2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance Review: Simply Sensational
One of the best things I've done in my career was scoring the world's first drive review of the Lucid Air electric sedan. It was a big moment, one that I'm still amazed happened. That said, the headline-grabbing part of the two days I spent driving an Air Dream Edition R—that we drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then some on a single charge—didn't go the way I wanted. Oh, in terms of the sheer traffic and interest that first drive generated, it couldn't have gone any better. But to achieve the impressive range that we did, my co-driver (and Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson) did the unimaginable. We went the speed limit. Oh, the humanity! Truth be told, going 70 in a 70-mph zone freaked me out, so I kept cranking it up to 72 mph. The thing made 966 horsepower, people! And 57 in a 55 sucks even worse. Fast forward 11 months and my assignment is to jet up to the Bay Area, grab the new 1,050-hp Air Grand Touring Performance, and drive it back to Los Angeles. All by myself. Speed limits? We don't need no stinking speed limits!
About six months ago, after the Air took home our 2022 MotorTrend Car of the Year honors, Lucid gave me a quick opportunity to drive its Dream Edition P—that's the 1,111-hp version that's well and truly sold out. More interesting, however, was another car that was also there: a development mule of the Air Grand Touring. What was so special? The handling, specifically because of changes made to the front end. Driving the two back to back was fascinating. Sure, the Dream Edition P made more than 300 additional hp than the 819-hp Grand Touring, but I massively preferred how the latter felt. The improvement was apparent just leaving the parking lot.
How the Lucid Air Improved
Two things made the difference. First, the front suspension received some new dampers. Second, the car's suspension software had been altered, adjusted, and improved. The story of the process is worth sharing. Lucid's director of chassis and vehicle dynamics, David Lickfold, Turo'd himself a 991.2 Porsche GT3 RS and spent a weekend driving the two vehicles. Just him, by himself, working until the wee hours of the morning. David would do a run in the Porsche, then one in the Lucid, pull over, plug his laptop into the latter, and tweak away. The results impressed the hell out of me. Naturally, I was looking forward to driving the 1,050-hp version of the Grand Touring.
After a brief meeting with Lucid's head of design, Derek Jenkins, I left the company's Newark, California, headquarters with 87 percent of the Air GTP's battery charged. That meant I had a range of 388 miles, seeing as how the Performance variant of the Grand Touring only comes on 21-inch wheels and has an EPA range of 446 miles. The "regular" GT has a range of 469 miles on 21-inch wheels, or a whopping 516 miles on 19-inchers. As the crow flies, it's 359 miles from Lucid's headquarters to my house. However, my plan (that I'd spent about six adolescent seconds on) was to reverse the route we took the last time but go faster. Essentially, that meant heading down the 101 South until Paso Robles, taking advantage of an Electrify America location, then heading over to the 5 South for the bulk of the rest of the trip. What could possibly go wrong?
Soul-crushing traffic, for one. (If I can diverge into a little provincial Hatfield and McCoy-style nonsense for a second, anyone from the Bay Area that says Los Angeles has bad traffic is projecting.) A drive that should have taken just over two hours to Paso Robles turned into a four-hour slog. By the time I got to the charging station, I was down to 162 miles of remaining indicated range. Which means I used 211 miles of range to cover 177 road miles. That's not actually bad, especially given I had the A/C set to "meat locker," the massaging seat going full bore, and the pretty damn great stereo cranked up to a high volume. And, yes, I also had the adaptive cruise (or Dream Drive as Lucid calls it) set to 84 mph and was enjoying occasional bursts into triple-digit territory when traffic would allow. Hey, the car makes 1,050 hp and I'm a doctor of automotive journalism, dammit. Besides, those Priuses parked in the left lane ain't gonna pass themselves.
Charging-Station Challenges
Then the inevitable happened. All three chargers plopped incongruously in a Bank of America parking lot were occupied. I got out of the GTP and heard, "Hey, us and this car are ahead of you." I nodded at the Chevy Bolt owner and admired the Hyundai Ioniq 5 waiting behind him. Just then, the couple that was standing next to their VW ID4 threw their hands up in celebration. "It's working," the man said into his cell phone, presumably to the poor EA employee who'd just reset the charger, an all too common occurrence. "How'd you get it to work?" asked a flustered Kia Niro EV owner. Then a Ford F-150 Lightning pulled in and I made the decision to just go eat lunch. I had about 160 miles of range left, and there's a 350-kW Electrify America station a bit further south in Pismo Beach. The Electrify America app does tell you when all the chargers are in use; I stopped in Paso Robles specifically because the app had erroneously reported two chargers as available. Welcome to EV road trips using the nascent charging infrastructure.
There's a back way to Pismo that offers a few miles of twisting roads, too, so I figured this would be the time to get some dynamic driving done. Look, the Air GTP is a monster. There's no other way to say it. To get its full capabilities, touch the on-screen button to activate Sprint mode to unleash full power and all 921 lb-ft of torque. The Air's default comfort drive mode is Smooth, a sportier mode is called Swift, and Sprint is like track mode. In Sprint, the suspension, braking, torque vectoring, throttle, and steering responses are all tweaked for maximum yeehaw. Not only can you use all 1,050 horses—a preposterous statement, I'm aware—but mein gott this thing sticks to the pavement when cornering. In fact, the more you treat it like a track car by using as much of the lane/road as possible, the happier and more impressive it is bounding from apex to apex. We've yet to weigh a Grand Touring Performance, but the "regular" Air Grand Touring clocked in at 5,266 pounds; figure this new car to be roughly identical. But, hand to heart, it feels like 1,000 of those pounds magically disappear when the Lucid is driven angry. Like a GT3 RS? Not quite, but perhaps like a 2.6-ton GT3 RS.
Luxury Liner
Yeah, yeah—these Lucids make incredible power and Lickfold's chassis team has found a way to put it all down and make the big girl dance a jig. But Lucid vehicles are pitched as luxury machines. How's the luxury? I mentioned earlier that I had the air conditioning going full bore. This was because once I got south of a little farming town called Gonzales, the external temperature was 97 degrees Fahrenheit. For the time being all Lucid Airs have these massive glass roofs and in the sort of California sun I experienced on the drive, you just get cooked. I don't care how much UV-jamming, anti-solar whizbangery Lucid claims it's treated the glass with—it gets very warm. I've brought this up several times with several Lucid executives, including Rawlinson, and they acknowledge my point. The entry Pure model will only come with a steel roof, and the next-step-up Touring will make the glass canopy an option. So, that's nice if you want to save some dough and not have to wear a hat when it's sunny.
Going beyond that peeve, the other negatives are minor. The lane departure warning graphic is overeager, the map takes five seconds before it fully loads, and sometimes the car needs 10 to 15 seconds to completely wake up when you first jump inside. But here's the awesome part about software-defined vehicles (SDVs). There's an over-the-air update (OTA) coming in a couple of months that will radically revise all of this. Just like that. Also, hot tip, when the integration's ready, owners will get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, too.
Enough with the bad stuff. The seats are incredible, not just because of the design and comfort, but because of how powerful the massage settings are. Like, dang man. A couple of the programs felt vaguely inappropriate—you have to love that. The materials are top shelf (especially the fabrics), the screens aren't too omnipresent, and the large lower screen can be stowed out of the way, which not only opens up a big, purse-size cubby but also reduces the amount of visual clutter fighting for your eyeballs' attention. I also love the physical temperature, fan speed, and volume switchgear. I find it luxurious not having to dig into a damn screen for every single little thing. Let's not forget that our buddy, Randy Pobst, just lost Pikes Peak because he couldn't easily access the Tesla Model S Plaid's fan.
I pulled into the charging station in Pismo and—hooray!—found an open 350-kW charger. The car was showing 96 miles of range left. I plugged in and watched how the Lucid's 912-volt electrical architecture helps the battery just suck down the kilowatts. The juice was flowing into the car at speeds from 245 to 275 kW, adding 19 miles of range per minute. Five minutes later (another) Hyundai Ioniq 5 plugged in next to me and the charging speed was cut in half. Nineteen minutes later, the car had absorbed 205 miles worth of energy. The range read 301 miles as the battery was charged to 68 percent. Did I mention the Air charges faster than any other EV? I only had to drive about 175 more miles, so I figured I was good. Spoiler alert: I was good. I made it home with 49 miles of range left, plugged the GTP into my Rivian charger, and awoke to an 80 percent full battery (where'd I'd set the charging limit), meaning the GTP was good for 360 miles of driving. Well, if you're one of those go-the-speed-limit types.
We don't give out our Car, Truck, or SUV of the Year trophies willy nilly. Despite what you may have heard, it's the most rigorous, repeatable, and labor-intensive process in the industry. If a vehicle receives the Golden Calipers, it's earned them. Still, I always find it nice to go back and recheck our math. Spending a day with the Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance reminded me why I was so blown away by this machine that first time out. Nothing on earth has the power/range combo of this EV, and at this point in time, no other company's even close.
Lucid isn't stopping there. It's creating a 360-degree luxury brand, where every aspect of the customer experience—from the website to the studios (Lucid-speak for showrooms) to the promotional photography—is curated in-house. The result is an epic brute in a suit, a car that effortlessly blends mid-century modern with a California ethos, a technological tour de force that obsoletes its competitors. And this is just the first Lucid—the Gravity SUV will be its second vehicle—and one that hasn't even been in production for a whole calendar year yet. I'm excited about what Lucid will dream up next. Hopefully I'll get to tell you about that one first, too.
Looks good! More details?2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance Specifications BASE PRICE $180,500 LAYOUT Front- and rear-motor, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan MOTORS 2 AC permanent-magnet electric, 1,050 hp/921 lb-ft (comb) TRANSMISSION 1-speed auto CURB WEIGHT 5,200-5,250 (mfr) WHEELBASE 116.5 in L x W x H 195.9 x 76.2 x 55.4 in 0-60 MPH 2.6 sec (MT est) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 112/112/112 mpg-e (MT est) EPA RANGE 446 miles ON SALE Now Show AllYou may also like
Once upon a time, from 1995-1999, there was a two-door Chevrolet Tahoe. It was square 'n boxy with its stacked headlights and 1990s Chevy truck demeanor, riding on a GMT400-based platform shared with GM trucks of the era. The Tahoe name came about for the 1995 model year, essentially a rename and relaunch of the simultaneously discontinued full-size Blazer. As in, the death of the big Blazer resulted in the Tahoe. (On the GMC side, the Yukon replaced the full-size Jimmy a little earlier, for 1992.) The Blazer name lived on, of course, but not as a full-size.Interestingly, the debut of the Tahoe for 1995 brought with it the introduction of a four-door version (late availability, though, which is why the four-door Tahoe was eligible to win—which it did—Motor Trend's 1996 Truck of the Year award). That means the Tahoe technically debuted as a two-door 4x4 SUV, which, ironically, only lasted through the 1999 model year. (Yukon lost its two-door in 1997.) The four-door was 11 inches longer and had a wheelbase 6 inches longer than the two-door.In addition to the standard 250 hp 5.7-liter "Vortec 5700" V-8 engine, there was a diesel 6.5-liter "L56" V-8 option. According to our Of The Year writeup, the "torquey 6.5-liter/180-horse turbodiesel V-8 [was] optional in two-door, four-wheel-drive models." Yes, the rare two-door had an ever-rarer diesel option.Fast-forward nearly 30 years, and the Tahoe name persists in the form of a vibrant, technologically-advanced SUV that's as popular now as it ever was. It's pretty easy to spend $75,000 on a new one. That's crazy, but wanna know what's even crazier? It's possible to spend more than half that on one that dates back to the previous century. A pristine two-door 4x4 1999 Chevy Tahoe (with the 5.7-liter, not even the super-rare 6.5-liter) just sold for $42,900 at a Mecum auction in Harrisburg.What could it have been worth new? According to our article: "The two-door, 4x2 Tahoe starts at $22,886, the 4x4 version at $25,136, moving up to the four-door models at $28,264 for the 4x2 and $30,460 for the 4x4. That prices even a heavily optioned Tahoe a few thousand dollars less than a comparable Suburban, and about on par with fully equipped (yet lighter-duty) smaller sport/utes like the Explorer and Grand Cherokee." Our Mecum example, with 86,770 miles on the odometer, sold for much more than new—even if pricing changed a tiny bit for a 1999 versus this 1996 data.Was this $42,900 two-door 1999 Chevy Tahoe Mecum specimen an anomaly, or are two-door Tahoe prices becoming outrageous? Our quick research leads us to think that this is probably the most expensive two-door Tahoe ever sold at Mecum. The handful of four-door Tahoes that have sold for more were much, much newer variants that have special reasons for demanding mega-money. Interestingly, the next-most-expensive two-door Tahoe was a custom slammed red one featured in Truckin Magazine that sold for $38,000 way back in 2014. (Two-door Tahoes, like this Classy Hoe, have been ever-popular in the custom truck world. ) After that, a lifted blue two-door went for $35,000, followed by a pair for $29,700, then a pair at $28,600. We could go on and on, but do we need to? All of these examples outpace what they were new.To be fair, not all two-door Tahoes are worth top dollar; don't go buy one as a sure-fire investment. A bulk of Mecum examples fall into the $10,000 range, with some two-doors even falling under $5,000. A rare diesel variant, which you'd think would demand top dollar no matter what, only went for $11,000.So has the two-door Tahoe turned classic, or did this buyer just throw down a modern man's salary on it for some reason known only to them? Perhaps it's a sentimental vehicle. There's no clear-cut answer. With each year that clicks by, old square-body GM trucks and SUVs become less available and more sought after. Arguably classic, arguably rare (1995-1999), the two-door Tahoe market seems to be taking on a life of its own.
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ProsStrong, great-sounding engineOutstanding manual shifterYour hat stays on at 120 mph with top down ConsDoesn't handle as well as expectedSomewhat odd gearingWe know it can be betterLet's take a trip back to 2016, even if Porsche diehards would prefer we didn't. That's when the company introduced the fourth-generation Boxster, now with a 718 prefix and (cue the loyalists' gags) turbocharged flat-four engine offerings in place of the naturally aspirated flat-sixes that had powered every version of the popular and much-lauded roadster since it first arrived 20 years earlier.The new engines were among the best four-bangers in history, but nevertheless, cries never ceased for a reversion to the old. So while other 718 Boxsters carry on with the 2.0- and 2.5-liter turbocharged units, the prior 2.5-liter 718 GTS that lasted a scant two model years in the U.S. between 2018 and 2019 is gone. Instead, the new 982-series 718 Boxster GTS 4.0-liter gives many of us what we've wanted: a new flat-six. The engine itself is a punched-out, free-breathing derivation of the 3.0-liter twin-turbo 9A2 flat-six family found in every non-GT and non-Turbo 991.2 and today's 992 911s. It 394 hp and 309 lb-ft of torque, figures that.Other items of note: The GTS 4.0 adds thicker anti-roll bars, recalibrated PASM dampers, upgraded chassis mounts, slightly larger brakes, and upgraded wheels. Along with the larger engine and extra standard features like heated seats and dynamic lights, it boasts Porsche Torque Vectoring with a mechanical limited-slip differential. However, the car adds roughly 145 pounds compared to the old GTS 2.5, .Contrary to what we expected heading into PVOTY, though, the overall package didn't blow away our judges."I'm whelmed," features editor Scott Evans said. "I expected to love this car, and I'm kind of meh on it. I know Porsche can do better with this chassis. It's the damping that surprised me; it doesn't soak up midcorner bumps as well as I expected, and it feels a little skittery at high speeds. Porsches are usually more locked down, and as a result, I couldn't carry as much speed through fast, bumpy sweepers as I could in lesser cars. I was 8 mph faster in the Subaru. But what a fantastic shifter; it's just perfect in movement and feel. Sucks about the super-long second gear, though. I kept wanting to take extra laps to see if I was doing something wrong. I felt like I could learn to drive the car better if I just kept trying, even though I knew some of the issues really didn't have anything to do with my driving."Senior features editor Jonny Lieberman agreed. "Evans is right," he said. "The Boxster GTS is good, but it isn't great. The long second gear makes things a little confusing, and it just doesn't handle as well as we expected it to."The fact we can say this about such a capable machine that's long been a favorite speaks volumes about just what a stupendous level of performance modern sports cars have reached. As features editor Christian Seabaugh said, "Other than the noted 'complaints,' it's an excellent car. Well balanced, poised, and easy to drive fast and find your limit. The steering is sharp and direct, and the brakes are pretty good."In the end, while the 718 GTS 4.0 is a great Boxster, it isn't yet quite as outstanding as we know it can be.2021 Porsche 718 Boxster GTS 4.0 Specifications Base Price/As tested $90,250/$100,000 Power (SAE net) 394 hp @ 7,000 rpm Torque (SAE net) 309 lb-ft @ 5,000 rpm Accel, 0-60 mph 4.2 sec Quarter-mile 12.4 sec @ 115.9 mph Braking, 60-0 mph 99 ft Lateral Acceleration 1.07 g (avg) MT Figure Eight 23.6 sec @ 0.87 g (avg) EPA City/Hwy/Comb 17/24/19 mpg Vehicle Layout Mid-engine, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door convertible Engine, Transmission 4.0L direct-injected DOHC 24-valve flat-6, 6-speed manual Curb Weight (F/R DIST) 3,173 lb (45/55%) Wheelbase 97.4 in Length x Width x Height 172.4 x 70.9 x 49.7 in On Sale Now Show All
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