Lucid entered the mainstream EV marketplace in a similar vein to Tesla, delivering an elegant luxury sedan to some fanfare. Now, it’s focusing on scale, by making its product more accessible to more people.
To pursue this goal, Lucid wants to address the two main hurdles it sees to EV ownership: price, and ease-of-ownership. The former is straightforward enough—fewer people can afford more expensive cars. However, Lucid stumbled a bit at first, offering cars that were way above its original envisioned asking price. The Lucid Air Grand Touring that Matt drove stickered for above $150,000.
As for the latter, it’s about making the day-to-day experience as frictionless as possible. That’s less challenging but also important. Lucid belives it has a way to address both issues.
Going forward, the Lucid Air will start at just $69,990 for the Pure RWD model. That’s the “originally envisioned” price the company had hoped to sell the car for, and a huge drop from the $77,400 quoted as recently as October 2023. Keep in mind that’s before taxes, title, destination, and other usual fees. For that money, you’re getting an EV capable of 410 miles of range, which Lucid notes is better than all other electric sedans on the market, bar its own.
Stepping up from there, you can score a Lucid Air Touring for $77,900, down from $85,900 previously. That gets you dual-motor all-wheel-drive for a total of 620 horsepower, a nice jump over the 430 horsepower of the Pure model. It’ll achieve a similar 411 miles on a single charge which should get you plenty far down the road between rest breaks. If you’re really flush, though, you can get yourself the Grand Touring for $109,900. You’ll go both fast and far, with 819 horsepower on tap and a Lucid-estimated range of over 500 miles. None of these models seem to be eligible for tax breaks, but Lucid pulled off an excellent price cut nonetheless.
Okay, so prices are down. But what about that whole “ease of ownership” thing? Well, it mostly comes down to charging. Lucid’s giving customers a $1,000 allowance for a home charging accessory so they can keep their car topped off at home. It’s also throwing in free servicing for the first two years or 24,000 miles. It’s not a huge expense for Lucid, as EV servicing is rarely pricy in the early years, but it’s a nice sweetener to help attract customers to the brand.
So how does this affect the marketplace? Well, the Lucid Air now starts off significantly cheaper compared to its most direct competitor, the Tesla Model S at $74,990. It’s also well under German rivals like the BMW i7, which starts at $105,700. The Polestar 2 is much cheaper at $49,900, but it’s not quite at the same level of power or luxury and delivers way less range.
Ultimately, it’s probably a wise move from Lucid. It’s made it through the first sticky years of production hell, and now it’s looking to scale its sales. Removing barriers for customers, in both price and convenience, is a great way to appeal to a broader base. If the move pays off, it will only help Lucid to continue to build and become a mightier automaker in the coming years.
Image credits: Lucid
“He’s secretly pleased that he has a way bigger coffee budget because his car payment was lower than expected”
Oh just WAIT till he figures out how much money he’s going to make renting out those wheels as industrial size food choppers.
People saying this car is amazing have only seen it in pictures. Owned one for 6 months now. I’ve never hated a car this much in my life. Just a tip of the iceberg, the 400+ miles of range is in the high 200s/low 300s in real life. I’ve gotten around 3.5 miles/kwh in Northern California (no massive heating/cooling needs). I’ve never had an EV/hybrid/plug in hybrid miss its EPA estimate like this car. So many software issues – not just bugs – horribly thought out software. And so many bad design decisions on everyday hardware. Plus manufacturing defects and horrible service. Run away from this car.
Damn that’s sad to hear. I find them very very pretty. But it sounds like that’s all there is to recommend them?
You realize that we’re now going to demand captions on every pic on this site… Fortunately AI can help with this:
a man standing next to a car with its door open and a door open to the side of it, Chris LaBrooy, promotional image, a computer rendering, panfuturism
a woman sitting in a car holding a steering wheel and looking at the camera with a smile on her face, Ai-Mitsu, promotional image, a stock photo, les automatistes
When they start offering a car that gets 963 miles per charge and sell it for under 20k, I’ll buy electric. I drive over 240 miles a day to work, uphill, with head wind, both ways. Only have to fill up my suburban twice per drive to work.
I can’t help but ask if you walked uphill in the snow both ways to school when you were a kid? Ha ha
I really do not understand why Lucid isn’t moving more of these cars – they are great cars and they have compelling leases on them. I would probably be driving one now if there was a high speed EA charger closer to my house (my partner pays the electric bill… which is negative due to the solar panels.. I hope to add more panels when the SRECs expire in a couple of years – too complicated to add panels after the incentive is locked in… then we will get PHEVs) Lucid is offering 3 years of free EA charging.
@author – keep up the mad-libs style captions on press photos. Best part of this article for sure!
Agreed. More of this!
The Lucid is actually really interesting looking in real-life. I’ve seen 2 or 3 since they came out, and every time I’m struck by how wide it looks. I’d be game for something like this if I could afford it, but even at these prices it’s not there yet. I’m also interested in the polestar 2, but they cocked up the interior design and it’s gotta be one of the worst-packaged EVs out there – it is SO small inside, and the lack of 2 cupholders in front is just insane. Regardless of my complaints, both of these companies really make me scratch my head if they will be around in a couple year’s time when my car actually needs service.
It’s a good looking car, they’ve done some neat optical illusion tricks with the proportions to make it look longer than it really is, just to give it the right presence
Lucid makes the best electric car on the market, it looks like a million bucks from the front, and it is a hideous mess from the back. Which is made all the worse by how FUCKING FANTASTIC it would look(and be) as a wagon
They could literally make the greatest car of all time and they refuse and give us this hideous mass instead! I don’t wish to besmirch this fine publication with vitriol, but sit on a pin, Lucid
Lucid (along with Rivian, Uber, Doordash, …) is stuck in that late startup phase where they have streamlined their product/service and can actually deliver consistently. Unfortunately they have discovered that they can’t make them for what the market will bear. If they cut the price they get scale but lose more money. If they don’t show growth, their stock will get hammered. Let’s hope they have a big enough nestegg stashed to get them to the next product that is cost-optimized.
The Saudi PIF has some $750 billion in it, I think they’ll be OK.
The money is there until the sheikhs decide to chase a new shiny toy.
I’d expect them to stick with Lucid; it’s as direct a hedge for their primary money making activities as can possibly be imagined.
Now LIV Golf…..good luck if that keeps underperforming.
Given the ownership, I’d hate to be the exec they decide to pin all the blame on.
yeah, all he could hope for is that they kill him first before they start sawing him to pieces
They’re also counting on Lucid technology to be what gets a serious domestic auto industry going in Saudi Arabia, at the very least they need Lucid to stick around for the R&D if nothing else
Their long range is mostly the result of having slightly better aerodynamic drag than the competition. These are not lightweight cars by any means…
I believe their motor technology is quite good also. But yeah, that thing is a heifer.
I know I could look it up, but I kinda have to get some work done today (I hate it when they make me work for a living..), is Lucid making money on their cars, or are they like Rivian and selling them for less than they make them for, until they run out of sucke.. I mean investor money?
I’m one of those suckers. I can’t afford their cars but I bought a few shares with some blow money, hopefully they pull things off long term.
“…some blow money…”
More like “Up In Smoke” AJAX money, amirite?
The value has definitely gone down since I bought them but it wasn’t any money that I wasn’t prepared to lose in the first place.
If you only bought a few shares, then you’re not the ‘investors’ I was talking about; was more about the big institutional investors (like the Saudis) who poured billions into Rivian, only to see it burn through billions each year as they lose about $30k/per car sold.
I’m not up to date with what their cash burn rate is nowadays, or how much they’re losing per car ($30k was from last year, or 2022).
It was more than a few but not even in the same orbit as the Saudis and other investors of that size. I’m gonna hold and see where it goes though. I know it takes a long time to rev up a new car manufacturer so maybe 20 years from now I’ll be bragging about what a good investment it was. Otherwise I’ll just be telling everyone what a mistake it was.
The depreciation on these is already insane, condolences to owners on losing another $8K of value today.
Thoughts and prayers.
If someone is buying one of these, which is crazy silly b/c it should only be a lease, it’s doubtful that they are all that concerned about residual value.
They couldn’t be all that concerned given the $50K+ discounts vs new after 1-2 years and <10K miles.
That’s exactly my point. People lease things like this b/c they can either partially write them off as business expenses, or they are keeping their money in whatever investments, making the payments from dividends/interest. No one that wants a Lucid wants a used Lucid that they are paying out of pocket or financing.
How is that level of depreciation any different from a BMW 7 or MB S Class?
I don’t claim to be an expert, but from what I can see 1 year old S classes with under 10,000 miles still seem to command ~$100K from a $120-130K sticker whereas the Lucids are more like $80K from the same starting point.
Both bad, but one worse.
If the rest of the luxury sedan market is any indication, savage depreciation is a “feature” not a flaw- Are these any worse than your average Maserati / 7 Series?
It’s called ‘disposable’ income for a reason- Everyone has some % of their take home they are theoretically comfortable lighting on fire every month. The act of visibly wasting money on something as expensive and valueless as a luxury sedan implies to society your gross income must be “very large” indeed.
Conspicuous consumption scales in value with audacity and absurdity.
Early adopters gonna early adopt, people don’t throw down money on the newest, sharpest thing because they’re frugal.
Like every Cybertruck owner.