The reviews for the Air Grand Touring have finally started to get released.
Car and Driver
Swift, efficient, and premium, the Lucid Air sedan is a luxury car for the EV age.
www.caranddriver.com
Merely feathering the accelerator pedal moves either Lucid forward without delay, but the Performance is noticeably punchier. A launch-control feature allows the driver to easily unlock the car's maximum capability for straight-line performance: First select Sprint mode, then simply hold your left foot on the brake and mat the go pedal until the telltale blue-bear logo appears on the gauge display. Release the brake, and the car rockets forward with a whoosh and virtually no wheelspin.
The Air's road manners are refined and borderline athletic. It's not as sharp as the Porsche Taycan, and its width makes it feel less nimble than an Audi e-tron GT. The 0.82 g of grip on the 19-inch all-season range tire also falls well short of those cars, whereas the previous Dream Edition we tested on the summer 21s did 0.92 g. But the Grand Touring nonetheless offers a compelling blend of comfort and sport. Three driving modes alter the car's suspension, steering, and powertrain to a surprising degree. Smooth mode, the Air's most comfortable setting, sets the dampers to soak up bumps as much as possible and limits the horsepower to help preserve range. Swift and Sprint modes are where things get more interesting, with the latter unlocking the maximum horsepower. The dampers are firmed up in these settings for better handling, and the steering dials in a bit more heft as well as some road feel that's largely absent in the default Smooth mode.
Autoguide
https://www.autoguide.com/manufactu...view-so-good-that-it-will-spoil-your-appetite
2022 Lucid Air Review Verdict: The new benchmark for practically all vehicles. Period.
The 2022 Lucid Air is so good, that driving it can make every other vehicle seem horrible and bad, by comparison. It’s the automotive equivalent of having ice cream before dinner, how do you compare any other vehicle to a super sedan that’s legitimately good at nearly everything? That’s the thing, you kind of, well, can’t. The Lucid Air Grand Touring is a big electric sedan that feels expensive and is probably one of the fastest things that a normal person, anywhere, ever, will drive in their lifetime.
Motor Trend
The 2022 MotorTrend Car of the Year just keeps getting better. And not just because this one makes 1,050 hp.
www.motortrend.com
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.
Jalopnik
While the Air’s performance is epic, at the end of the day, it’s a big luxury car, and it’s got to do the luxury thing well if it’s going to be worthy of its lofty price tag.
First, the material quality of the interior is excellent and feels well-assembled. There are no cheap plastic touch-points anywhere, which is always nice. The air has a bunch of mixed materials in the interior — Alcantara, leather, Alpaca wool, cloth, and more. It’s enough different textures that it shouldn’t work, but it does. I love that the Air doesn’t borrow switchgear or parts from other manufacturers; it makes the experience feel special, in a way that a Tesla with its old-ass borrowed Mercedes stuff doesn’t.
The front seats are extremely adjustable and very comfortable, though I did find myself wishing for more plush padding. This is an area where the Air lags behind something like a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, but overall it’s a minor gripe. I wasn’t exactly wrecked after six hours at the wheel, and that’s pretty good. The seats offer heating, cooling and massage functions, which is proper for a luxury car in this price range.
The second row is comfortable too, with heated (non adjustable) seats and power sunshades. One interesting thing: On Air models with the smaller battery pack, the floor is lowered in the rear, to take advantage of the space created by the missing battery modules. Lucid could have just left that space empty, but it didn’t, and I appreciate that kind of thought and attention to detail. Overall headroom and legroom for front and rear passengers is excellent. I managed to fit my 6-foot-4 self, my 6-foot-2 wife and my 6-foot-7 father-in-law in the car with nobody feeling cramped. That’s no mean feat.
Autoblog
The Air Grand Touring boasts eye-popping specs, impressive craftsmanship and engineering, and an overall cool demeanor that's basically impossible to beat.
www.autoblog.com
Now, we also sampled the “standard” Air Grand Touring, which has 819 hp and 885 lb-ft of torque. Its 0-60 time increases to 3 seconds. Oh no. Frankly, the 0-60 times and Launch Control aren’t the best illustration of Lucid’s power-dense and brilliantly packaged motor units. All high-powered EVs benefit from the immediate torque of an electric motor, providing that neck-snap acceleration and punch-to-the-chest feeling. They must also deal with the traction limitations of rubber and pavement, which is why 1,050 hp doesn’t vaporize the doors of less powerful rivals.
As such, it’s the Lucid Air Grand Touring’s 30-50-mph thrust that’s the biggest eye opener. Or rather, you intended to go up to 50 but the car is so blindingly fast that you accidentally ended up at 100 instead. This is a car that can get you into serious trouble with law enforcement. And not just because it’s so fast, but because it utterly scrambles your sense of speed. Something like a Dodge Hellcat or Porsche 911 Turbo S provides ferocious acceleration, but it comes packaged with ferocious noise. The Lucid isn’t entirely quiet – there is some motor whine, and wind still exists – but there’s a high degree of cognitive dissonance nevertheless. And yes, this rolling start acceleration is absolutely greater than a Porsche Taycan Turbo or Audi RS e-Tron GT. A Tesla Model S Plaid? Unfortunately, I haven’t driven one of those.
Now, what about the difference between Grand Touring and the Performance variant? Can you really tell one has 231 more horsepower than the other? Ah, that’s really hard to say. The 30-50-type acceleration seemed to be slightly more vigorous, but without literally going back-to-back on the same stretch of road, it’s just a hunch at this point. Acceleration from a stop? There’s only so much nuance one can detect when your neck is being snapped and your chest compressed.
Basically, you’re probably good to just stick with the Grand Touring, especially since the Performance doesn’t have much of a visual tell that you’ve got the top of the line. The wheel design is different and there’s a little P in 12-point font on the trunk badge. That’s it. The car is also otherwise mechanically the same, including the chassis tuning.