“The future is stupid,” my buddy Dan says, laughing from the passenger seat, as I desperately try to get the electric Lucid Air Grand Touring just to move from where it’s stuck: next to an unmanned toll booth on the Ohio Turnpike, traffic collecting behind it, other drivers probably wondering why this idiot in the spaceship car won’t just drive past the open gate. The car is asking me, the idiot, for a PIN. I don’t have a PIN. I just have a key. What the hell? But I come here to praise the Lucid, not to bury it, because I’m actually impressed by this flummoxing car.
Everyone likes to pretend that electric cars are just like regular cars, but they really aren’t. This isn’t the difference between gasoline and diesel, manual and automatic, or wagon and sedan. This is the difference between tennis and pickleball. An electric car drives differently. You have to use it differently, especially over long distances. In many ways, an electric car is better than an internal combustion-powered car, but it’s not the same thing.
Because electric cars are different and new, pure-EV carmakers tend to produce electric cars that are better at being electric cars than similar vehicles from a traditional automaker. At the same time, EV-only automakers are great at making electric cars that perform well as electric cars, but make strange choices that render them less useful as actual cars.
Here’s where it would be helpful to provide an example.
A Tesla Model 3 is a great electric vehicle. It packs a lot of range and a good number of features into an attractive and usable package connected to a large charging network. In my mind, the Tesla Model 3 (or the Model Y) is probably the best electric car in the world. It’s also a good car, capable of doing most car things pretty well, but it’s not a great car. Build quality is questionable, I don’t like the screen interface, it doesn’t come with Apple CarPlay, steering feel is good but not great, and I don’t love the interior. You may not agree, but that’s how I feel.
The Porsche Taycan is a great car. One of the best cars you can buy. The steering feel is typically Porsche, the design is exceptional, the fit-and-finish is extremely high. At the same time, it is in no way the best electric car you can buy. A Taycan Performance Plus gets about 242 miles of range, compared to 315 miles for the Tesla Model 3 Performance AWD, which is also about $40,000 cheaper. The Taycan is a great car and an average EV.
You can play this game all day, but it’s a subjective game. I think the Polestar 2, for instance, is a good EV and a good car. The Kia EV6 GT is a good EV and a great car. The Mazda MX-30 is a good car and a terrible EV. Most cars are good-to-average EVs and good-to-average cars.
This is what I thought about when I asked for a Lucid Air to drive back and forth from New York to Chicago for the NASCAR race. Could this be both a great EV and a great car? Absolutely on the former, but the latter is way more complicated.
What Makes The Lucid Air A Great EV
Lucid is a California-based electric carmaker that’s clearly trying to follow in the footsteps of Tesla by offering an attractive, high performance luxury car to kickstart a larger brand play. It was co-founded by an ex-Tesla Motors VP and its CEO was the former chief engineer of the Tesla Model S. It is technically a public company, but it’s mostly owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which may or may not mean anything to you.
I’ve driven a ton of electric cars and, in terms of range and charging performance, the Lucid Air is right at the top. I put nearly 2,000 miles on one and, while I never approached the 469 miles of promised range, I consistently got close to 380-390 miles of range and returned a miles/kwh in the 3.2-3.6 range. The Lucid is stuck using the CCS public charging network so charging speeds are more limited by the charger than the vehicle itself, but I was still amused to watch it add hundreds of miles of range in the time it took me to go to Sheetz and grab a sandwich (Car and Driver put it head-to-head with a Tesla Model S and found it to be the fastest charging EV they’d tested).
Is it fast? Yeah it’s fast. The version I had is the dual motor and it manages to put down 819 horsepower to all wheels, giving it a 0-60 mph time of 3.0 seconds. Because its weight is located low in the battery pack it feels flat and secure, even around turns, though I’m not sure I’d call it agile. It’s not as planted as a Taycan, but think of this more as an AMG S-Class.
All of this in a car that looks like the future, can outrun almost every other car on the road, is quiet, and weighs 5,216 pounds. The technology is there. The efficiency is there. This isn’t just a car with a big battery, this is a slippery dream of an EV that delivers performance difficult for any regular gas-powered car to match.
The Lucid Air Looks The Business
The Lucid Air I borrowed was a Grand Touring with the Quantum Grey exterior, 21-inch Aero Blade Wheels, and Santa Cruz interior. The base price is $139,000, but toss in the DreamDrive Pro highway assist package ($10,000), the wheels ($2,000), and the Surreal Sound Pro system ($4,000), this thing stickers for $156,650 delivered.
That’s a lot of money. It’s probably worth it. Park it anywhere, open the capacious frunk and the weird rear hatch and just stand there and wait for people to gather. Young people. Old people. People in that weird middle area. In cities. In suburbs. At a fancy summer camp or a NASCAR race. It’s a fantastic design.
Low. Long. Wide. The greenhouse is tapered inward like Cinderella’s Castle, somehow making the Lucid Air look both larger and somehow sleeker than it is. The use of brightwork along the front lights, the pillars, mirrors, and lower trim somehow both screams future and 1930s Duisenberg luxury at the same time. Famed GM design boss Harley Earl would love the Lucid Air. There is no bad exterior angle of the car.
Inside, I’d argue it’s even better. The open pore wood, full grain Nappa leather, and discreet touches of bright metal combine to somehow capture the best elements of Swedish minimalism and midcentury modernism. With a giant glass opening covering the entire roof and plush, Rolls-Royce-like carpeting, it impresses everyone who sits inside of it. The whole car is a statement piece.
Most massage seats in cars are a joke, like sitting on Larry David’s lap and hoping to feel something as he flexes his muscles. The massage seats in the Lucid Air GT I had actually work, like sitting on Jean Claude Van Damme. You’re welcome for those very strange visuals.
I’m not a huge fan of screens in cars, but I appreciate the wide but narrow floating screen, which is great to look at. People complain that cars don’t often look as good as the concept but I’m not sure, even in concept form, what I’d do to improve the aesthetic. It may not be for everyone. It’s definitely for me. Or at least the idealized form of myself.
Actually Using The Car Is Slightly Frustrating
I’m not gonna lie. It took me a while to like this car. Many of the futuristic details made to make the Lucid feel worth the money also makes it, to my friend Dan’s point, kinda stupid.
The key is just one smooth, minimalistic piece with no hint as to how to use the buttons or even any kind of guide as to what actually button hidden underneath actually do. I eventually figured it out, but it never became natural. I’m sure at some point you get used it, but for $150,000 these details should just work.
Adjusting the mirrors? Congrats, you’re going to have to go into a sub menu on the center console panel. A panel that, while the car was in my possession, sometimes just stopped working. Do you want to turn on the windshield wipers? There’s a little stalk you can use to turn them off and on, but for real controls you have to use the little screen to the left of the steering wheel. This is a bad system and requires taking your eyes off the road. It looks nice, but it’s not great to use.
Cruise control involves using thumb controls along the centerline of the wheel. I actually like the texture of the thumb dials and they look cool, but they are, like much of the car, unintuitive. It has Apple CarPlay, via an over-the-air update, but it managed to wig out me more than once.
The PIN? This is my least favorite feature on almost any car.
So I’m on the Ohio Turnpike in the middle of who-knows-where and for some reason my EZpass isn’t working. No big deal, I’ll just lean out of the car and get a ticket. Because this is a very expensive car, I give myself a little extra room so I don’t thrash the wheels or fancy trim on the car. I’m too far away and lean out to grab the ticket.
I get back into my seat, buckle up, and the car just stops. It won’t move. Traffic begins to pile up behind me. My friend Dan, along for the ride, is also stuck, but after about 600 miles of all these little nuisances piling up he finds this deeply amusing. I’m not quite panicking, but I can see an employee of the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission ready to call the cops out of the corner of my eye.
The car keeps asking for the PIN. “Just put in the PIN,” my friend Dan offers, pretty clearly aware that I do not, in fact, have a PIN. No one gave me a PIN.
Now the Turnpike employee is walk-running towards the car, across traffic. I’m embarrassed, for the car, for myself, for the future. I take a deep breath and look and realize the car no longer detected the key, which was in my pocket when I leaned out of the car. I quickly grab the little black suppository in my hand and wave it, frantically, like a mystical totem in the hope that something will happen.
Right before the authorities reach me the car decides it recognizes the key and we book it out of Ohio. Just to make sure I’m crazy, I checked the Lucid Owners Forum and found this is not an uncommon problem.
This was my greatest annoyance with the car, certainly, but it’s not my only gripe. When covering long miles in a car, on-center feel is important. The ability of a car to track straight and keep the wheels pointed forward is more than just a nice-to-have. The on-center feel of the Lucid Air was below average and the car required constant adjustments.
None Of These Are Deal Breakers
There’s a bit of a Stockholm Syndrome that sets in after you spend enough time with a car and, after nearly 2,000 miles, I did come around to the Lucid Air Grand Touring.
It’s a huge bummer that most of the car companies I like seem to only be able to produce, on their best days, good electric cars. It’s nice to drive a great electric car that isn’t a Tesla and, frankly, it’s a plus that the car is yet another example of stellar American engineering.
If you’re a rich person with taste and access to an EV charger, it’s a great alternative to something like a Mercedes AMG or a Tesla Model S. It’s new. It’s different. It’s unusual. It’s a way to one-up your friend in the EQS at the country club, or whatever.
I think it’s possible for Lucid to make a car that isn’t occasionally so clumsy and, hopefully, solve some of its interface problems. If that doesn’t work out, I was quite pleased to hear that Lucid was going to be providing some of its EV technology to Aston Martin. Aston Martin is very capable of making a great car (and of taking Saudi money).
Honestly, just take this whole thing, shove a Lagonda badge on it, and I think you’ve got a winner.
Update: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly said Lucid was going over to the NACS standard. As of now, they are not.
I’ve put some miles on a lucid, S, Taycan, and EQS… the packaging on the lucid alone makes it an engineering marvel. The EQS doesn’t even let the owner open the hood (there is no frunk)… you’re locked out by the dealer. And from a range perspective you’ll be several counties past the competition when the battery finally dies. Frankly, even with the annoyances of a debut product from an upstart brand, Lucid is playing chess while the old guard (and even tesla) are playing checkers.
I get the impression from Matt’s writeup that he never explored the Taycan’s interior space and hasn’t actually driven an EQS. Neither comes close to the whole package that the Lucid brings (though the Taycan is hands down gorgeous).
I’ve put a lot of miles on all three, actually! I was one of the first people in the United States to get into an EQS. While I agree that on size/space/packaging the Lucid is better than the EQS by a large margin, I like the modern Porsche layout so I’m a big Taycan fan. Again, it’s not as good of an EV, but it’s a great car.
Locked out of hood?! That’s literally the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t even do anything to your own car? Wiper fluid?! What if there’s a fire and nobody can even get in there to put it out? What kind of world are we living in that this stupid shit is allowed to exist? Just listen to what you said, repeat it over and over…then ponder and really think about how extraordinarily stupid this sounds:
“Doesn’t even let the owner open the hood (there is no frunk)… you’re locked out by the dealer”
I really don’t care what anyone says:
This is not moving forward, this is going BACKWARDS!!!
If our government was actually functional they’d be outlawing stuff like this. Our roads and getting more and more dangerous as is and many municipalities are implementing ‘hands-free’ laws already, which are in direct conflict with having touchscreens for basic controls.
Yes!!!
In the eye of this beholder that thing is ugly. A neighbor must’ve gotten one of the first ones so I got a walk around quite a while ago.
I came away thinking it looked like what an 80s film about the 2000s would have for cars. And more specifically a Buick. Like RoboCop or Back to the Future needed a “futuristic luxury car.” Blech.
Wrap some sexy Aston body around that tech tho….
Eh, IDK. I see them in person and think they look great. Very sleek presence without the oddly bulbous vibe of something like the EV6
I’m not sure it’s fair to say the Mazda CX-30 is a bad EV considering it’s not an EV at all :-p
(I realize you meant MX-30)
I wouldn’t tolerate that behavior in ANY car, let alone one that cost 75% of what I paid for a house. My expectations for my vehicles are that they are ready to go at a moment’s notice, and that goes for the interior systems. I tend to react like the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket if there is a lag or delay or glitch. I guess I will stick to analog cars. No glovebox buttons for this guy.
This car actually cost MORE than my house!
My house is a piece of shit though.
Yes, well put!
This will be featured on Jay Leno’s garage in 2075 along with the Noble Steam car and Hudson Hornet.
If this brand is still around in 10 years I will personally eat the most disgusting thing ever..an Arbys sandwich, in front of all of you.
Please don’t eat Arby’s in front of us. No man should have to suffer such an indignity. And I’m talking about me, I don’t want to have to see someone eating Arby’s.
Fun Fact: The Richmond, Virginia area has a franchise owners group that makes Arby’s pretty awesome. You want a margarita and barbacoa? No problem. You want rotisserie chicken and sides you would actually eat? Great everywhere.
I get it, though. My brother brought a friend home from Denver and suggested Arby’s. Friend thought he was kidding until he had the experience.
I agree. Don’t see Lucid staying in the game. And these will be extremely difficult to support as they age without factory help. Anybody who wants one should lease until the market sorts out the winners and losers of ev.
Implying this will be a classic? Sacrilege
This & most new cars will be classic pieces of plastic electro burnt junk
Also, Arby’s is good!
But $156,000.00 for a car? I purchased a house in 2011 for $199,000.00 and I’m not done paying for it. Where is reality in this EV world?
News Flash: They don’t all cost $156,000.
The Ferrari 488 Pista starts at $330k, you could’ve bought a mansion for that. What is the reality in this gasoline world?
The Lucid Air is a 1%er luxury car, it’s not something that a recent college grad or a soccer mom is going to be shopping for, regardless of what fuel powers it.
If you want an EV for an affordable price, start looking in the $30k Tesla Model 3 RWD or the $19k Chevy Bolt EV side of the market. A new Toyota Prius or Honda Accord is $27k starting price for comparison.
where are you getting a mansion for 330k? rural Wyoming?
Exactly. Around here (Ontario) you can’t even get a teardown on a small lot for 330K.
“The key is just one smooth, minimalistic piece with no hint as to how to use the buttons or even any kind of guide as to what actually button hidden underneath actually do.”
I just bought a car from 2007. The key has two unmarked buttons on it. It tells you what these buttons are for in the manual, which is a paper book that was in the car. Those unmarked buttons were confusing for maybe 40 seconds. It also said where the key sensor was in the car and someone had pencilled in the alarm PIN on that page too
I’m pretty sure the Lucid doesn’t have a paper manual, but maybe they should give out the basics in a press booklet with the car.
Yes Matt, as you confirmed, you are crazy. But for other reasons, not about this car.
I despise poor on center feel, so I ask again, doesn’t your Forester suffer from that problem too? My mom’s one is just completely dead on center.
The Forester is also not great at on-center feel, but it’s better than the Lucid!
As someone who spent many happy hours at the wheel of a Forester, I don’t believe it is possible to have worse on-center feel.
It’s always nice when someone agrees with you. Thanks.
May I interest you in something in a Jeep perhaps?
And (highly unlikely) your forester cost +$150k.
Expectations should be just a wee bit higher for a +$150k product than a product selling for less than 1/3rd the price brand new
Oh, dear god. Worse than a Forester?
I’ve just lost ALL interest in the Lucid. Shame, too, as I expect to be looking to buy something like this in a couple years.
Fuck pickleball
There’s one, maybe two Lucids, in my area. They’re good looking cars, bigger and lower than I expected. The light bar on the front is much too bright though imo, it’s nearly blinding for anyone approaching.
A required element of all luxury cars being manufactured today is utterly blinding lighting.
Jason can cite the International Motor Vehicle Lighting Treaty sections for you if you need more details.
It seems GM is an adherent to that for everything they make and then dial it to 11 for the Escalade and even the badge-engineered crossovers. I cannot stand being anywhere around one. If one is behind me, I will change what I’m doing to try to make the driver go around me so I’m not being blinded from my mirrors despite dimming tech.
Yes those things are deal breakers, especially on a car that costs that much. They are all poor engineering choices/implemenations and if they did so poorly on those customer facing items then it makes me wonder about the poor engineering choices and implementations they made in the rest of the car.
Strange issues. I’ve had a Lucid for 8 months and never had it ask me for a pin code. That being said I always use my phone as a key so I wonder if it was the fob battery dying on you or something.
Also, the wiper on/off/auto is a single always visible button on the dash…I have no idea what could be difficult/confusing about this. I’ve left it on the auto setting since I got the car and it works just fine, but accessing & controlling the wipers is as basic as it gets.
I had a refreshed Tesla Model S before the Lucid and it had almost no physical buttons…almost all screen controls that drove me nuts. The Lucid has actually been much easier to use while driving as it has traditional stalks, HVAC buttons, volume controls, etc., which is what I find strange about the review.
Hey Gavram! I was hoping an owner would pop in here, and I love that you’ve owned both the newer Model S and the Lucid. Thank you for adding some insight.
The car is relatively new so I can’t imagine the battery is dying, but I do think that a regular owner using their phone probably isn’t having this issue. I hit some bad rainstorms and found the auto setting to be a little slow, but depending on where you are maybe it isn’t as big of an issue. What I don’t like is there’s no feedback, no tactile feel. Perhaps over time you get used to it, but if I’m on the highway and a huge rainstorm hits I don’t want to have to take my eyes off the road to adjust the wipers.
I do agree that the Lucid is more ergonomically useful than the Tesla Model S because of the increased number of controls, but the lag I had, some of the inability of screens to work when asked, were all super annoying for a $150,000 car. Like I said in my conclusion, none of these are dealbreakers, and I think a lot of what bothered me can be fixed with OTA updates as they work out some of the bugs. The powertrain is great and that’s the hard part.
My KIA Niro EV has a great wiper control stalk – seriously great. In fact I never have to take my hands off the wheel for any driver controls. The Future is here!!!!
That’s fair. The reason I mentioned the key fob battery is the last time I had mobile service out for a minor wheel issue they replaced the fob battery without my asking. Evidently the fobs chew through batteries faster than they should. As mentioned, I only use my phone key, & keep the card key in my wallet for valets, so can’t be sure if that was the cause for your issue but the pin is typically only requested if it can’t sense a key in the car or if using the valet function.
There’s definitely some new owner tips & tricks with a Lucid that you have to adapt to as a startup EV adopter due to them still perfecting the software stack. For instance, I was having trouble with my turn signal video view in the gauge cluster randomly not coming on after updates, my 360 view randomly taking too long to load, etc. I then learned to reboot the car after each update (easy to do) & all these gremlins went away & I haven’t had issues since. Seems like a hassle, but it’s 30 seconds every couple of months after a major update. That being said, shouldn’t have to do this on a higher $ car. I’ve been generally pleased with the software & haven’t found it to be an annoyance or too inconvenient, mostly because of the mix of physical buttons. I think some of the points you made about mirrors, etc. are fair but I think haven’t been top of mind for me as the only time I set up the mirrors was on delivery day 8 months ago 🙂
All of that being said, this is truly the best daily driver car I’ve owned to date, EV or otherwise. The ride & chassis tuning is a marvel, the power delivery is very smooth & linear (not to mention very fast), regen braking is perfect for single pedal driving, the interior quality is very good, the range is class leading, & it has enough of a unique feel with the extended windshield glass canopy & screen config/design to keep it interesting. I usually start taking my cars for granted after a few months of ownership but with the Lucid I continually have the “damn this is a good car” thought while driving.
The ’22 Tesla Model S I had before it was also a good car. It had a more refined software stack, better large load usability with the rear hatch, and a better mobile app experience. The reason I switched is that the Tesla was almost the opposite of the Lucid in that the Model S was all about the tech but just wasn’t in the same league when it came to ride quality (I found it too bouncy/unsettled), interior/exterior quality, and balance of power delivery. It definitely had more ADAS features, I REALLY miss auto-lane change (supposedly coming in the future), but I did also have a few abrupt stopping incidents/anomalies with the cruise control that freaked my wife out. To date I haven’t had these in the Lucid. That being said the Tesla is a fine car & they’ve done a lot for the EV industry as a whole.
Thank you for chiming in as an owner who has a few months under their belt-and the real world experience to compare the Tesla & Lucid. You mentioned you like the regenerative braking, so I’ll ask a couple things about that if I may (these came up in conversation with my sister who is on track to lease a Polestar2):
Thanks in advance
Yes, there is a menu option for regen but it’s basically a low or high option.
There is not a menu option to set brake lights but I’ve confirmed they do come on under regen braking.
Thank you for following up with that reply
I’m amazed that Lucid (Atieva) made it to this point – I started hearing about them ~10 years ago when they were trying to start sourcing parts for the car. At that point, Tesla couldn’t even get suppliers to call them back…so needless to say Atieva wasn’t getting anywhere.
Ended up working with them a few years later on some parts that ended up in the vehicle…and think it’s really cool that they ended up making such an awesome vehicle. Not a perfect company…in many ways, but I hope they make it.
Their drive unit seems pretty impressive…a lot of cool tech there, and elsewhere.
The pin thing is probably less of an issue for an owner who would presumably know the pin than for a reviewer who wouldn’t. Also not an issue if you don’t get out of the car. Dumb to be sure, but sort of an edge case and not something I’d base a decision on. Burying controls generally used while underway in a menu is a peeve though, and not something I could get used to.
Agreed, but it also didn’t recognize a key that was clearly in the car.
Do car owners really know their PIN – do they even know they have a pin? Do I have a pin?
Maybe the real PIN is the friends we made along the way
I have a PIN. It’s attached on a little metal plate attached to my spare key. I couldn’t tell you what it is, though. I don’t recall if I needed it after the 12v battery was replaced to re-enable to radio. My 2008 Civic required the PIN after the 12v battery was replaced.
Until the distinction between a car and an ev, is gone, EV’s are going to have a tough time imo. Most people use them like microwaves, simply a tool to get to work or where ever. You don’t want to deal with the complexity on a long car ride with kids in the back, or on a quick run to the grocery store. And now another number to worry about and memorize (your pin). That screen near the arm rest is too much, it needs to go replaced by a couple hard buttons.
I think lucid will make it, and survive, I don’t hate them or wish them ill. But like Tesla for the first 10 years…. I’ll let someone else have that honor of ownership.
There’s no requirement that EVs have fake doorhandles, touchscreen controls or nonfunctioning keyfobs. These are just dumb choices in the interest of being modern that add no value.
This is very true. My family’s running joke about our Taycan is that she’s very pretty, and very athletic, but she is not going to get into college. It’s a lot of fun to have such a thing in an early adopter “what is this crazy machine I own?” sort of way, but the mass market appeal is obviously not gonna be there if frustration stays a big part of the experience.
that’s most of what ev’s are about and my exact point. Until they look and feel like a regular car (driving will always be different but just sitting there feel) they will not be accepted by the mainstream.
I keep making this point, but sometimes feel like I’m yelling into the void: until customers can get the SAME convenience or BETTER for the same money or less, they won’t switch.
EVs are wonderful to drive. They are now 20% of all new car sales. Of course the US lags behind the rest of the industrialized world – it is what we do best.
EVs are 20% of all new cars sold worldwide – so hello mainstream. Fobs and clunky design are not solely the realm of EVs. LOL
One of the reasons the Ford Fusion hybrid was preferable to the Prius when I was buying (~2016) was exactly that – Fusion looked and drove like a car, and didn’t have stuff like the gauges in the middle of the dash to be ‘modern’ and different.
Same here. My C-Max is ready to drive as fast as you can move your hand from the key to the shifter, and it’s like a normal car other than the engine turning on and off. I even like the CVT in it.
Until they look and feel like a regular car
The industry is solving this problem in reverse – they’re adding all that shit to their regular cars as well!
Excellent point. An electric version of the Corolla would be a huge seller.
Are hondas and toyatas also
simply a tool to get to work or wherever? they all seem equally like appliances if you’re not a car-nut.I’m not so sure Lucid will survive. Tesla had the first mover advantage and sold carbon credits to help as it grew. They have produced 5 models (Roadster, S, 3, X, Y). They also have Elon Musk. I can hear you groaning, but he was a cheerleader for EV’s and Tesla and helped form a cult like following of Tesla devotees. I couldn’t tell you who runs Rivian or Lucid. They also have their killer app, the Supercharger network.
Today the legacy automakers are moving forward with EV’s so there will be more competition. The avergae person probably knows Tesla exists. I doubt the average person has a clue about Lucid.
Last year one of the daily dump questions was about building a dream garage and I chose Lucid for my EV pick. I think it’s a great looking car, but I’m not sure about it long term. Maybe the Saudi’s will keep throwing money at it until is succeeds.
You make some good points, and I can’t argue them, I mainly think they will survive because I thought they were going under multiple times but they keep going, so I just figured whoever is their main funder, has the pockets to keep pushing them.
Maybe we will see them collapse, or maybe sell to a major company for their tech. There are a few playing catch up where it might be a similar cost and cut years off their development cycle.
The car reviews are a really good aspect of the Autopian. Keep’em coming. You don’t think Lucid stole your Art Deco “A,” do you? And with regard to the Van Damme and David references, if I was your mom, I’d be saying, “that Jason is odd. Are you spending a little too much time with him?”
Here’s one way that the Taycan beats the Lucid:
The Taycan is available in lots and lots of colours.
The Lucid is available in the boring old black, white, silver, grey, muted red, and very muted blue that’s almost grey.
I live near a Lucid dealership, and all the bland darkish color schemes manage to make a lot full of stunning ultramodern cars somehow seem dull and outdated, like a lot full of 1980s PCs. 90% of the cars I have seen have been either dark grey or black. This seems like a particularly strange choice given the sort of flashy taste high end car buyers tend to have.
The other aesthetic gripe I have after a year of looking at them is the lack of a real face. That, mixed with the bland colors, makes the cars feel oddly cold and emotionless – not a feeling a luxury car should invoke.
I love love love the cars, but these are real issues when trying to sell a emotionally driven very expensive product.
I guess if someone can afford one of these cars, they can well afford a ‘wrap’.
Here is the thing about people with cash to buy these things: they don’t want to be bothered with dealing with the wrap. If the salesman is really good he may be able to make it seamless and keep the sale, but the buyers for this car do not need a car so it better be exactly the car that catches their fancy or they will walk away.
In my old age I am sorta beginning to appreciate this attitude and have begun to take on the rich boomer attitudes of my parents’ generation. If it’s not perfect I don’t want to waste my time (unless you can convince me I will not spend countless hours at the dealer and on phone calls chasing the customizers). I am even thinking of hiring an interior designer for a small home project because I don’t want to spend my time chasing contractors – if you told me that I would be doing this even five years ago I would have said you are crazy.
Or maybe not everyone agrees with you regarding the Air. They’re beautiful cars.
Yep, saw on in my work city and it was stunning.
Well put. I, too, am finding myself making time vs money decisions lately that I would have laughed at just a few years ago. Not that I’m about to buy a Lucid-or any new vehicle-but that valuations change as the decades pile on. Pay someone to mow my yard for me? Well, I prefer exploring backroads to mowing, so…
That probably comes down to the huge difference is size between Porsche and Lucid. They probably aren’t yet able to offer bespoke options.
That being said, although the Lucid offers certain technological advantages over the Taycan, I’d still take the latter if I were in the market for a six figure EV.
So does this mean you can drive the car without a key if you have the PIN? Its kind of great if you don’t need to carry a key with you.
I understand that Ford is or is planning on doing that for some of their cars. I mean most of them already go out the door with a “PIN” to unlock the doors so adding another way to enter it inside the vehicle and make it start and go seems like a no brainer.
My wife’s Mach E requires an access code if for some reason neither the physical key or the phone as a key are recognized by the car. Once entered, the car will start and drive. That being said, the requirements for said access code make it annoying to use on a regular basis.
You are correct but i would format it as pure EV car makers are trying to improve everything about the EV over its ICE counterpart, without asking if they should. So many things about ICE ingrained that are fine and EV lets bury it in the menu. If all you have is a hammer make everything with nails. I say stick to the ICE basics use EVs for power with a small gas generator totally accessible without any EV stuff. And add to range, but entertainment is fine in sub menus but what is wrong with a remote that passengers can use and let the driver drive
Perhaps I am a tech troglodyte (ok so I am a self admitted tech troglodyte. I hate tech for tech’s sake alone), but I really like the Chrysler 2010s approach to key fobs, where its still a “key”. Not only does it satisfy my brain’s “proper approach to starting a car” and is wonderfully tactile in some fashion, but it eliminates the case for this kind of disconnected from car confusion.
I hate phone apps and I hate a pass card because it participates in consolidation of my pocket stuff, meaning its WAY EASIER to end up without everything, instead of just without one thing.
Meaning, If I follow current trends, I carry my phone with my banking apps, and the case holds a couple cards. If my car is started by that phone, or by a key card I carry in the phone, the only thing I have to lose is my phone and now I have no way to contact anyone, no money or plastic by which to pay for anything, nor any way to make the car function. I suppose one can argue the PIN feature bypasses that, but how likely am I to remember a PIN I’ve never used, 4 years after I bought the car?
So yeah. I carry my keys on a small carabiner clipped in my pocket, my phone on its own, and I carry cash AND plastic in a wallet. No matter what happens, unless someone steals my pants, I always have a way to make a move, even in the worst conditions.
Also, please stop free floating screens above dashboards. All screens should be hooded and integral to the dash, like gauge bezels have been for ever.
All that said, I’m rooting for Lucid. I really want them to be one of the survivors. I would like to see Rivian, Lucid, and honestly, Alpha, survive the EV brand wars. I don’t much care if the others fail.
I’d add Canoo to your list, but I’m not holding my breath for them. But I do like their Chevy Greenbriar-ish/VW Dokka-ish truck concept.
I’m a fan of Canoo too. The world needs more silly and cool cars.
You make a very good point, but the image of a group of muggers, originally targeting your phone, resorting to taking your trousers amuses me.
The air screen can hide itself away, silently and at your command.
I love tech, but I do the same. Cash and a couple cards in a little thing you couldn’t really even call a wallet, phone (which I do use for payment, cards are backup) and car keyfob. No house key as I can get in with my phone or a PIN. 😉
NONE of those things are dealbreakers? For me, they all are. Deciding it can’t find the key and demanding a PIN a widespread issue? Wiper and mirror controls in sub-menus/side screens? A key fob with “mystery” controls? That’s madness, especially at $150k..
Aside from the keyfob, it’s all kind of clunky software issues that will likely get updated. I don’t have $150k to spend on a car, but if I was the kind of person who did and also wanted to use that $150k to buy a car from a very new and very small company, I’d assume I was in for this kind of goofiness.
Controls used while driving (wipers and to some extent, mirrors) should NOT be in a menu somewhere. That’s not just clunky software, that’s missing hardware. I would not spend $150k on a vehicle that’s designed like that. Seems like they are cheapen g out on the hardware without understanding how those controls are used.
Not only that, they spent a lot of money (well, more than Tesla, anyway) on quality materials elsewhere in the cabin, so it doesn’t seem like they were in a penny pinching mood, especially for basic knobs and switches that could probably just be bought out of somebody’s existing parts bin somewhere, this is more of a total oversight on the part of their product planning. Unless, its a John Hammond-type penny pinching, spend money on flashy things that people notice right away, underspend on everything else, but do it under a shiny veneer of technology so the cost reduction can be passed off as something fancy to people who don’t know no better.
It has one of the most efficient power trains of any car on earth, and can lay down anything from about 800hp to 1100(?). It also has a very low CD rating – maybe the lowest of any production car. It is a very very seriously engineered vehicle.
Software issues get worse, in my experience. Model X, Taycan… The Model X software started out nice, simple, and functional in 2018. By the time I sold it in 2022, I was disabling most of its features, including ALL of the new ones. The Taycan software started out glitchy crap, got to spend 1 WHOLE WEEK at the dealer for an update, and remains glitchy crap. These companies have waayyyyyy overextended on selling software in EVs. Why? To make them look and feel fancy. They are not fancy, and these are not software companies.
If you expect a normal wiper UI, namely a rotating stalk, a software upodate won’t make a fixed stalk rotate.
Just try 1234. Maybe nobody has changed the default yet.
it’s five numbers so… 12345
that’s the same combination on my luggage!
Musk would make the default PIN 69420.
80085
Entering a blasted PIN to drive?!? That’s a safety issue. And, Lucid needs to figure out their wireless keys from the sounds of it. That’s not new tech and should be bug free by now.
The key thing is weird, but I opt for phone as a key. That has gotten better over the last year on the Tesla and on a MachE it improved a lot. I do like the keycards that Tesla offers as they can easily slip into a wallet.