2025 Lucid Air

It’s a marathon, not a sprint, but the Lucid Air is becoming more of a fixture in the luxury electric car world. Deservedly so, as it features ingenious technology, smart design, and plush accommodations all wrapped in an arguably handsome and indisputably aerodynamic package.

Lucid launched the Air for the 2022 model year and has continued to improve it, with several features available to existing owners as over-the-air updates. It’s quite a feat for a new marque to compete with established and prestigious names like Mercedes-Benz and BMW, but Lucid has all the necessary talent to do so.

We’ve logged hundreds of hours driving and evaluating this generation of luxury electric cars, including the Lucid Air. The Air also tops our list of longest-range electric cars.

The entry-level Pure model receives a slightly smaller battery (84 kilowatt-hour, down from 88 kWh), but a more efficient one. Lucid says this is the first to achieve 5 miles of range for each kilowatt-hour, using less energy and making the Pure the most efficient electric car in production. This efficiency is enhanced by an energy-saving heat pump becoming standard across the Air lineup. It collects heat from the drivetrain and warms the cabin when required.

On the tech front, standard driver assistance features now include a 360-degree camera system and Blind Spot Display real-time video. The infotainment system has also been upgraded with faster processing and more memory, while the Grand Touring version gains the Surreal Sound Pro audio system as standard.

The 2025 Lucid Air starts at $71,400. That’s for the Pure trim with a 420-mile range. The lineup tops out at $250,500 for the ultra-powerful Sapphire.

We recommend the Pure model for its more-than-ample power, excellent range, and comprehensive level of standard equipment.

Other luxury electric cars include the Tesla Model S, Mercedes-EQ EQE sedan, BMW i7, Genesis Electrified G80, Audi GT e-tron, and the Porsche Taycan. They all start higher than the Lucid Air.

Before buying a new Air luxury electric car, check the Kelley Blue Book Fair Purchase Price to know what you should be paying. We’re not expecting resale values to be especially strong. Recouping more money when selling a vehicle can mean a bigger down payment and lower monthly payments on the next one.

Acceleration is a beautiful thing in powerful electric cars. The least expensive rear-drive Pure can still channel its 430 horsepower to zip from standstill to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds. That’s the same time as the much pricier base Porsche Taycan. With a second motor and 480 horsepower to call upon, the all-wheel-drive Pure does the dash in 3.8 seconds.

The Air Grand Touring does the sprint in exactly three seconds. Add 0.4 of a second for the Touring (actually, we’ve found that it feels a heck of a lot faster than that using the launch mode). Sure, the Tesla Model S Plaid is supposed to be a touch faster under certain conditions, but what’s a fraction of a second when the scenery is just a multicolored blur?

The Lucid Air Sapphire has three motors, 1,234 horsepower (making it the most powerful production sedan in the world, electric or otherwise), and will hit 60 mph in a ballistic 1.89 seconds. It’s certainly one of the most muscular vehicles we’ve ever driven. And one of the fastest. Beyond breathtaking.

There’s no adaptive suspension, but the conventional shock absorbers in the Air are tuned well enough. This is most definitely a luxury car. We’ve also noticed that it’s quiet, with just the shushing of the tires when zipping around corners. Not even any thumps or clunks over awful surfaces.

The steering has a decent weight to it, with the car reacting precisely to inputs. And the brakes feel natural, with regeneration reducing the amount of times the driver has to touch the left pedal. This seems like one of those areas where a lot of thought has gone into it, so drivers don’t have to think about it at all.

High-quality materials, many of them from sustainable sources, adorn the interior of the 2025 Lucid Air luxury electric sedan. Where a company like Tesla makes an extremely minimal cabin and migrates most functions onto a large touchscreen, Lucid’s approach isn’t quite so cold.

Some switchgear is retained, but it isn’t just that. It’s also the textures and muted colors, the feel of the real wood, and the clever positioning of the interior door release (hidden in the door pocket). Little details all add up to a generally pleasing experience, although we would prefer it if the front seats had more lateral support, especially in light of how fast this car can take corners. The Grand Touring’s seats address this issue.

The Air is remarkably spacious. There’s more than sufficient room for two 6-footers to sit behind another pair of 6-footers.

Luggage is kind of slotted into the Lucid Air’s trunk rather than lowered from above. There’s a decent amount of cargo space, though some of our editors found it awkward to load and unload groceries. The extra stowage area under the hood beats any other electric vehicle. It has a dual-level arrangement so anyone wanting to retrieve something small, like a charging cable, won’t have to dive right in to fumble around for it.

For a car called the Air, it does a great job of slicing through it. Aerodynamic qualities are emphasized by a drag coefficient of 0.21, one of the lowest available. This is achieved in part by super-small headlights and special-design wheel covers, as well as sleek lines everywhere.

Matching the clamshell hood up front is a clamshell trunk lid, which is definitely unusual.

The Pure trim comes standard with a conventional metal roof, but higher trims have a glass canopy, where the windshield and front part of the roof are all one large piece of glass. It makes the interior of the Air airy (sorry), while looking and feeling futuristic.

34-inch glass cockpit
This one-piece unit is split into three areas. On the far left are touch-sensitive virtual buttons for functions like wipers and lights. Behind the steering wheel is the digital driver information display. And on the other side is an infotainment touchscreen. All the displays in the Lucid Air are extremely high-resolution.

Second touchscreen
Set low in the center console is another touchscreen (measuring 12 inches on the diagonal) that handles functions like phone connectivity, seat settings, cabin temperature, etc. We’ve found that it’s all quite easy to negotiate.

Facial recognition
Cameras in the driver’s-side B-pillar and the instrument cluster can tell who’s about to get in and get going, then the car can adjust the settings accordingly. We love this kind of stuff.

Surreal Sound Pro
Available either as an option or standard in the pricier models, this is a 21-speaker system with Dolby Atmos, which is the new must-have audio tech creating superb clarity. Just like the batteries and motors, this system has been developed in-house.

DreamDrive Pro package
This options bundle includes Highway Assist, lane centering and Traffic Jam Assist, while adding future-compatible hardware to be activated by over-the-air updates for more driver assistance capabilities.

Lidar
Light detection and ranging. This is just one of the systems the Lucid Air uses to perceive its surroundings and enhance the safety features.

The shortest range of a 2025 Lucid Air is 420 miles — in the single-motor/rear-wheel-drive Pure. Let’s compare that figure to the competition’s best ranges. The Model S can do 402 miles; Audi e-tron GT: 249 miles; EQE: 305 miles; Taycan: 242 miles; BMW i7: 321 miles. And the Genesis Electrified G80 can run for 282 miles.

The Lucid Air Touring’s best figure is 406 miles and the Grand Touring takes the electric cake with 512 miles. The high-adrenaline Sapphire comes in at 427 miles.

Lucid also claims super-quick charging times when using high-voltage DC fast chargers. The Pure and Touring can take on 200 miles of range in 17 or 16 minutes respectively. That time is cut to 12 minutes for the Grand Touring. The Sapphire takes 15 minutes.

4-Year/50,000-Mile Warranty

Lucid’s new-vehicle warranty is the same as most luxury marques — four years or 50,000 miles, whichever happens first. Powertrains and batteries are covered for eight years or 100,000 miles.

Safety Ratings

The Lucid Air has yet to be crash-tested by any agencies in the United States. Standard safety equipment includes forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking, plus lane-keeping assistance, enhanced blind-spot monitoring, a 360-degree camera system, and a self-parking function.