jbawden
Seasoned Member
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 $$, weight penalty, degraded driving dynamics, and reduced rear footwell space made the higher trims undesirable.
The number 1 (ok 2 after being fun to drive) reason Lucid was so compelling is the efficiency of the entire powertrain and the resulting range. The efficiency includes the time to charge and how many miles each kWh of charge will take you and the Air is the best in the world right now. That isn't as fun as internal organ deforming torque and 0-60 metrics, but the added range extends your travel window away from your base making the car more practical.
I know the lease v. buy discussion is polarizing, but Lucid is playing games with really (artificially) high residuals and if you have great credit the money factor makes leasing even more compelling. We generally don't do long loans on cars or lease, but the opportunity costs and risk of allocating significant capital in a volatile EV market is too much for me. I'd rather know my costs by leasing the latest technology vs not knowing how bad and how fast the losses will be as an outright owner.
The software can be a little wobbly. Not talking about side of the road issues, rather small stuff like timely door unlocking, audio system crashes, seat memory issues, stuff like that. On the surface it's all "first world problems" to be sure, but the cumulative affects can get annoying over time. I believe the '25 models have more robust hardware that is supposed to reduce these annoyances.
Quantum gray, 20" wheels (aero covers removed), Santa Cruz interior.
It's a sublime grand touring car and has the nicest ride of any car I've ever driven. The different drive modes change the suspension settings (similar to mag ride) and unlocks more power, so it does have different personalities as needed. For us, the added $$, 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.
