Lucid Needs to Sell More Electric Cars, But How?

Lucid is looking to boost its sedan sales as development continues on the big, sleek all-electric Gravity SUV. So it invited us to Silicon Valley to drive all four models of its Airs. Lucid also showed us a shape under the canvas that said it was the upcoming center console, without giving any details on the car. The midsize model should be affordable, considering the affordable Air sedan, and should share much of the same performance of the rest of the Lucid line. But we still don’t know much about it.

For now, the company needs to sell more Airs, before the Air Apparent Lucid Gravity SUV comes online later this year. The market has crossovers, so once the Gravity hits showrooms, as it did when almost all luxury/performance automakers started offering SUVs, sales should begin. Right?

Lucid is fully funded by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund and a few other investors, so it has no ambitions. It does not appear to be in financial trouble. And the factory is working overtime to expand and configure Gravity.

One thing it wants to do is make more people aware that it exists. Car enthusiasts know about Lucid, but the vast majority of people don’t. So they flew me and a group of fellow journalists to the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley to show us around and let us drive all four versions of the Lucid Air sedan.

The biggest news for 2024 is the revamped Grand Touring model, one of four Lucid Air models available, along with the Air Pure, Air Touring, and rip-snortin’ Sapphire (more on that in a minute).

The 2024 Grand Touring can really tour, with an EPA range of 516 miles between charges, better than any production car in the world. More efficiently the model now gets a heat pump for heating and cooling instead of resistance heating and traditional air conditioning, Lucid says. It also receives improvements to its motor design, battery chemistry, and thermal characteristics for greater efficiency, as well as faster charging—up to 30% faster when charging at Level 3 DC.

“The Air Grand Touring is our longest-range vehicle – in fact the longest-range EV available today – and has now been further improved with numerous powertrain updates, including the Air Sapphire heat pump,” says Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO of. Lucid. “The Air Grand Touring has retained its estimated range of 516 miles, achieving this despite the EPA’s most rigorous testing. More importantly, it offers improved range and efficiency in a wide range of everyday, real-world conditions.”

But it costs $109,900.

Fear not, Lucid’s ace in the hole is that you can get the Lucid Air Pure, which almost no one will know is Lucid’s entry-level model, for just $69,900. Now through April 30th they’re offering $5000 of that sticker “on vehicles available on site at your local studio at the time of order.” 18 month lease is $649/month (with $3149 due at signing.)

We got to fly all four Lucid Airs in the scenic coastal mountains between Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz, California, starting in the parking lot across the street from Alice’s Restaurant that was featured in—or maybe named after—the song Arlo Guthrie.

I started the Air Pure business, getting lost once and ending up on Big Basin Way near Castle Rock, surrounded by giant redwoods. The Safi has the smallest battery of the four models at 88 kWh, but it’s good for 419 miles of EPA range, so I wasn’t too worried.

On that twisty one-and-a-half-lane road, the Clean hid its 4536 pounds well. The 430-hp rear-wheel drive’s instant torque pushed it straight out of tight turns after turning hard all morning.

SEE THE PHOTOS

Lucid still has buttons—just not one screen.

The best thing about the Safi is that the only way you can tell it’s the cheapest Lucid model is by being right up close to the back corner and squinting. “Air,” it says in the smallest, most invisible script ever put on a car.

I have found Hwy. 9, then Skyline Blvd., then Alice and jumped into the grunion king of all Lucids, Sapphire. This has three motors – two at the back and one at the front, synchronized with an algorithm that helps stabilize the car in corners and provides maximum torque to any wheel that has traction. Throw in a loose self-balancing brake and you’re about to fail. Lucid uses three electric motors in the Sapphire to balance the car to its standard.

“This is the really exciting thing about torque calibration,” says Esther Unti, senior manager of torque calibration and verification. “The limiter is easy to find in most cars, because it will feel kind of linear until it slows down, or maybe like an S2k (Honda S2000) or something that will feel linear until it goes up. But with torque vectoring you can make it keep following the steering wheel regardless of whether you’re in throttle or off throttle, and we can choose what we want it to do. We’ve tried to keep it following the steering until the limit. It doesn’t fall off and it doesn’t feel like it’s starting to go down, because it’s just linear.”

The Sapphire also has 1234 hp and gets to 60 mph in 1.89 seconds, while still maintaining 427 miles of EPA-approved range. I was so satisfied with the performance of the Safi that I was ready to say you don’t need to spend $249,000 on the Sapphire, until I drove the Sapphire for the first time on La Honda Road (the right way) and felt the grip, stability, and sure-footed fun that this model attacked anything for. a twist.

Doggies Whooooo!

You haven’t driven a luxury sedan with this precision and grip since your BMW M5. In any driving situation it is simply amazing. Is it worth a quarter of a million dollars? Heck yes it is, especially since I have a use for it your money here.

I drove the Grand Touring and Touring, too, and they were great too. Both have dual-motor AWD powertrains, with the Grand Touring quicker to 60 mph in four-tenths of 3.0 seconds and also winning with a well-recorded 516 miles versus the Touring’s 411 miles. The Grand Touring is also “only” $109,900 compared to the Touring’s $77,900.

But the point I came away with is that you will be happy in any of these. The only constraint is the budget. And with that you just set priorities. Children can go to government schools right?

Of course, you would like to have fun in many competitions, too. This is a great time to be shopping for an electric luxury performance sedan. And soon, for a luxury electric SUV. As Arlo Guthrie sang, “You can get anything you want…”

Which of the many luxury electric performance sedans do you like? Tell us below.

Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent hours holding the trouble light on a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed Ford, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective criticism of cars. He began writing for the City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports models and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he was interviewed by Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.