Yahoo Autos 2024 Lucid Air Mega Road Test: We drive 'em all, but cheapest Pure steals the show
NEWARK, Calif. – All four versions of the 2024 Lucid Air are before me, from the entry-level Pure to the ballistic-missile-like Sapphire. I’m to drive all of them in a single day on some of the Bay Area’s most beautiful mountain roads. No city stop-and-go or highway cruising involved. Nope, Lucid wants to show off the dynamics of its Air lineup on roads that seem best suited to Porsches, BMW M cars and others of that ilk. The Air is no two-door sports car on the outside, but it becomes clear in a hurry that every single version of this electric, luxury sports sedan belongs in this arena.
Of course, it makes sense that the Air performs well on the roads engineers validated their work on – I’m starting out only a short 20-mile drive from the company’s Newark, Calif. headquarters. While visiting Lucid’s headquarters the previous night, CEO Peter Rawlinson endlessly nerded out about how and why Lucid’s electric powertrain tech contributes to the Air being such an efficient and powerful EV. It’s impossible not to come away impressed at what Lucid has engineered to put its cars in motion, further validated by a car company as prestigious as Aston Martin signing a deal to use Lucid’s electric motors and battery systems in the future. And in case you didn’t realize, Formula E uses Lucid battery and motor technology in its latest generation race cars today. You know what they say: Win on Sunday, sell on Monday … and now that I’ve tried out the road car wares, there’s a good reason why a company like Aston or a racing series like Formula E have taken notice.
Lucid Air Sapphire
The Sapphire is silent violence. It’s also what the Tesla Model S Plaid wishes it was. Both the Lucid and Tesla boast 0-60 times under 2 seconds, but there’s a $160,000 gulf between their starting prices. Only when you’ve driven them both do you understand why the price difference is so stark. Lucid’s Sapphire is a complete, high-performance luxury car from stem to stern, while the Plaid feels like a half-hearted muscle car; a one-trick pony from yesteryear.
To put things into perspective for the gasoline-driven gearheads among us, the Sapphire is to the Air lineup what the M5 Competition is to the 5 Series range. It’s the whole enchilada. Most of its suspension is different than that of other Air models, and it results in a car with a chassis that can handle its copious amounts of power. Which, by the way, is 1,234 horsepower. Sort of. Rawlinson said that’s a completely made-up number (because 1-2-3-4 sounded cool) and that the actual figure is a good bit higher. I don’t doubt that whatsoever after driving it.
The Sapphire’s chassis is impossible to fluster on a winding road. It darts around corners with such effortlessness that you’ll wonder how such a big, heavy EV manages it. Wider (and staggered) Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires designed specifically for the Sapphire sit at all four corners, giving it immense amounts of grip. Its carbon ceramic brakes squeal away each time I lay back into them after applying a quick dash of throttle. It slows down in a hurry without any drama or notable dive. Meanwhile, a Plaid’s suspension is so unfit for the car that the tires will literally scrub against the wheel wells should you build up enough Gs. The brakes are a joke for how quickly it can accelerate, and while its low center of gravity helps, you can tell its underpinnings are not up to the task of an intense mountain road, let alone track work.
The Sapphire’s interior completes the performance package, too, as it’s fitted with tremendously comfortable and supportive sport buckets that keep you stuck in while exercising the car’s insanely high capabilities. I’ve hardly said anything about the Sapphire’s acceleration so far, and that’s because somehow, it’s the least important aspect of what makes this car so special. Yes, it’ll leave anyone in awe of how quick it gets up to extralegal speeds, but after driving it around for an hour, I was already coming to terms with and getting accustomed to the shove. EVs are quick, but that single party trick is easy to tire of. Thankfully for the Sapphire, you’re going to have a rollicking good time all the time, no launch control necessary.
Lucid Air Grand Touring
Dropping down to the next-most-powerful Air in the lineup brings me to the Grand Touring, a four-door sedan touting 819 ponies from a dual-motor powertrain. It’s still violently quick when you lay into the throttle, but the Grand Touring doesn’t take performance quite as seriously as the Sapphire does. That said, to follow through on the Model S Plaid comparison, the Grand Touring is still a far more dynamic package in every way.
Instead of going max attack, though, I dial it back to take in the Air’s pretty but simple interior. The funkily shaped screens sprawling across the dash may look dominating in photos, but it’s more restrained compared to Mercedes’ Hyperscreen and the proliferation of passenger-side screens. There are blissfully still hard buttons to adjust items like temperature control, media volume and track seeking. However, neither the central scroll wheel nor the steering wheel toggle for volume control are great to use, forcing you to spend way too much time scrolling to get any kind of noticeable volume adjustment.
