$100K for a Base Trim?

The Lucid Air is one of many excellent luxury cars on the market today; what separates it from the pack is its bleeding-edge appeal as a tech-forward EV. At its best, it makes the driver feel as though they’re peering into the future from behind the wheel. For those who like trying the latest and greatest, it doesn’t get much better than the Lucid Air—it’s an experience unto itself.

Consider this: The Lucid Air range includes not only one of the most efficient cars on the road today, but also the quickest vehicle MotorTrend has ever tested through the quarter mile. And despite the Air’s exceptional performance envelope and technology—not to mention its 2022 Car of the Year win—Lucid continues to face down brand awareness challenges. At this point, you have to want the Lucid’s otherness (and have a big stack of cash) in order to take the plunge.

The 2023 Lucid Air Pure we tested was a dual-motor AWD version (a single-motor rear-drive model is also available) good for 480 hp as well as 410 miles of EPA-rated range with the standard 19-inch wheels or 384 with the prettier 20s. Compared to almost any EV save the Tesla Model S, those range figures are hugely impressive (the Tesla also comes in at around 400). Pricing for a single-motor Air Pure begins at $89,125, and the dual-motor version adds $5,500 to the bottom line. With options, our test car rang in at $112,425.

When standard Chevy Corvettes are making 490 hp, a 480-hp AWD base trim may sound like overkill. But with the Lucid Air (and many other EVs), we’re just getting started. The excellent Touring has 620 hp, the Grand Touring 819, and our long-term Grand Touring Performance comes in at a mind-blowing 1,050 hp. You’d think that would be the top model, but not with the Air: A tri-motor Sapphire model puts out in the neighborhood of 1,300 hp. That’s a very exclusive neighborhood. Given all those lofty numbers, the Air Pure AWD’s 480 hp starts to look almost puny—that is until you step on it.

Using an easy-to-engage launch control, the Air Pure AWD did the 0-60-mph sprint in a MotorTrend-tested 3.6 seconds. Knock a half-second off that time for the one-trim-up Air Touring, for a 3.1-second time. The Air Grand Touring Performance takes things to the next level with a 2.7-second 0-60 time. Then there’s the record-breaking Sapphire prototype we just tested, which hit 60 in only 2.2 seconds. That kind of acceleration is hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it.

Although the Air Pure’s 3.6-second time still beats the non-AMG Mercedes EQS range and the BMW i7 xDrive60, you feel the difference in swiftness going from the Pure to the other, quicker Lucid Air trims.

Although we expected it to be quick, what we didn’t expect from the Air Pure were tail-happy antics, especially given its all-wheel-drive orientation. But the test team found it surprisingly easy to drift the Lucid coming off the skidpad, though not in a wild or threatening way.

Testing on MotorTrend’s figure-eight course, which evaluates a car’s acceleration, handling, and braking as well as the transitions in between, revealed that the Air Pure has the same sport sedan profile of higher Air trims. Its time of 24.3 seconds at 0.81 g (average) was nearly identical to the Touring’s 24.2 seconds at 0.83 g (average).

In fact, the Air Pure and Touring both have better figure-eight times than the heavier 1,050-hp Grand Touring Performance. When driven close to the limit, the Air Pure’s sub-5,000-pound curb weight is a real blessing; Grand Tourings we’ve tested have been about 300 pounds heavier. All in all, the test team found the Pure to be a satisfying sedan capable of very sporty behavior at the track.

On the road, the Air Pure handles well, and its ride leans more to the comfortable side of what you’d expect from a sport sedan. Will it keep up with an Air Touring or Grand Touring Performance? Probably not, but we’re talking minor degrees here. Compared to other mainstream luxury electric cars around $100,000, the Lucid has impressive moves regardless of trim.

What the Air Pure can’t do is treat the driver to the same sense of luxury as Lucid’s higher trims can. The Pure lacks the Touring’s ventilated seats and offers only one dark interior color theme called Mojave. The interior itself is well executed, with different blacks and grays over various textures—all applied in a way that never feels busy. Tesla owners seeking a less sparsely decorated interior should like what they see.

Part of automotive luxury involves tailoring a car to your tastes, and this is one area where the Air Pure falls short. As with Tesla, the interior color options are limited, and in both cases, they’re disappointing. BMW and Mercedes are happy to order you an electric four-door in any number of interior or exterior hues, with multiple interior trim options. Will many buyers choose whatever’s on the lot with a standard interior? Yes, but that’s not the point.

You never want to feel limited. It’s like having a car that hits 60 in 3.6 seconds; part of the appeal is knowing you can move that swiftly if you want to, but not necessarily using that capability at every stop sign.

Other features the Pure goes without include a power-operated front trunk (a.k.a. the frunk) and soft-close doors. The Touring trim adds two more levels of power-seat adjustment (for a total of 14) and gets four-zone automatic climate control to the Pure’s three. You also can’t get real leather seats on the Air Pure, but we have no FOMO here. The PurLuxe material on the seats and steering wheel feel plenty soft and luxurious.

At this price point, we also don’t mind the lack of real leather or massaging seats—features our one-year GT-P test car has—but we wish more interior/exterior customization and ventilated seats were available.

Never has missing a feature felt so good. With the glass-free aluminum roof, the Pure expands the Lucid Air to a slightly larger audience thanks to its superior visibility: tall people.

In our one-year Lucid Air test car, Lucid’s Glass Canopy Roof is one of those special features we’ve come to love and intensely dislike at the same time, thanks to how it affects the view forward for those of us above average in height. It’s not as much of an issue with the Pure.

Although you lose the magical view forward with the Pure—one with glass that stretches from the base of the windshield uninterrupted to well over the driver’s head—you gain a more livable interior. The back seat is a similar story. With a smaller battery pack than the Grand Touring models, the rear seat floor is about 3 inches lower. Passengers will notice the difference.

The driver, not so much. In MotorTrend‘s Road-Trip Range test, the Air Pure came in at 319 miles, just 11 miles short of the Grand Touring Performance model. Our Road-Trip Range figure measures what you can expect at a constant 70 mph on the highway and is the result of actual, real-world testing. Interestingly, in the same test, the Mercedes EQS580 4Matic beat both models with a performance of 354 miles.

Because we’ve experienced the Air so many times, we know how good it is and can be. At around $100,000, however, the Pure starts to lose its special appeal in terms of technological prowess and customization. Step up to the Air Touring, and more options become available, from an additional wheel and tire package, to new interior colors, to Lucid’s trendy Stealth dark exterior look. Yes, these are superficial things, but in a way, so are many aspects of luxury.

At around $100,000, there’s also more competition from the likes of mainstream luxury EV sedans that are arguably easier to live with, such as the Mercedes EQE and EQS, BMW i5 and i7, and the Genesis G80 Electric.

Although base models sometimes serve as the very best examples of the range, that’s not the case with the Lucid Air Pure. Yes, it represents the brand well, but it’s merely a good introduction to a car whose sweet spot is one trim level up.