2023 Lucid Air Touring hits the sweet spot

lucid air The dream is no more, but our test team’s memory of otherworldly power and range lives on. variant put it back to just 933 horsepower and became a certified 520-mile bladder killer.

Impressive? absolutely. But does anyone really need that much, especially given the cost?In 2023, his 1050-horsepower Grand Touring in top trim his performance tops $180,000 and specializes in 516 miles of range Grand Touring is just under his $140,000. A big pitfall is the unwanted side effect of the large battery (112 kWh for the Grand Touring and 118 kWh for the Performance variant). Required to unlock all power and range. It was made worse by very little toe space under the front seats. There’s plenty of leg room, and there’s still plenty of room in the back, but the seating comfort is unique.

The Touring, which looks the same as the higher-end variants in the 10 Pace, deviates in one important way that echoes above and below the spec sheet. Its underfloor battery consists of 18 modules instead of 22. This reduces capacity to 92.0 kWh, but the loss of these four modules has provided more legroom in the rear seats and a more luxurious experience for passengers. In fact, Lucid was able to flatten the angle of her cushion slightly on the bottom of the touring. This is because the rear seats no longer need to support protruding legs.

Low battery capacity reduces power and range. Both the Dream and GT are plentiful, but the Touring range is a healthy EPA rating of 425 miles on 19-inch all-season tires and 384 miles on our test car’s complimentary 20-inch summer tires. The Touring also offers 620 horsepower and a grunt of 885 lb-ft. Around town, you won’t miss an absent horse, as this is still a spirited powertrain. For example, it takes him only 1.8 seconds to accelerate from 30 mph to 50 mph. Even off the line, as we do in track testing, the difference between 1111 hp and his 620 hp is only 0.4 seconds to 60 mph and Touring still clocks an impressive 3.0 seconds . A touring dream he can’t match his 10.1 seconds, 142 mph 1/4 mile, but buyers certainly shouldn’t feel like he’s 11.0 seconds shorter at 126 mph.

A smaller battery helps save 270 pounds, and the 5012-pound Touring feels lighter underfoot in corners. Lateral grip makes him 0.93 g a second faster, and the 70 mph Panic Stop is just four feet longer and 167 feet. The Touring’s 20-inch Michelin Pilot Sport EV Summer tires are slightly more supple than the Dream’s 21-inch Pirelli, but otherwise the dynamics of the two cars mirror each other. On public roads, the Touring is a very quiet and capable cruiser, so it won’t take you miles. The ride is relaxed and smooth, with no floats or undulations. High sidewalls of 20″ performance rubber add extra rolling comfort.

The full forward feel you get from the steering is very noticeable, and with the self-steering adaptive cruise setting on the interstate instead of the highway assist lane centering feature that’s part of the highway, it’s more It gives you the confidence to feel comfortable. $10,000 DreamDrive Pro option. A driver monitoring system exists, but Lucid has yet to use it to allow Supercruise-style hands-free driving, so the usual warning to keep your hands on the steering wheel if you let go for 15 seconds. is still displayed. .

Rated range for Touring is very good, but we found the actual range to be more dependent on speed than expected. I just couldn’t run. After that, the car basically matched the estimated range on random drives with heavy highway use but average speeds close to 63 mph. Overall, our Touring averaged 107 MPGe, well short of the EPA overall rating of 121 MPGe, but still performing well when compared to other large luxury EVs.

Perhaps the most notable new feature of the touring test car was not about range, but about charging. Similar to the Tesla Supercharger, Plug and Charge is fully implemented here. To get to work with Electrify America’s refill stop, all you had to do was plug it in. Charging was initiated and billed in the background using a pre-configured account set up through the Lucid Ownership Portal. Those obsessed with fast charging on non-Tesla sites know this is a life-changing development.

During our 75 mph range testing, we had plenty of time to ponder some of the quirks of the Lucid Air’s instrumentation and its control interface. The lack of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto will reportedly be fixed in an over-the-air update “soon”, but until then, your phone is stuck to the windshield. It’s short enough to easily trigger the edge-mounted wiper button when you try to activate your turn signals. The instrument panel as far as the eye can see and the tablet in the middle are gorgeous, but they waste a lot of screen real estate. A large Air logo occupies a prominent position to the right of the speedometer, with a rudimentary trip odometer on the left.

For all that, Air Touring is more affordable at $109,050. That figure includes a traditional aluminum roof, so Sunbelt buyers don’t need his $4,500 glass canopy top. Our testers ran the $127,550 sticker, which includes a glass roof, a $4,000 premium audio system, and a $10,000 DreamDrive Pro driver assistance option they’d be happy to do without. Among all the Air variants, the Touring strikes us as the sweet spot where price, performance, range and passenger comfort overlap.