Lucid Motors just set a milestone in the electric car world: its Air Dream Edition Range car can drive 520 miles on a single charge, according to the EPA's official efficiency ratings, which is more than 100 miles farther than anything Tesla makes.
Four hundred miles on a charge has long been seen as a milestone for any company hoping to make it in the EV industry. It's the point at which most people's range anxiety would go away, and the fears of being stranded without a charger would begin to ease. Tesla's Model S Long Range eked past that figure earlier this year, with an EPA rating of 405 miles per charge, but Lucid now owns the top spot by a wide margin. "Crucially, this landmark has been achieved by Lucid's world-leading in-house EV technology, not by simply installing an oversize battery pack," Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson said in a statement. That's a pretty clear dig at Tesla, where Rawlinson worked before joining Lucid.
The Air Dream Edition is hardly a mainstream car, given that the 933-horsepower car starts at $169,000. (Even Lucid's Air Touring, the cheapest model so far rated by the EPA, starts at $95,000.) And you still can't buy one, though Lucid said it's going to start delivering cars this year. But this represents a huge win for Lucid nonetheless, as it looks to provide the kind of high-end Tesla competitor no other company has managed to create. And for Tesla, which has been the undisputed leader of the category by virtually every measure, it's yet another example of how quickly the industry is evolving.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE