EV Thoughts Thread: cause the old farts did their usual thing

[jbawden]

It's too bad for all the threats to ICE, green washing, and political mandates surrounding EV's because they are an interesting transportation option for the right use case (like being able to charge at work). My wife is almost a year in on a Air Pure RWD. Her prior car was a model 3 performance and the Lucid is on a different playing field all together. The Air is a big car and it's no E39, but it does remind me of my old Chevy SS in terms of overall performance (which are two of the cars the Air was benchmarked against). It's the ICE enthusiast EV if there ever was one.

It's a sublime grand touring car and has the nicest ride of any car I've ever driven. The different drive modes change the suspension settings (similar to mag ride) and unlocks more power, so it does have different personalities as needed. For us, the added $$, weight penalty, degraded driving dynamics, and reduced rear footwell space made the higher trims undesirable.

The number 1 (ok 2 after being fun to drive) reason Lucid was so compelling is the efficiency of the entire powertrain and the resulting range. The efficiency includes the time to charge and how many miles each kWh of charge will take you and the Air is the best in the world right now. That isn't as fun as internal organ deforming torque and 0-60 metrics, but the added range extends your travel window away from your base making the car more practical.

I know the lease v. buy discussion is polarizing, but Lucid is playing games with really (artificially) high residuals and if you have great credit the money factor makes leasing even more compelling. We generally don't do long loans on cars or lease, but the opportunity costs and risk of allocating significant capital in a volatile EV market is too much for me. I'd rather know my costs by leasing the latest technology vs not knowing how bad and how fast the losses will be as an outright owner.

The software can be a little wobbly. Not talking about side of the road issues, rather small stuff like timely door unlocking, audio system crashes, seat memory issues, stuff like that. On the surface it's all "first world problems" to be sure, but the cumulative affects can get annoying over time. I believe the '25 models have more robust hardware that is supposed to reduce these annoyances.

Quantum gray, 20" wheels (aero covers removed), Santa Cruz interior.

 

[Berserker]

My wife is almost a year in on a Air Pure RWD. Quantum gray, 20" wheels (aero covers removed), Santa Cruz interior.

Santa Cruz is what I want. I really like that interior. The one they have in inventory is Pure RWD with Santa Cruz in Zenith Red w/ Stealth. Has the 19s, which I prefer, and I would probably remove the aero covers as well.

Only option package is Comfort and Convenience, which appears to be mandatory at the moment and which I probably would have opted for anyway if it were not.

For us, the added $$, weight penalty, degraded driving dynamics, and reduced rear footwell space made the higher trims undesirable.

Yeah, I didn't initially know the Touring was so much heavier, but when I drove the Pure after the Touring I could actually feel it.

The Pure had more-than-ample power and torque for me. And the way it is delivered is sweeet.

It's a sublime grand touring car and has the nicest ride of any car I've ever driven.

Yeah, it felt like it rode better than my 4BW in its softest mode. Very nice.

but Lucid is playing games with really (artificially) high residuals and if you have great credit the money factor makes leasing even more compelling. We generally don't do long loans on cars or lease, but the opportunity costs and risk of allocating significant capital in a volatile EV market is too much for me

Yeah, the whole process is a little weird.

Appreciate the first hand report!

 

[jbawden]

I think 19's look too small on the car, the offset is all wrong. 20's are the goldilocks option

Not sure if you have seen the SC interior in person, but the front and rear seats are different colors and some find that off putting. The big thing is the carpets are off white which are not for the faint of heart! You must scotch guard the carpet and mats on day one otherwise you'll be in for a world of pain trying to keep them clean. Even the OEM winter mats are a PITA (I am a 1%er when it comes to keeping things clean, "normal" people have an easier time). Otherwise the upgraded Nappa leather is awesome.

 

[Berserker]

I think 19's look too small on the car, the offset is all wrong. 20's are the goldilocks option

I've never been much hung up on wheel size. I downsized the 19s on my old WRX STI to 18s for comfort.

Not sure if you have seen the SC interior in person, but the front and rear seats are different colors and some find that off putting. The big thing is the carpets are off white which are not for the faint of heart

Thank you for pointing that out. Yeah, I have seen it - which is why I want it. The showroom had two cars in it. One had the Santa Cruz interior; the other had the Zenith Red exterior.

The front/rear thing is not to my personal taste, but I still like the materials you see up front with Santa Cruz. And, yeah, I was planning on the OEM winter mats but wondering about the carpet on the sides above them. Scotch Guard Day 1 it would be.

If I did a Touring I would also consider the Tahoe interior.

 

[BimmerFan]

I watched that Jason Camissa video again yesterday, and I generally trust his (and you guys') judgement, so I thought, hey, it may be worth a shot.

No Lucid dealer near me. The closest, in Charlotte, it turns out is just a mobile repair guy, so either I go to D.C. or Miami. Yeah, D.C. is closer (5 hours) but I haven't been to Miami in a long while, and the wife likes the warmer weather...

Still, it's nice to see some alternatives to Tesla. I've driven several BMW EVs, and they are BMWs first, EV second which is great from the driving performance perspective, but not so great from the service and reliability point of view.

 

[Berserker]

No Lucid dealer near me. The closest, in Charlotte, it turns out is just a mobile repair guy, so either I go to D.C. or Miami. Yeah, D.C. is closer (5 hours) but I haven't been to Miami in a long while, and the wife likes the warmer weather...

Now there's something I had not thought enough about.

I've been playing with an idea of a move from Houston to Albuquerque. Nearest service center to ABQ is 429 miles away in Phoenix.

Move would be 2.5 years down the road, at the earliest. So that's not necessarily a deal-breaker. Definitely another point in favor of leasing, though.

 

[Finally-a-V]

Nearest service center to ABQ is 429 miles away in Phoenix.

PHX is really nice this time of year

 

[Berserker]

PHX is really nice this time of year

I'll make sure my car only breaks down during Winter.


Status on this, for the curious:

I got an estimate for installing a 240V 50A NEMA 14-50 outlet (dryer outlet) in my garage. That outlet would let me charge at up to 40 amps continuously, which I estimate is about 30 miles of range per hour (estimate assumes 90% charging efficiency). That is sufficient for my needs, and the combined cost of the outlet and charger is probably less than half that of an 80 amp wall charger install.

I have to decide by tomorrow to get the deal that was offered to me, but that's too soon for me. There are some seating options I need to check out more closely, and other decisions to make - including whether to do this thing at all.

And if do decide to do it, I'm still undecided about Pure (430 hp RWD) vs Touring (620 hp AWD). The Touring base price is $9k higher, but there are currently $5.5k more incentives from Lucid against it, which brings the price difference down to $3.5k.

Those incentives are only good through tomorrow, though. A new set of incentives will go into effect in March.

 

[BimmerFan]

I'll make sure my car only breaks down during Winter.


Status on this, for the curious:

I got an estimate for installing a 240V 50A NEMA 14-50 outlet (dryer outlet) in my garage. That outlet would let me charge at up to 40 amps continuously, which I estimate is about 30 miles of range per hour (estimate assumes 90% charging efficiency). That is sufficient for my needs, and the combined cost of the outlet and charger is probably less than half that of an 80 amp wall charger install.

I have to decide by tomorrow to get the deal that was offered to me, but that's too soon for me. There are some seating options I need to check out more closely, and other decisions to make - including whether to do this thing at all.

And if do decide to do it, I'm still undecided about Pure (430 hp RWD) vs Touring (620 hp AWD). The Touring base price is $9k higher, but there are currently $5.5k more incentives from Lucid against it, which brings the price difference down to $3.5k.

Those incentives are only good through tomorrow, though. A new set of incentives will go into effect in March.

No pressure! LOL

 

[CBH]

I had the same electrical outlet added for my 11KW charger. It'll easily charge 100 KWH reserve overnight. My was as easy as possible though. Power comes to the house from the outside wall of the garage where I needed the charger. Installation was around $1,000 (plus price of the charger).

I had no idea how much juice these chargers really need. For perspective, that new 50amp outlet is the same size as the outlet that powers the entire rest of my house (minus HVAC, oven and pool pump) !!

 

[bloominguez]

IF you're charging at home, and presumably have a lot of time to charge (overnight, for instance)...
AND IF it's generally easier on the batteries to charge more slowly, rather than as fast as possible like you need to do on a road trip...
AND IF the 240 V, 50 A outlet is much cheaper...
THEN why bother with the 80 A wall charger?

I don't own an EV yet, but I know what I'd do in this situation! I'd also set my EV to charge at non-peak hours, and look at rate structures that have a discount for non-peak consumption (not all residential services do) if I was doing a lot of charging.

 

[jbawden]

If you already have a plug that is one thing, but its strongly recommend to hardwire your charger. I added a 60A circuit and hardwired the Lucid charger. Per electrical standards, a 60A circuit allows for charging at 48A and is usually 4-6 hours to go from low SoC to 80%.

Even with scheduled charging (starts at 12:30am) the cost of electricity in CA makes home charging an expensive endeavor. 90% of our charging is at wife's work. It's glory days to operate an EV right now, its never going to be this cheap in the future.

 

[quikag]

I'll make sure my car only breaks down during Winter.


Status on this, for the curious:

I got an estimate for installing a 240V 50A NEMA 14-50 outlet (dryer outlet) in my garage. That outlet would let me charge at up to 40 amps continuously, which I estimate is about 30 miles of range per hour (estimate assumes 90% charging efficiency). That is sufficient for my needs, and the combined cost of the outlet and charger is probably less than half that of an 80 amp wall charger install.

I have to decide by tomorrow to get the deal that was offered to me, but that's too soon for me. There are some seating options I need to check out more closely, and other decisions to make - including whether to do this thing at all.

And if do decide to do it, I'm still undecided about Pure (430 hp RWD) vs Touring (620 hp AWD). The Touring base price is $9k higher, but there are currently $5.5k more incentives from Lucid against it, which brings the price difference down to $3.5k.

Those incentives are only good through tomorrow, though. A new set of incentives will go into effect in March.

I have the 14-50 and a 40amp charger and it works flawlessly for our Model Y and Model S Plaid EV beaters. Easily charges overnight and install cost is relatively cheap. It was actually less than $200 brand new (on some crazy amazon discount) Woshion Chinese EV charger. I bought a Tesla Universal 48 amp Charger figuring this Woshion would crap out eventually, but the Tesla charger is still sitting in the box because this cheapo charger has worked perfectly for the past 2 years with zero issues. Good quality too honestly with a 25' heavy duty cord, etc.

I'm sure the Pure may feel a little better in the handling/ponderous feeling department versus the Touring, but a $3,500 price difference for an AWD set-up with 190 more horsepower honestly seems like a no brainer to me. A big part of the fun with EV's is effortless straight-line thrust, even moreso than handling. Because, even though the Lucid's handle better than most/all Tesla's and other EV's, it's still a heavy a** sedan, so it's not like you are going to be jamming it hard through corners all over town. You will however enjoy the extra 190hp and additional traction regularly.

I'd get the Touring if I were you.

 

[CBH]

$3,500 price difference for an AWD set-up with 190 more horsepower honestly seems like a no brainer to me.

Choice seems obvious.

However, it still looks like an awfully expensive gamble. They just lost billions - with a 'B' - for all of 2024, with total revenue of only $800M. The press releases ignore that huge figure, and tout their $6B of total liquidity, but its hard to see how that will last long enough...........

 

[quikag]

Choice seems obvious.

However, it still looks like an awfully expensive gamble. They just lost billions - with a 'B' - for all of 2024, with total revenue of only $800M. The press releases ignore that huge figure, and tout their $6B of total liquidity, but its hard to see how that will last long enough...........

It's not much of a gamble on a 2-3 year lease. Lucid isn't going anywhere anytime soon given their highly liquid benefactors. (PIF of Saudi Arabia, etc.)

The Gravity SUV might actually get them on the path to an eventual profit too if the vehicle is very well received and they can crank them out in higher volume. There's no doubt Lucid builds amazing EV's with arguably the most cutting edge technology (google the power density of their electric motors, it's crazy), they just need to get more models and volume up to become viable long-term.

 

[CBH]

Agree with the lease idea.

I guess its natural for the Saudi's to diversify away from oil. According to Google's AI answer, once EVs take over, about 2/3 of their revenue is gone.

 

[jbawden]

I think the turning point for Lucid will be what happened last week with Peter Rawlinson stepping away from his CEO position. He was a huge part of Tesla and all the parts of Lucid's innovative engineering and efficiency, but don't think his strength is scaling. I'm confident Lucid will be successful...OK maybe hopeful is a better word? Hopeful my shares at $2.25 average pay off!

 

[FLYARMY]

"IF" I were EVER to buy an EV. For luxury purposes, I would buy the Lucid. Lucid has further range than competitors. What a beautiful design compared to the Tesla's and other EV's. They spent some time on the styling and interior. Realistically, I would be buying the Chevy Silverado EV.
Until they can get a consistent 450-500 mile range and faster charging times.....I will take a hard pass.

 

[Berserker]

UPDATE

All the incentives that were in effect last month (for Pure and Touring) are still in effect for March. BUT: they tossed another $2,500 on the Pure, so the Pure vs Touring difference is back up to $6k.

The extra incentive lowers the cost of what I already wanted by about $65/month, and makes it easier to ignore the siren song of 600 hp and a mid 3-second 0-60.

I had the same electrical outlet added for my 11KW charger. It'll easily charge 100 KWH reserve overnight. My was as easy as possible though. Power comes to the house from the outside wall of the garage where I needed the charger. Installation was around $1,000 (plus price of the charger).

I'm in the same boat: panel is in the garage between my two parking spaces, so the outlet would be 1 foot away.

I got a $600 quote for the 14-50 from the people who did some panel work for me in the aftermath of Houston's post-hurricane power outage last summer. But I don't get a warm fuzzy off these folks, so I am going to contact the vendor that Lucid recommends for installs.

I have the 14-50 and a 40amp charger and it works flawlessly for our Model Y and Model S Plaid EV beaters.

Good to hear!

IF you're charging at home, and presumably have a lot of time to charge (overnight, for instance)...
AND IF it's generally easier on the batteries to charge more slowly, rather than as fast as possible like you need to do on a road trip...
AND IF the 240 V, 50 A outlet is much cheaper...
THEN why bother with the 80 A wall charger?

Exactly.

If you already have a plug that is one thing, but its strongly recommend to hardwire your charger.

The cost goes way up to do that. Lucid gives buyers a $650 credit towards "charging accessories", and $650 happens to be exactly what the portable 40-amp charger costs. The charger is "free", and portable - so I just unplug it and take it with me when I move. So my only cost is the outlet installation.

The 80A hard-wired charger would cost me another $550 out of pocket, plus install cost, plus removal cost when I move.

Even with scheduled charging (starts at 12:30am) the cost of electricity in CA makes home charging an expensive endeavor. 90% of our charging is at wife's work. It's glory days to operate an EV right now, its never going to be this cheap in the future.

Here in Houston Metro we just have a flat rate all the time. I would probably (eventually) schedule nighttime charging anyway to make it easier on the grid, especially during summer. I suspect at first I will have a hard time letting that thing charge unattended. I'll be sitting there watching it with a laser thermometer gun in my hand aimed at the outlet ...

 

[Berserker]

I'm sure the Pure may feel a little better in the handling/ponderous feeling department versus the Touring, but a $3,500 price difference for an AWD set-up with 190 more horsepower honestly seems like a no brainer to me. ...

I'd get the Touring if I were you.

Choice seems obvious.

Even at a $3.5k difference I was leaning towards the Pure. It has the longest range and felt the best to drive. And, if I'm honest, I didn't want my EV to be faster than my Blackwing, LOL.


I've found out that the Pure is not just a Touring minus one motor. Apparently Lucid took some suspension lessons they learned from the insane 1200 hp Sapphire and applied them to the Pure.

It's not much of a gamble on a 2-3 year lease.

Agree with the lease idea.

I've never leased a vehicle before. But I think "the company might not even exist in 5 years" is a solid justification for it.

I think the turning point for Lucid will be what happened last week with Peter Rawlinson stepping away from his CEO position.

Yeah, interesting week.

"IF" I were EVER to buy an EV. For luxury purposes, I would buy the Lucid. Lucid has further range than competitors. What a beautiful design compared to the Tesla's and other EV's. ... Until they can get a consistent 450-500 mile range and faster charging times.....I will take a hard pass.

Yeah, if this were intended to be my main transportation appliance I would totally feel the same way. And I think charging infrastructure is actually a bigger deal than range.

But this will be a 3rd vehicle for me; effectively a (very expensive) hobby.


I've scratched my sports car and 4x4 itches, and now it's EV time. EVs have fascinated me since before the tech was viable, and I don't want to keep sitting on the sidelines. I test drove some cheap ones a while back, but they felt too much like penalty boxes. Hard to make yourself drive basically an electric Versa when you have a Cadillac with MagneRide at home ...