Lucid Air Dethrones Tesla Mannequin S as New EV 1000 King of the Ring

From the September 2022 challenge of Automotive and Driver.

To measure the present state of electric-vehicle interstate journey, we adopted the identical route as last year’s 11-car EV 1000. Solely this time could be one driver, one machine, one mission: pilot Lucid’s Air Grand Touring to see if it might strip the Tesla Model S of the EV 1000 crown. The checkpoints stay the identical: Cincinnati and Athens, Ohio; Morgantown, West Virginia; Erie, Pennsylvania; and C/D headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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Spoiler alert: The Lucid received. Not by a small margin, however by a whopping 33 minutes, with a complete time of 15 hours and 41 minutes (95 minutes of that spent charging, a minute lower than final 12 months’s successful Tesla). However its victory did not come with out drama.

Whereas Tesla’s huge Supercharger community is basically dependable, Electrify America’s budding fast-charging infrastructure nonetheless exhibits teething points. In Cincinnati, a number of chargers had been out of order. Fortunately, a single 350-kW plug was obtainable. If solely it had labored as marketed, as an alternative of taking 40 minutes so as to add 46 %.

David BeardAutomotive and Driver

Athens, Ohio, is prime actual property for a fast-charger, however we did not discover any new stations alongside the route. Our subsequent high-voltage connection could be some 377 miles away. The rolling Appalachian terrain threatened to eat each final electron, but the Lucid coated the stretch with 6 % of its battery capability left. As soon as once more chargers had been down, the 350-kW unit did not ship what’s promised, and defeated patrons drove away. “I am going to take what I can get. They will get there,” stated one buyer. Yeah, however when?

After 36 minutes and with 75 % cost displaying, the race towards the clock was on. The Lucid would require a fast splash east of Toledo for the ultimate push, and as soon as once more, the 350-kW charger did not ship.

The Lucid might’ve taken much less time had the costs been faster, and it might have required simply two stops. Electrify America not too long ago raised $450 million to develop its community, however the money is likely to be higher spent guaranteeing that the present tools works.