It was great. I drove the Lucid Air “Pure” and the “Grand Touring”; the “Touring” wasn’t available.
The car fit and finish is next level even for the entry level “Pure”, really luxurious and well done, spacious, Tesla’s interior is really, really cheap in comparison. The GT was even nicer with glass roof like Teslas; the “Pure” comes with metal roof, no sunroof available, oh well … all cars are AWD but there will be cheaper RWD “Pure” this month.
All models but “Pure” have power frank, trunk and soft closing doors. The range beats Tesla by a lot, recharging is faster too, without going too technical here.
The drive was solid and the “Studio advisor” using Lucid’s lingo, was a car guy and told me to “pretend I’m not here, just don’t crash”, so I said “Alright, let’s see what you got”, and it was awesome, on rails, the “sprint” mode asks for confirmation, just like the familiar “Ludicrous” would, the backroads of Manhasset will never be the same.
The huge dash in front of you looks like Taycan’s but better and the center console UI(user interface) is simpler, e.g. Tesla’s have too many sub-menus, toggles, sometimes cumbersome to find settings. The center console retracts itself too, which was cool. Some physical buttons for temperature, volume, etc. and stalks man! stalks, like a normal car … there’s Apple CarPlay too.
The 2 major features I found surprisingly missing as far as software were:
1 - There is no proper sentry mode like Tesla’s, no recording while you drive or honk. No camera watching from mobile app either. No nothing.
2 - There is no way to enable the rear and side cameras while you’re driving, say what? that’s right, so easy to do it if you ask me, but unavailable as of today…
but the backup camera is light years better, with bird’s eye view so crisp and detailed, you’d really wish you had that on Tesla’s.
No games, farts, boombox and video watching either; some would miss that, then again I wouldn’t.
We all know Lucid may not make it, Elon himself cursed them and said so; the Saudis guaranteed 3 years of cashflow, the “Air” is their only model, the “Gravity” SUV will be released in 2024 but it won’t be cheap either … they opened their first and only Service Center in Plainview, NY last month, in addition to mobile service like Tesla’s.
If it wasn’t for their financial perils I would get either the “Grand Touring” or the “Touring” right there and then (not really, they sell online like Tesla); the 2 aforementioned misses are easily addressed with OTA software updates.
I’d say the Lucid is better than a Model S in every way, a proper luxury EV, but few missing software features, easily added by updates.
I didn’t try their version of “Auto Pilot” and “FSD”; they have different naming for these, just so Tesla guys would associate with. I don’t care about any of these features, barely used AP and never wanted FSD either. I drive my cars.
I’d say every Tesla owner must test drive the Lucid and see for yourself what the Model S should’ve been.
Almost forgot, took my road bike with me for test fitting and it does fit … here are some pics …
Cheers
