Lucid Motors finally took the wraps off of the Lucid Air this week, the company’s new luxury electric vehicle with an impressive 400-mile range. In case you’re unfamiliar, Lucid is an automaker formerly known as Atieva that has been teasing its high-end EV for quite a while now.
The Lucid Air offers some damn impressive specs on paper, including configurations that offer up to 1,000 horsepower capable of running the vehicle from dead-stop to 60mph in just 2.5 seconds. The aforementioned range of 400 miles is possible thanks to new battery pack technology that the company says it spent the last decade building. The Tesla Model S, by comparison, offers up to 315 miles of range using just the battery. Other cars, like the Chevy Volt or even the BMW i3, only offer ranges anywhere from 50 miles to 115 miles, running off battery power only. Chevy’s Bolt EV, on the other hand, offers 238 mile of range on a full charge.
Lucid also put a big focus on luxury, outfitting the car with rear seats that recline up to 55 degrees (that’s a bit more than you’d get in a typical premium economy airline seat), a 29-speaker stereo system and special air-spring seats that Lucid promises will be the most comfortable on the market. It’s chock full of tech, with Lucid promising a bit of autonomous driving, hands-free voice controls and fast-charging capabilities.
All of these features come at a cost, of course. The Lucid Air EV will enter production sometime during 2018 and will cost about $100,000. The company hopes to lower that price down to as low as $65,000 in the future, however. Keep in mind that the EV market is evolving rather rapidly, as are autonomous vehicles. 2018 may seem far away, but my guess is we’re going to see plenty of competitors step it up in the next 12 months. Perhaps by then, the range and power won’t be as impressive.
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