Most Affordable Lucid Model: Lucid Air Pure
Sometimes timing works in your favor, other times, not so much. After spending a week in a 2023 Lucid Air Grand Touring Performance model back in chilly winter temperatures – which at the time was Lucid’s most powerful sport sedan before it introduced the 1,234 hp Air Sapphire – this time it would be a shorter summer sampling of the Pure, the new “entry” version of the Air sedan, and to this luxury EV brand.
Then, soon after my drive of the Lucid Air Pure, in the middle of sampling a host of green and all-electric vehicles at an EcoRun event put on every year by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada, Lucid announced in July that a significantly enhanced 2025 version of the Air was coming soon – with first deliveries planned for late summer.
The Most Efficient EV in North America
On top of the Air retaining its crown as the EV that can travel the furthest on a single charge – a bladder-busting 512 miles, suggests its EPA estimate – the changes for 2025 will also make the ’25 rear-wheel drive Air Pure the most efficient EV sold in North America. That means it will get the most miles per kilowatt-hours, or miles per gallon-equivalent (MPGe), at 5.0 miles/kWh, or a record 146 MPGe.
The Lucid Air competes in a mostly six-figure luxury sport sedan category that has traditionally placed overall efficiency well down the list of design priorities, especially its ICE rivals. Remarkably, the Air Pure’s efficiency improvements also make it the most efficient vehicle overall on the market – all in a full-size, pampering four-door luxury car. The Lucis Air truly is an engineering marvel, even more so when you dig into its technical details.
Lucid Air Pure Interior and Standard Equipment
It wasn’t a great start to my drive of the 2024 Air, even though I loved the ’23 version. A sweltering hot summer day combined with an all-black and grey interior that sat in the sun over a 90-minute, presentation-filled lunch meant that opening the door let out shimmering waves of oven-worthy heat. Black leather, as fitted to the car I drove, is optional; cooled seats are options, as well, and were not fitted.
Keep in mind that the Pure trim has a starting MSRP of around $70,000, which is fairly reasonable in this class, with this particular tester priced just over $80,000 after options and destination fees. So after enabling max A/C, I jumped out of the scorching driver’s seat to let the interior cool down – except there’s no EV on-off switch, as with many EVs now, so once your butt’s out of the seat, the Air turns itself and its climate controls off.
For owners with the Lucid app set up on their phone, you can tap a few buttons to cool it down remotely, ideally 10 minutes before you head to your car on stifling days. You can even do the same on your Apple Watch, according to owners online. For those without the app, there’s a climate maintenance mode that will make or keep the vehicle cool or warm inside for roughly 45 minutes, which is also handy if you’re in and out of the car doing errands. The function wasn’t obvious enough to find in that record-setting heat.
There is also a new “Creature Comfort Mode” that came with an over-the-air update earlier this year. It’s Lucid’s equivalent to Dog Mode, which will maintain interior temperatures much longer – plus inform concerned folks outside the vehicle that the interior is being climate-controlled for pets inside, with a message on the large upper screen.
New Creature Comfort Mode
To engage Creature Comfort Mode, you press the fan button on the large rectangular lower screen, which Lucid calls its Pilot Panel, and there’s a paw-themed icon that shows up near the top of the climate screen. Hit that, select your desired temperature, and the Air will maintain that temperature all the way down to a battery charge of one percent.
Did I find or think to set this mode so I could wait outside the car (in the shade) during this particular Air’s version of Dante’s Inferno? Also a no. Did I grumble over those first few blazing minutes of driving that a vehicle at this price should have cooled seats, even though I knew its interior has pre-conditioning abilities, and that many drivers don’t care for air directed to their butts? Yes, yes I did. Even heated front seats are optional, which for northern areas can be especially useful.
Lucid Air Trim Levels
Once the Air’s interior cooled down, the appeal of actually driving this sleek, low-slung four-door quickly returned. There’s plenty of power even in this entry-level, single-motor, rear-wheel drive version, with 430 hp, a healthy 406 lb-ft of torque, and a 4.5-second 0-60 mph time worthy of the sport sedan designation. Top speed is 124 mph, and if you’re wondering where the ’24 lands in range and efficiency, that would be at 419 EPA-estimated miles overall on the range-friendly 19-inch wheels. That translates to 4.74 miles/kWh, or 394 miles on the 20-inch wheels that came on this tester.
Other Air models are in the three-second range for 0-60 sprints, with the Touring (3.4 seconds) and Grand Touring (3.0) capable of supercar figures with their all-wheel drive, dual-motor drivetrains and launch modes fully engaged. According to Lucid, the Touring and Grand Touring models produce 620 and 819 hp respectively. Then there’s the range-topping $249,000 starting MSRP Air Sapphire, which touts a 1.89 second 0-60 time.
Unlike some other brands – Porsche comes to mind – Lucid doesn’t have a “less is more” philosophy when it comes to the Sapphire (the top-level Porsche Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package, which has a starting MSRP of $239,000, doesn’t even have back seats). The Sapphire is loaded with nearly every luxury available, including unique 18-way power sport seats up front, with both cooling and massage functions.
Lucid Air Pure: Driving Experience
Back down closer to $70,000, the similar-looking Air Pure seems like a relative bargain. It has the same shape, has the same amount of room inside, the same basic interior design, and a lot of the same tech.
Dynamically, the Air Pure may be much slower in a straight line than the Sapphire, but it also is impeccably refined, soaking up road imperfections with a sophisticated confidence, though not quite at the level of a Mercedes-Benz. It is also amazingly flat and well-mannered on off-ramps and when cornering. You also have your choice of drive modes, labeled Smooth, Swift and Sprint, that help sharpen up accelerator response.
You don’t give up ride quality, or practicality, in exchange for the Air’s good driving dynamics, even with the optional and relatively low-profile 245/40 ZR20 tires. Crouching down into it is likely the most surprising sports car-like compromise. The Lucid Air actually sits lower than an Audi e-tron GT, and is roughly the size of the Porsche Taycan as well, but it has much more legroom and width both front and back.
It’s classified as a large car by the EPA, similar to the Tesla Model S, and like the Tesla, it has large trunks both front and rear. The Lucid’s is especially notable, as its whole rear fender panel comes up with the trunk lid, allowing amazing flexibility for loading and unloading. The rear seats also fold, and have a ski pass-through. The frunk can be opened via the smoothly-Air-shaped key, with power operation, and there are cargo covers on both ends that hide additional cargo spaces.
Charging the Lucid Air
We did have a brief chance to quick charge the Lucid Air on our drive, and from just over a half charge at a 350 kW quick charger, the Air achieved a charging rate of 118 kW. That’s far from its max charge rate of 300 kW, one of the fastest in the business – but it was also without any pre-conditioning of the battery, which can be done manually, or simply by choosing it in the navigation system.
Lucid will adopt the more user-friendly North American Charging Standard (NACS) in 2025, switching from the current CCS-style plug. That means, like most EV makers are planning, it will be able to charge on most available Tesla Superchargers. But there’s still a question of whether the Lucid’s high-voltage system will be able to consistently deliver the same charging speeds on Tesla Superchargers, which currently max out at 250 kW.
Lucid Air Pure: Conclusion
The more efficient ’25 Lucid Air Pure will also offer more benefits for drivers: a standard heat pump that will help it keep more range in colder temperatures, a quicker infotainment computer, and new standard features such a 360-degree backup camera (which also should have been standard before), and a live blind spot display, among others.
Of course, with notable changes often come great deals on the outgoing model, and that’s the case here. The offers can change, but the Lucid is currently offering a lease deal on Pure models starting at $549/month for three years, with $5,549 due at signing. That’s thanks to a combined $15,000 Air credit that includes the $7,500 federal money buyers wouldn’t receive if they purchased it, since the Air is a car that starts at over $55,000 MSRP.
The 2024 Air Pure, and the available deals, give buyers looking at a Lucid Air quite a bit to think about – no matter what their thoughts are on cooled seats.
