Sure, Lucid’s luxury sedan isn’t the most Grassroots car on the planet, but neither was the E39-chassis BMW M5 back when it was on showroom floors.
That’s why we said yes not just to a loan, but to an EV road trip: We’re going to rack up more than 500 miles over the next few days, attempting to find out …
I'm interested to learn if it is actually fancy, or is just made to look fancy.
(Looking at you, Mercedes-Benz EQE)
Do watch your head as you climb (fall) into the car. That roofline is as low as a Miata with the roof up.
Which trim level of the Lucid Air did you get to play with? Dream, Grand Touring, Touring, Pure?
Saw one at an autocross event. Scary fast.
Car acquired! It's time to go for a drive. We're in the entry-level model, the "Pure"
We've got four adults in the car for the first 45 minutes, as my parents need a ride to the airport. There is a shocking amount of space inside--we haven't even opened the frunk and fit four people's luggage inside.
Rear headroom is fine, but Margie smacked her head on the way in.
Who likes screens?
eh, I could get used to the screens. But, Music - is it quiet enough on the highway to listen to classical music w/o blasting?
In reply to flistener :
Yes, it's basically silent on the highway.
It's my "S class money" favorite car right now. It looks about perfect.
Is it?
Told my parents to take a good look at one for their next car
I see a couple of these regularly on my commute. Great looking cars.
Just stopped at a service station for some food and realized a problem: The car has no start button and no buttons on the key fob. There's no intuitive way to shut it off.
I guessed that it would shut off and lock up when I got out and walked away, and I was correct. Then some googling revealed that the key fob can be clicked (one giant hidden button) in different patterns to open and close different panels.
Here's tonight's drive: a 272 mile trip from New Jersey to Washington, D.C. via Newark. We should be able to do the trip without charging, but the car has requested a 7-minute charging stop along the way to end the trip with 18% battery remaining. We'll see if we keep that stop, as I have much more EV experience (and thus lower energy consumption) than my dad. I'm hoping the car recalculates after a few miles with me in the driver's seat.
Drool...
40 minutes out from our first charging stop and the car is preconditioning for fast charging. This stop isn't entirely necessary, but the car decided it wants a top-off before we park it at our destination tonight. Nav system is expecting this stop to take only 5 minutes.
Sadly, we're trying to use a busy station during rush hour: Every stall is full and there's already one car waiting. 
There's also a Tesla Supercharger in the same parking lot:
We'll probably just hit the bathroom and then skip this stop.
We're now next car in line--if the average charge time is 30 minutes and there are six stalls, then we should be up in another five minutes or so. At least that's what I'm telling myself--we'll give this station a chance.
We're up! The Lucid supports plug and charge, so all I had to do was plug it in. Then the car handled payment and such without any other actions.
Sadly, though, we're now experiencing a hallmark of Electrify America: An underperforming charger. This 350kw station is only delivering 110kw, far lower than the car has requested at this point in its charge curve.
Ok, after 8 minutes of charging we're back on the road!
Lucid Air Pure - $82,000 MSRP direct from Lucid (which means no mark up AND $7500 tax credit)
Range is claimed 410 miles. GRM probably won't be able to test that.
How's the fit and finish? How do the doors sound when closed hard?
I'm not liking the knee into the lower screen.
What's the in-cabin storage like?
The hatch-trunk is pretty unique. I dig that. I would dig it more if it were a wagon ala those "Estate" renders floating around.
I think the biggest weakness of the Lucid Air are its wheels. You don't notice them when it's moving, but when it's stopped, they look cheap. In this price bracket the wheels have gotta be good.
In reply to pheller :
I'll let Tom get more into this later, but here are my answers for now:
We're currently driving it from NJ to DC, and later we'll have to drive it back. So range is definitely being tested although not under ideal conditions to produce the highest possible mileage per charge.
The lower screen is actually kind of cool, but it can retract into the dash if you don't want to use it. There's a little bit of storage underneath it.
The cabin itself is quite spacious, there are deep door pockets, two storage holes in the center console (including the one behind the screen) and I believe exactly four cup holders (I haven't pulled down the backseat center seat back panel yet but I'm guessing it's hiding two cup holders for the rear passengers). It also has seat back pockets, but they are of the stiffened plastic species, not textile.
And time! We made it to Alexandria, VA with 64 miles left in the tank.
I plugged the car into a wall outlet to trickle charge:
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