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Picture: Out of Spec Evaluations on YouTube / autoevolution edit
The 2025 Lucid Air Grand Touring (GT) is a really promising all-electric car. The specs alone are sufficient to persuade a well-off new automobile shopper to cease taking a look at what different manufacturers are promoting. The one two downsides are that it’s (very) costly and it’s a sedan. However in case you have sufficient cash to spend and do not care about crossovers, SUVs, and pickup vehicles, here is what this luxobarge may do on your mobility wants. Trace: you may be impressed.
Spec-wise, this EV has a 118-kWh battery constructed on a 920+ V structure, which permits it to cost very quick and take full benefit of 350+ kW DC pedestals. It additionally helps that it has an honest charging curve (i.e., holding a excessive charging velocity for so long as potential).
Weighing roughly 5,200 lb (2,359 kg), the 819-hp Air GT ought to, per the EPA, be capable to cowl round 512 miles (824 kilometers) on a full battery. These are very particular numbers, vary anxiety-canceling numbers! However, once more, you are paying high greenback for this type of efficiency.
Nevertheless, we should not blindly belief what automakers and regulators inform us. It is higher to have a look at real-world verifications confirming sure entities’ information.
Picture: Lucid
The Out of Spec workforce acquired a Lucid Air GT with round 2,000 miles on the clock from the Newark-based Saudi-controlled automaker and took it on a 70-mph freeway vary take a look at in Colorado. Earlier than this, the EV was pushed from California to Colorado with simply two DC charging stops! So, the end result of this vary take a look at must be juicy!
An exhausting day
Since most People spend various time on this kind of highway, the velocity is sensible. The EPA is not solely conducting its vary checks in a lab, however it additionally limits the typical velocity to 60 mph. That is why these vary checks are necessary for customers. They supply everybody with effectivity figures that make sense and should not exaggerated or inadequate.
The driving force made certain that the tire pressures have been appropriate and set the A/C to 70 F (21.1 C) just for the motive force and entrance passenger. The skin temperature was 92 F (33.3 C). The eight-hour journey revealed the next necessary vary thresholds:
from 100 to 75 p.c state of cost, the EV drove 122 miles (196 kilometers);
from 100 to 50 p.c state of cost, the EV drove 252 miles (406 kilometers);
from 100 to 25 p.c state of cost, the EV drove 364 miles (586 kilometers);
from 100 to zero p.c state of cost, the EV drove 482 miles (776 kilometers).
Nevertheless, the motive force continued the journey at round 70 mph even after the warning a few critically low battery appeared on the instrument cluster.
Picture: Out of Spec Evaluations on YouTube
After 27 miles (43 kilometers) of additional freeway driving, the EV displayed the “turtle warning,” which knowledgeable the motive force that the acceleration was restricted. It did not matter, although. The driving force continued at a GPS-measured velocity of 70 mph.
In the long run, the Lucid Air GT gave all it had and managed to drive 513 miles (826 kilometers) earlier than shedding sufficient energy to turn into unsafe to drive on highways. After practically an eight-hour drive, the person stopped on the facet of the highway and waited for a Tesla Cybertruck to tow him to a DC charger.
Nevertheless, they stored shifting at round 20 mph to a safer location, which added one other 1.7 miles to the odometer.
In all probability one of the best EV on the earth
The up to date Air Grand Touring has formally killed vary anxiousness. It has proved that an EV could be as reliable on longer journeys as a really environment friendly gas-powered equal or a diesel-munching journey. This sedan is an expensive road-tripping machine that proves nice engineering and aerodynamics matter greater than cost-cutting and tricking folks into believing their automobiles may turn into revenue-generating robotaxis.
Picture: Lucid
The one challenge right here is that the majority People and Canadians are nonetheless reticent to the concept of by no means visiting a gasoline station once more. Hybrid recognition is rising, although an EV just like the Lucid Air may act as a generator or a transportable energy financial institution for different EVs.
In the end, whereas the Lucid Air Grand Touring proved itself in a real-world and arduous unbiased freeway vary take a look at, my solely want is to see this nice drivetrain trickle right down to autos that price half as a lot. People (and nearly everyone else) deserve EVs that may go the space. Trim the battery, halve the ability output, shrink the wheelbase, drop a few of the nicer cabin supplies, and that ought to create a mini-Air that extra individuals are in a position to purchase.
Till Lucid figures out learn how to create a a lot better Tesla Mannequin 3, we’ve got the used automobile market to be glad about. That is the place related superb rides could be purchased at an enormous low cost.
