackle. Pricing for the Air puts those targets into focus: the inaugural Dream Editions, with a choice of 933 or 1,111 horsepower from dual-motor AWD powertrains and 113-kWh batteries, cost a Maybach-worthy $170,500. “They are not moving toward the luxury market, but more toward the mainstream market.” “Tesla makes a great electric car, but it’s one flavor of electric,” Jenkins says. Every detail of the car is meant to lure free-spending buyers away from their existing cars - not from Teslas, as you might expect, but from gas-drinking flagships like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series. It’s among the roughly 25 stores that Lucid hopes to open by the end of 2022, each to be equipped with simulator-style VR car configurators or naked displays of the Air’s skateboard platform.ĭerek Jenkins, the bespectacled, sleek-domed former Mazda stylist who’s Lucid’s vice president of design and brand, shows me around the Air. Passersby cast approving glances at the car while we’re parked outside Lucid’s new studio-style showroom in Manhattan’s fashionable Meatpacking District. My ride-along in a pre-production Air - one of about 110 to emerge so far from the company’s spanking-new factory in Casa Grande, Arizona - is all too brief, but it’s enough to reveal the Lucid’s rib-crushing acceleration, planted handling and easeful ways. All before even a single car has reached its owner’s hands. ![]() The proof? In July 2021, Lucid dragged itself over the finish line to go public via a blank-check merger, netting $4.4 billion in fresh, tasty capital - seed money for the Air and its planned successors. Yet Lucid appears to hold one of the strongest hands among the latest EV hopefuls, thanks to ace technology, rich backers and the “story stock” aura that’s catnip to today’s investors. And Lucid remains firmly in “show me” mode: setting aside Chinese-market startups, Tesla is the only company that has successfully managed to make a go of it in the EV business. The first cars are now scheduled to reach customers in late 2021, a year later than the original plan. Lucid’s eight-year odyssey to production has involved the rocky paths and pitfalls familiar to any startup - even before a fateful pandemic that continues to batter supply chains for every automaker, forcing further delays for the Air. ![]() The Lucid Air Will Pack Dolby Atmos Surround Soundīut getting this car to the streets hasn’t been easy. Consider the Lucid a 5,000-pound Xanax for banishing range anxiety. ![]() It packs an industry-leading 900-volt electrical architecture that enables it to add up to 20 miles of driving range in just 60 seconds of plug-in time or 300 miles in 20 minutes flat. It’s the longest-range EV in history, with enough stamina to travel an EPA-rated 520 miles (in top-shelf Dream Edition R form) - more than 100 miles beyond Tesla’s best. Yet for a few electron-firing seconds - the few moments in which the 800-horsepower Air I’m riding in can drop the hammer on Manhattan’s West Side Highway - I’m determined to unload that social, environmental and financial baggage and just appreciate the Lucid for what it is: a creamy, cavernous luxury sedan that can whomp from 0 to 60 mph in as little as 2.5 seconds. This new electric car represents billion-dollar startup dreams, climate-change nightmares, the prospect of a healthier, sustainable form of American car manufacturing - and, of course, a true alternative to the 800-pound gorilla that is Tesla, the like-it-or-not template for any electric newcomer. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, the Lucid Air contains multitudes. A version of this story first appeared in Gear Patrol Magazine.
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