Key Highlights – 2025 Lucid Air Grand Touring
⚡ Power: 819 hp dual motors, 0–60 mph in 3.0 sec
🔋 Range: Up to 512 miles (19” wheels) or 446 miles (21”)
💺 Luxury: Massage seats, glass roof, premium cabin
📐 Interior: Flat floor, 99 cu ft passenger space, 32 cu ft cargo
📱 Tech: 34” display, Pilot retractable screen, wireless CarPlay/Android Auto
💰 Price: Starts at $72,400 (Grand Touring $127,650 tested)
Launching a car company is a hugely difficult task. Over the nearly 140 years since Karl Benz drove out of his workshop, thousands of automakers have started and subsequently failed. Just in the past decade, numerous entrepreneurs have tried and mostly failed. One of three American startup automakers in the past two decades (the others being Tesla and Rivian) to get to some degree of volume production is Lucid Motors, and I recently had the opportunity to again spend some quality time with its first product, the Air sedan.
Lucid loaned me a 2025 Air Grand Touring during a recent trip to Northern California. The company and the car have a long and winding history. It began as a battery company called Atieva but pivoted to developing EVs after Peter Rawlinson joined as CTO in 2013. Rawlinson knew a thing or two about developing luxury electric sedans, having been chief engineer on the Tesla Model S before joining. But as so many others have learned, getting from a running prototype to delivery is enormously difficult. It took until late 2021 for Lucid to deliver the Air to its first customers.
Roomier Than Rivals
Nearly nine years ago, Rawlinson explained that efficiency was key in the design — packaging efficiency, powertrain efficiency, and aerodynamic efficiency. At 195.9 inches long, the Air is similar in size to a BMW i5, Genesis Electrified G80, or Model S. However, it's roomier than a Model S, which has only 94 cubic feet of passenger space compared to the Air's 99. The car’s completely flat floor is a welcome difference from the BMW and Genesis, which retain the center tunnel of their combustion variants.
The Air also has an enormous cargo capacity, more than many competitors. The Air's unique clamshell rear trunk lid wraps around the sides for easy access and stretches forward to the rear seat backs. Between the wheel wells, it'll hold four standard carry-ons on their sides plus at least two more mounted sideways behind. Under the floor is another compartment where the charging cable and other small items can be stashed. There’s a capacious front trunk that can absorb at least a couple more carry-ons or several bags of groceries. Altogether, there are 32 cubic feet of cargo space.
Minimalist Interior, With Just Enough Physical Controls
I’m a fan of the Lucid Air's clean, uncluttered design. My test car had the Stealth appearance package, which blacks out all the trim, giving it a sinister look. A full glass roof is available as an option.
The uncluttered design ethos extends to the cabin as well, although fortunately, Lucid hasn’t taken it too far. There's a 34-inch display across the top of the dashboard split into three sections — infotainment on the right, gauges in front of the driver, and auxiliary controls (lights, defrost, frunk release, etc) on the left. A unique element is the 12.5-inch Pilot screen, a retracting touchscreen that emerges from the center of the dashboard for most settings, trip information, expanded infotainment, and navigation displays.
Just above the Pilot screen are physical toggles for temperature and fan speed for each front passenger, with a volume roller in the center. All of this works well and is easy to operate without looking away from the road.
The seats have some basic adjustments on the side by the doors, but other adjustments, like bolsters, mirrors, and the steering wheel, have to be done from the pilot screen. I had to ask my wife to find those adjustments in the menus while I drove. After selecting what to adjust on the screen, the actual changes are executed through the steering wheel controls.
Much-Improved Tech, Still Some Quirks
The biggest change from my first driving experience with the Air three years ago has been the software. Back then, Lucid hadn’t yet implemented support for smartphone projection. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are now fully supported, although the experience isn’t perfect. The infotainment screen tapers down toward the right, so phone interfaces open in a rectangular window using only about 8 inches of the nominally 14-inch display.
The embedded infotainment interface works fairly well and is reasonably responsive. The only real complaint I had was some latency with the Android Auto functionality; tapping pause on the media player could take a couple of seconds to actually stop playback.
Among the many appreciated features in the Grand Touring trim are the massaging seats. After a 4.5-hour flight from Detroit to San Francisco, being able to work your back muscles during a nearly three-hour run through traffic to Calistoga was a blessing. I didn’t spend much time in the back seat on this trip, but I have ridden there previously, and there is plenty of leg and headroom for taller adults.
From Quick to Ridiculous
Powertrain performance has never been an issue for the Lucid Air. The Grand Touring has dual motors producing 819 horsepower, claimed to push it to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds, a time that feels completely plausible. If that’s not fast enough for you, the Air Sapphire gets a three-motor arrangement with 1,234 horsepower and a 0-60 time of 1.89 seconds. But virtually everyone should be more than satisfied with the base Air Pure that “gets by” with a single 430-hp motor, which still hits 60 mph in a very quick 4.5 seconds.
I was able to utilize the Air’s wonderful handling on the curving roads of the Russian River valley and Pacific coast. The car felt beautifully balanced and offered decent steering feel through the curves. The low-profile tires meant the ride quality wasn’t exactly plush, but neither was it bone-crushingly hard.
Impressive Range
The Grand Touring with 19-inch wheels has an EPA rating of 512 miles on a charge, while the 21-inch wheels on my test car drop that to a still very impressive 446 miles. After six days driving through Napa and Sonoma, the battery still showed about 37 percent charge when we stopped in San Francisco, including one overnight charge on a 120-volt outlet at the cottage we stayed at. It averaged 3.41 miles per kilowatt-hour over 368 miles. With a 117-kWh battery pack, that works out to 399 miles, which is pretty impressive with air conditioning running and about 40 percent of those miles on the highway.
Curious how other EVs compare on real-world range? Try our EV Comparison Tool
One of the Best Luxury Sedans, Overall
The Lucid Air is one of my favorite luxury cars to drive, providing intense performance, excellent ride quality, a lovely cabin environment for five people, and outstanding range. The Tesla Model S feels cheap inside by comparison and is much less comfortable on the road. As tested, it came to $127,650, including a $1,500 destination charge. The ultra-high-performance Sapphire is nearly double that at $249,000. However, the Air Pure can be had for a more reasonable $72,400. At that price, you’re getting one of the most appealing luxury sedans available, and it just happens to be electric.
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