2024 Lucid Air

As long as buyers have the funds, the Lucid Air has a lot going for it. Wrapped up in that smart, aesthetically pleasing and wind-cheating shape is a lot of clever technology maximizing power potential and battery capacity. The cabin is also spacious and suitably luxurious.

The Air sedan is the first electric vehicle from Lucid, making its debut for the 2022 model year. An SUV, the Gravity, is next. As an endorsement of Lucid’s engineering expertise, it will be working with Aston Martin as that famed British marque prepares to unleash electric vehicles of its own.

We’ve spent hundreds of hours driving and evaluating this generation of luxury electric cars, including the Lucid Air.

Although the Pure was on the order books last year, it now comes exclusively with rear-wheel drive. Lucid has also discontinued the Grand Touring Performance model and launched the Air Sapphire. And launch might be the operative word. It’s incredibly powerful and fast, with a top speed of 205 mph.

The 2024 Lucid Air starts at $71,400. That’s for the rear-drive/single-motor version of the Pure model with a 419-mile range. Adding an extra motor and gaining all-wheel drive is another $8,000.

These are the manufacturer’s suggested retail prices (MSRP), including the $1,500 factory-to-dealer delivery fee (destination charge).

The Tesla Model S is the big rival, even though it’s 12 years old now. The Tesla starts in the mid-$70Ks. We’ve been impressed by the BMW i7, from $105.7K. The Mercedes-EQ EQS large luxury sedan is in that same ballpark. The Audi e-tron GT is priced from $106.5K. A little less pricey, the Mercedes-EQ EQE sedan begins in the mid-$70Ks, the Genesis Electrified G80 kicks off at $80K, and the Porsche Taycan comes in at $91K.

The Lucid Air’s predicted resale value sits near the bottom of the pack and behind all of its rivals.

Acceleration is a beautiful thing in powerful electric cars. The least expensive rear-drive Pure can still channel its 430 horsepower to zip from a standstill to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds. That’s almost a second quicker than the 449-horsepower BMW i7 eDrive50. With a second motor and 480 horsepower to call upon, the all-wheel-drive Pure does the dash in 3.8 seconds.

The Grand Touring model 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 when driving over awful surfaces.

The steering has a decent weight to it, with the car reacting precisely to inputs. 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 2024 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. We reckon the front seats could use 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.

Although luggage is kind of slotted into the Lucid Air’s trunk rather than lowered from above, there’s still a decent amount of cargo space. And 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. 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.

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.

Dream Drive Pro package
Optional in lower trims, standard in the Grand Touring, this bundle brings partial self-driving, a 360-degree camera system, and Blind Spot Display real-time video shown in the digital instrument cluster. Over-the-air updates can expand this package’s functionality.

Lidar
Light detection and ranging. This is just one of the systems the 2024 Lucid Air uses to perceive its surroundings and enhance its safety features.

The shortest range of a 2024 Lucid Air is 411 miles in the Touring trim. Let’s compare that figure to the competition. The Model S can do 405 miles; Audi e-tron GT: 249 miles; EQE: 305 miles; EQS: 340 miles; Taycan: 246 miles. And the BMW i7 is capable of 321 miles.

The Lucid Air Grand Touring takes the electric cake with 516 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 15 minutes. That time is cut to 12 minutes for the Grand Touring.

Lucid has developed a modular battery system where buyers can sacrifice a little range for extra rear legroom or the other way around. Meanwhile, the proprietary electric motors are so small and light that one can fit into a roll-on suitcase, the type that’s usually stowed in an airplane’s overhead bin.

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 and a self-parking function. The Dream Drive Pro package — available as an option or standard in higher trims — brings partial self-driving (with hardware already in place for a more comprehensive system), enhanced blind-spot monitoring, and a 360-degree camera system.