- The Lucid Air Grand Touring is the longest-range EV in the U.S., with 512 miles of EPA range.
- It’s also among the fastest charging EVs, charging at nearly 320 kW in the real world.
- It’s a bonafide road-tripper, capable of adding 200 miles of range in 11 minutes.
Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson has recently been touting his company as the new technology leader in the EV world, claiming it has surpassed Tesla. As Tesla’s former VP of engineering, Rawlinson brought the Model S to life and engineered the complex falcon-wing doors of the Model X—so he knows a thing or two about EVs. While his claim of overtaking Tesla is debatable, one area where Lucid clearly excels is in charging speed.
We recently dove deep into the Lucid Air’s charging performance. InsideEVs’ Senior Editor and host of the YouTube channel State of Charge Tom Moloughney tested the 819-horsepower 2024 Lucid Air Grand Touring at a 350-kilowatt Electrify America station. He found that the Air charges at a marginally lower maximum speed than the Porsche Taycan and Chevy Silverado EV—two models also with impressive charging speeds—but it’s more efficient, which compensates for the slight difference in charging speed.
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The Air Grand Touring is still the longest range EV with an EPA-estimated range of 512 miles, thanks to a 118-kilowatt-hour battery pack. Back in 2021, Motor Trend’s Johnny Libermann completed a 409-mile L.A. to San Francisco drive in one of the launch edition models on a single charge. He still had 69 miles of range left in the “tank.” Thanks to a 924-volt architecture, it can charge at over 300 kW at DC fast charging stations that can dispense that sort of power.
The charging session started with the battery level at 0%. A couple of minutes after plugging into the 350 kW Electrify America charger, the Air peaked at 319 kW. In just three minutes it added 18.1 kWh of energy, reaching 14% state of charge. That’s the same as the battery size of a modern plug-in hybrid such as the Toyota RAV4 Prime. Five minutes into the session, the charging rate dropped to under 300 kW. At the 11-minute mark the charging rate dropped to 200 kW. By that point it had added 50.2 kWh of energy, good for 200 miles of highway driving range.
Both the Silverado EV and the Taycan can peak at a higher rate, Moloughney said, but because the Air is so aerodynamic and efficient, it can drive further on the same amount of energy.
Lucid claims that it is years ahead of competition in terms of efficiency. The Air Pure can apparently deliver an efficiency of five miles per kilowatt-hour, or 146 MPGe. Note that the figure isn’t directly comparable to other cars, because Lucid uses battery-to-road efficiency, while the EPA test includes charging losses that drive efficiency down. Rawlinson claimed that it would take rivals many years to catch up. But that may not be true because EVs like the Tesla Model S don’t even use an 800+ volt architecture like the Air does. Still, it’s pretty darn good at both charging speeds and overall driving efficiency. Imagine what Tesla could do if it was at all serious about improving its cars, rather than chasing AI dreams.
That said, the fact that the Air can keep pulling over 200 kW even after 40% state of charge is impressive. In fact, the charging rate bottomed out at 123 kW—before dropping substantially after 80% SoC as all EVs do—which is still a decent charging rate.
“To get that amount of power in such a short period of time, really makes the Air Grand Touring such a great road-tripper,” Moloughney said. “There’s no need in most cases to stay longer than 15 or 20 minutes if you plug in at a low state of charge.”
This charging performance, however, comes at a cost. The cheapest Air you can buy starts at $70,000. The model tested here starts at $111,000. Charging anxieties will only truly vanish when such charging speeds can be realized on affordable, mass market EVs. That said, the video above is worth watching in full if you want to learn more about how charging patterns work.
