"Lucid Air Touring Owner Review: No More Asterisk For The EV Road Trip" - Article

[Tooney]

After 11,000 miles in a Lucid Air Touring in under 11 months, I don’t see anything coming on the horizon that could ever replace it. It's a stunning car worthy of the 2022 Motor Trend’s Car of the Year. Still, if I had Harry Potter’s wand, I’d give it a wave and fix a few things. We’ll get to those in a bit.

The Air Touring is my eighth electric car. I’ve owned a self-built Miata conversion, three different BMWs, a Tesla Model 3, a Jaguar I-Pace, and a Hyundai Ioniq 5 (which is not mine, but my wife’s daily driver).
...
Road trips are where the Lucid truly shines. With the supremely quiet cabin oozing a chill vibe, the Lucid makes the miles melt away like no other car I’ve driven. Couple that with a very efficient drivetrain and among the fastest charging on the planet, and no one in the family can complain about too frequent or too long of stops to charge.
...
When considering the Air, the only car I cross-shopped was Porsche's Taycan. Drivability was a top priority for me and that effectively limited my choices to the two premium sedans with 900-volt architecture available at the time.

What led me to the Air over the Taycan? First, after owning more EVs than I have fingers on one hand, I’ve become accustomed to the simplicity offered by one-pedal driving. Porsche just doesn’t offer it. Their reasoning sounds perfectly plausible if your goal is top performance on the track, but I wasn’t buying a car for the track. Perhaps most important, was the negative vibe I got from the client advisors at my local Porsche dealer. I walked in, opened a few doors, and sat in a few cars, but the staff were too busy looking at their phones and refused to make eye contact.

https://insideevs.com/reviews/701297/lucid-air-long-term-review/

 

[thecoloradokid]

Meh. The title of the article should be "I went to the Porsche dealer and expected my ass kissed, so when that did not happen I got mad and bought the ugliest car in the EV world." Good f*ucking lord, the person sounds like a Ken.

Will it go 400 miles on a charge? Sure. But who wants to be seen getting in and out of that thing??? I certainly don't. I would be embarrassed to show up to my favorite restaurant in that thing.

From all the people I have ever seen drive a Lucid, I am still more than 15 years away from being over 70, so I am the wrong demographic even if I did not think the car was the ugliest thing on the road.

 

[f1eng]

Meh. The title of the article should be "I went to the Porsche dealer and expected my ass kissed, so when that did not happen I got mad and bought the ugliest car in the EV world." Good f*ucking lord, the person sounds like a Ken.

Will it go 400 miles on a charge? Sure. But who wants to be seen getting in and out of that thing??? I certainly don't. I would be embarrassed to show up to my favorite restaurant in that thing.

From all the people I have ever seen drive a Lucid, I am still more than 15 years away from being over 70, so I am the wrong demographic even if I did not think the car was the ugliest thing on the road.

And you are considering a Hummer??????

 

[thecoloradokid]

And you are considering a Hummer??????

Touche!!!!!!!!!

As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A Lucid for me seems awful, but a huge ugly beast like a Hummer EV does not seem as bad for a 2nd car.

 

[f1eng]

Touche!!!!!!!!!

As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A Lucid for me seems awful, but a huge ugly beast like a Hummer EV does not seem as bad for a 2nd car.

Car styling is divisive, of course but I’d stick my neck out and say what a car looks like on the outside isn’t a big thing for me, compared to the interior.

Having written that the Lucid doesn’t appeal either but the Hummer would be totally unsuited to round here.

Neither available anyway.

 

[SergeyIndy]

What a review.

- Cross shopped Taycan by sitting in it at the dealership then went into the arms of the other car.
- Other car does not have Android Auto still
- Other car is not user friendly when using HomeLink
- Other car designed in San Fran but cannot handle its speed bumps and steep inclines
- Other car is useless at predicting range when elevation changes
- Other car bakes you in the summer with all that glass
- Other car drains your fob like a vampire
- Most of us agree the Other car looks are not for us

Zero problems like these for me with the Taycan.

HomeLink could be better if they have retained hardware buttons if I am honest, but by programming one door to the diamond on the cluster works for me.

 

[thecoloradokid]

Car styling is divisive, of course but I’d stick my neck out and say what a car looks like on the outside isn’t a big thing for me, compared to the interior.

Having written that the Lucid doesn’t appeal either but the Hummer would be totally unsuited to round here.

Neither available anyway.

You are exactly right. I have found that some people are "wagon" people, which I have evolved into now with my CT4S ownership, and some people absolutely hate the "wagon" look, especially on the Taycan.

To be honest, I was given access to a Lucid for a weekend, and put almost 1,000 miles on it driving round Colorado. While the interior was nice, and it cruises comfortably, I just could not get over the outside look. Neither could my travel partner.

As an American, and especially one living out in a less population dense area, SUV's are everywhere, so I am probably more used to the monstrous size and sheer hideousness of a Hummer than someone in New York, Miami, the UK, or mainland Europe. For me, it would not be about going off road and being able to drive up a sheer mountain wall, but I would swap out the big knobby tires for a more efficient all season tires, and then seeing if I could make the 392 mile drive from Denver to Santa Fe without stopping. My broken prostate would not allow me to sit in a car for 6 hours without stopping for a restroom break, but I would love see if I could do it.

 

[f1eng]

SUV's are everywhere, so I am probably more used to the monstrous size and sheer hideousness of a Hummer than someone in New York, Miami, the UK,

Monstrous SUVs are in fashion everywhere, their stupidness quotient varies from environment to environment but fashion beats everything in people’s buying decisions it seems.

London is full of them and they are the commonest vehicles around here where the bumpy roads suit them OK (apart from width).

Trucks OTOH are not a thing, neither for fashion or utility.

Fashion and image trumps logic most of the time IME.

 

[f1eng]

My broken prostate would not allow me to sit in a car for 6 hours without stopping for a restroom break, but I would love see if I could do it.

The distances are not long here but I stop every 100 miles or so for the same reason. Now I can find a cafe with toilet and charger on my journey with the Taycan charging so fast it adds zero(ish) to journey times to charge en-route.

 

[Jayyvr890]

Guy lost me at 'one pedal driving'

Clearly knows nothing about how EV drivetrains work.

 

[agurkas]

So many "reviews" out there. At this point is just a click-bait game. But fine, let me entertain myself with a click. Did the review include Porsche has been around forever but we aren't sure if Lucid has a chance? How a car looks is a personal view, and how a car handles is, too. As my kids like to say, "You do you."
When a car maker is losing something like $400K per car (Rivian is 1/10th that, so they have a chance), you know what, I will take the lesser range, more sporty performance, maybe shit sales experience... but at least I have somewhere to take the car to in whatever years, if I need it fixed. Will Lucid be around in 5 years? Looking at the slope of where the stock has gone since '21 - hard pass.

P.S. I do wish Taycan had the option to enable one pedal driving. I like it in traffic. My plug-in hybrid XC90 has strong(er) regen than Taycan and I like that in traffic. Modulate the pedal and I get a nice smooth ride in bumper to bumper.

 

[tigerbalm]

The best thing about Lucid is their CEO..

https://lucidmotors.com/tech-talks

 

[David Bennett]

Guy lost me at 'one pedal driving'

Clearly knows nothing about how EV drivetrains work.

^^^ this. If I want to slow down I’ll press the brake. Why do I need some automatic and unwanted retardation?

 

[DerekS]

- Cross shopped Taycan by sitting in it at the dealership then went into the arms of the other car.

How one is treated at dealerships does matter. This guy could have tried a second dealer before giving up on the marque, though.

 

[EXOTIC3]

This one looks pretty spectacular…..
and having driven both the GT lucid and 4S
I’d give the edge overall to the Lucid.