The Lucid Air pulled off the inconceivable when it took dwelling MotorTrend‘s 2022 Automotive of the 12 months honor. A fledgling firm capturing for the moon with its first manufacturing car constructed a automobile that was extra spectacular than something fielded by a dozen automakers with centuries of expertise behind them. Think about the chances.
As monumental as that accomplishment is, although, designing and engineering an important car shouldn’t be the toughest a part of making vehicles. The actual problem is constructing 1,000 after which 10,000 after which 100,000 examples of that automobile, with the standard and reliability that trendy automobile patrons count on all whereas making sufficient cash to remain in enterprise. Lucid Motors is working by way of that crux proper now, having delivered roughly 4,500 vehicles and striving to ramp up manufacturing as shortly as executives, traders, prospects, and even the MotorTrend workers would love. You see, we have been ready for an prolonged take a look at of an Air together with hundreds of would-be patrons ever since Lucid claimed the Golden Calipers trophy in late 2021.
In November 2022, the California startup lastly got here by way of with a 2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring Efficiency for a 12-month long-term take a look at. We’re now on our method to piling on not less than 20,000 miles in an accelerated model of the real-life take a look at taking place in hundreds of homeowners’ driveways. Can Lucid’s brainy engineering nonetheless impress us after the novelty has worn off? Does the Air have the sturdiness to thrive within the face of relentless, unapologetic onerous use by the hands of our drivers? Will we nonetheless find it irresistible when America’s pathetic EV charging infrastructure inevitably lets us down as our youngsters throw tantrums within the again seat? We’re about to search out out.
Introducing the MotorTrend Lucid Air
The Air Grand Touring is available in two specs: the usual Grand Touring and the sportier Grand Touring Efficiency. Each are stupendously fast and lavishly appointed with bladder-busting vary and a severely heavy worth, however we opted for the quicker, extra highly effective Efficiency mannequin. The $180,650 sedan can stretch its 118.0-kWh battery to 446 miles (down from the GT’s 516 miles), in response to the EPA, or rocket to 60 mph in 2.7 seconds on a wave of 1,050 horsepower (0.3 second faster and 231 hp greater than the GT).
The one choices on the Grand Touring Efficiency are paint and inside colours, with our long-termer sporting Zenith pink over a good-looking black-and-saddle inside Lucid calls Tahoe. Each GTP features a full glass roof that seamlessly spills into the windshield, a four-screen cockpit, the DreamDrive Professional driver help system, and summer time tires mounted on 21-inch wheels, as proven within the footage right here. Since our Lucid is at the moment residing in Michigan, we have finished most of our 3,500 miles so far on a set of 19-inch Lucid wheels with Pirelli Winter Sottozero 3 Elect LM1 winter tires.
Getting Set Up
It is attainable to hop into the Air with the important thing fob in your pocket, faucet the column shifter into drive and sail off into the sundown, however the full Lucid expertise requires organising the automobile much like the way you configure a brand new cellphone. In different phrases, there’s a variety of logging in.
It begins with a Lucid account that is used as the first login for the automobile and the cellphone app. If you wish to use the Air’s Alexa-powered voice instructions, you additionally have to register to an Amazon account after which comply with add your contacts and your textual content messages to Amazon’s servers to activate the total performance. I’ve accepted these phrases—reluctantly—within the curiosity of science. If Amazon begins emailing my spouse birthday present concepts based mostly on texts with my friends, I am going to let you understand.
AM and FM radio reception is awful within the Air, and there isn’t any Apple CarPlay or Android Auto integration, so it feels essential to have an account with not less than one of many built-in audio streaming companies. At the moment, that is Spotify, TuneIn, Tidal, Pocket Casts, and SiriusXM, which was just lately added through over-the-air replace. That final one shouldn’t be satellite tv for pc radio as you at the moment understand it, however one other internet-based service. It is at the moment supplied freed from cost to all Lucid homeowners as an unfinished beta program, however the firm says it’ll roll out a finalized subscription model in 2023. Earlier than that occurs, we’re hoping programmers can repair the lengthy, awkward pause that happens each time you turn stations.
You’ll, after all, need to pair a cellphone for making calls and streaming audio over Bluetooth, and there is a second, easy-enough process to program a cellphone as a key for accessing and beginning the automobile for those who want to not use Lucid’s modern key fob or RFID entry card.
Along with the first account, you may also create as much as 4 extra profiles through the automobile’s infotainment system that may save seat, mirror, and steering-wheel positions, radio presets, and navigation locations. These profiles work greatest for those who program them to robotically load because the car detects a particular key approaching. When you depend on the facial recognition system or manually choose a profile, it might take so long as 20 seconds—equal to at least one eternity if you’re in a rush—to load the brand new settings, which may solely be finished when the automobile is in park.
Most Lucid prospects are ushered by way of these setup duties after they take supply of the automobile, making it a painless one-time course of they will quickly overlook about. However even as soon as the automobile’s settings are dialed in, Lucid’s interface is totally different sufficient that even two months in, I nonetheless really feel like I am working my approach up the training curve. The important thing fob, for instance, contains a single button that controls 4 totally different features (lock, unlock, open trunk, open frunk). Each time I take advantage of it, I’ve to cease and consciously consider what I need to do and the proper sequence of presses earlier than I hit something.
It is a Automotive, Too!
The identical candy driving dynamics that wooed the editors throughout our 2022 Automotive of the 12 months testing proceed to depart us blabbering like nerds. For instance, the Lucid Air’s dynamics are so dialed in, the automobile transforms from a luxurious cruiser to a sport sedan based mostly solely on the way you drive.
Michigan roads throughout freeze-thaw season have extra craters than the moon, however the low and lithe Air skates over the pavement as if it is brand-new Arizona blacktop. Pushed shortly, the 5,264-pound sedan traces arcs so clean, you could possibly solely redraw them with a French curve. The long-travel accelerator pedal all the time has extra to offer, but the chassis is so balanced and poised that 1,050 horsepower by no means feels extreme or reckless. It is excellent.
The Air’s means to do all of it and be something and every little thing makes it seem to be you are driving on some form of electro-hydro-pneumatic suspension wizardry, however nope, simply metal coil springs and unextraordinary adaptive dampers, superbly tuned. If something concerning the Lucid Air grows tiresome or will get on our nerves within the subsequent 10 months, we’re guessing it will not be the way in which this automobile drives.
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