Yesterday I showed you the 2023 Motor Trend Car of the Year and was blown away by its opulence and features. Today, I am in the 2022 Motor Trend Car of the Year in the Lucid Air Grand Touring model which is putting Tesla on notice.
This may be the EV to make Eve more mainstream. Well, maybe not mainstream, but more realistic for luxury car buyers. All the specs on this make up for the shortcomings of your typical EV and should make potential Tesla or even Mercedes EQ shoppers take pause to check out this new brand.
First, the stats: 800 horsepower from two electric motors giving the Air Grand Touring all-wheel drive and 469 miles of EPA-estimated range. Usually with performance EVs, you have to choose range OR power, here you get both. With that range, you get a vehicle that could legitimately replace a gas-powered car in your driveway. This really could be a one-car solution to the EV issue. Often when reviewing and testing EVs we ask ourselves if we could own the one we are driving, and usually the answer is “yes, but we would need to keep a gas car for trips, especially in Texas.” Not so in the Lucid Air Grand Touring.
Being a one-car solution would also help justify the price for some. At $140,500 as tested, this is not the most affordable car on the road, but it does make up for that with its luxurious interior appointments.
Moving inside, the driver and front passenger get black full-grain Nappa leather seats that are 20-way adjustable, heated, and ventilated, with massage. Rear seat passengers get camel-colored leather seats with 5-zone heat and legroom that would make a limousine blush. The driver has a full array of screens behind the wheel to access critical information or adjust the infotainment for the cabin. It is the most cohesive use of screens we have seen since testing the Cadillac Escalade, and I really appreciate the tapering design versus the look of a glued-on iPad many manufacturers are leaning into.
The build quality of this Lucid was also impeccable. Teslas are known for their inconsistent build quality and large panel gaps on some of their vehicles. This Lucid Air had none of that. It was as much a modern luxury vehicle as anything we have tested from Mercedes-Benz.
Sadly, I only had a few minutes with this one to capture what I could and I desperately want more time behind the wheel. Hopefully, there will be more to come from us and Lucid in the future.
2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring Specs:
- Adaptive Front Lighting
- Automatic Headlights with Daytime LED Signature
- Future-ready Hardware for Semi-autonomous Driving
- Blind Spot Monitoring with Blind-spot Display
- Automatic Park In & Out
- Park Distance Warning
- Surround View Monitor
- Driver Monitoring System with Distracted Driver Alert and Drowsy Driver Alert
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#GTGarageTalk #Lucid #LucidAir #LucidAirGrandTouring #EV #ElectricVehicle #TeslaKiller #LuxuryCar #CarReview #NewCar #TXAutowriters
