Much ink has been spilled as of late about Mercedes' electric vehicle tailspin. As you've likely heard, Benz loyalists just can't dig up much loyalty for the vaguely jellybean-shaped EQ models, so the German brand's do-over plan will involve more EVs that are essentially fully electric versions of the E-Class and S-Class models that everyone knows and loves.
If Mercedes wanted to make a true S-Class of electric vehicles, it should've just made this instead: the Lucid Air Grand Touring. If the S-Class is supposed to be the best car in the world at the time it's produced, then Lucid has the Mercedes EQS handily beaten.
And if you're going to do some long-distance grand touring of your own, you won't find a better car than this in 2024.
(Full Disclosure: Lucid loaned us an Air Grand Touring for a week with a fully charged battery.)
2024 Lucid Air Grand Touring
What Is It?
Lucid likes to play up its relentless approach to efficiency as its main selling point. For the California-based startup, that means advanced aerodynamics, new construction methods, lighter and smaller in-house electric motors and scores of other methods to maximize range.
But mention "electric vehicle efficiency" or "battery-to-wheel miles per kilowatt-hour" to the average person and their eyes will glaze over. What people need to know is that the Air is a range monster. When equipped with 19-inch wheels, the Air Grand Touring is the longest-ranges EV currently for sale in America, with an EPA-estimated 519 miles of range. At the moment, nothing else really comes close to that.
Granted, my tester had the 20-inch wheels, so it "only" had an EPA-estimated 485 miles of range. Which still puts it well above every other EV on that list I just linked to.
Like I said: monster.
In terms of specs, the car I piloted had a 118.0-kWh battery pack (up in size slightly for 2024) powering two electric motors, making it all-wheel-drive. It needs the AWD traction because it puts down 819 horsepower and 885 pound-feet of torque. That's a lot even in these power-crazed times, thought it doesn't hold a candle to the 1,234 hp you get in the range-topping Lucid Air Sapphire. But it was half the price of of the Sapphire; this Air Grand Tourer tester came in at $125,550.
But as we all know, specs only tell some of the story. To test those bold range claims, I took the Air Grand Touring from Brooklyn to Boston with contributing editor Tom Moloughney and back in the same day. (Incidentally, the trip was for an InsideEVs reader meetup that was hosted at Lucid's Boston Seaport store—an event that I should note was done without the involvement of Lucid as an automaker.)
If you've never done that drive, know that it's a lot. It was about 460 miles in total. That the Air Grand Touring could do it at all, let alone so well, speaks volumes about how good the car is.
What's Good About The Lucid Air Grand Touring?
For starters, it looks fantastic. It's not just the size, price or sedan body style; it does what the Mercedes EQS tried to do, design-wise, just... correctly. It's lower, sleeker, more striking and less dumpy than the Benz. It got attention on the road, too; when we stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts for a quick break, the kid working the counter asked us all about it, then told us "It looks like it's from the future." I think that's as good a compliment as any EV can get.
It's a delight inside, too, and not something that feels like an effort from some half-baked startup. The material quality is absolutely superb, as are the seats, which are off-the-charts good. My "you won't find a better road-tripper" claim isn't just about range. It's about comfort, too. And the Air Grand Touring offers that in spades.
The same goes for power. You can immediately tell that the Air is optimized to uncork all 800-plus horses and all that torque only under certain conditions and speeds; otherwise, the wheels would probably just spin. But at highway pace, or when the drive mode is set to Sprint, it's absurdly potent. More importantly, it delivers on those efficiency claims. Our drive to Boston happened around or north of 80 mph much of the time, and I still managed over 3.0 miles per kWh. Given how the base Pure model does a world-beating 5 miles per kWh, I'm sure I could've done better in better weather, on roads I knew and with more consistency.
Finally, it's an ace at charging. I left New York with a little over 400 miles of range after some errands around town, picked up Tom near Fort Lee, NJ, and then arrived in Boston with a still-excellent 190 miles of range. After the event, we headed back and stopped at an Electrify America 350 kW station with 60 miles left—about a 12% charge.
The EA charger jumped to 322 kW immediately before leveling off into the 270 kW range. Still, that meant the Air Grand Touring added 30 miles of range in just two minutes, and was at 250 miles total after just 13 minutes.
We called it there because we had enough juice to get back to New York, but think of it this way: a Lucid Air Grand Touring will go from almost empty to more range than many EVs have total in the time it takes to use the bathroom and buy a bottle of water. Incredible.
What's Not So Good About The Lucid Air Grand Touring?
It's a first-rate highway cruiser, but that's also clearly where it's most at home. In tight city streets like New York, the Air—any Air, really—reveals its bulk. It's a big sedan and it never feels fully free of its 5,000-pound curb weight. It also feels under-braked. The pedal is soft and never inspires the confidence that an 800-hp car should have. Be judicious if you use Sprint Mode.
It's also clear that when Lucid talks about tech, it's primarily talking about battery and motor tech, not the other stuff. Its software suite is just fine. It's certainly handsome, with attractive graphics across its three-screen dashboard. But the menu layouts make it hard to find what you want sometimes.
Likewise, I could not have been less impressed with the Amazon Alexa-based voice integration system. Ask it for something, like navigation to a certain address and, it won't give you a visual list of choices. That is if it properly understands you at all. Options from Kia, Hyundai, Volvo, General Motors and others at a fraction of the price do this vastly better. I also had some difficulties logging in to my Amazon account in the car, making it hard to get working at all.
And Lucid leaves a lot to be desired on the automated driving assistance system front. My tester had the $2,000 DreamDrive Premium option, which amounted to little more than 3D surround view monitoring with basic functions like hands-on radar cruise control, lane departure warnings, auto parking and cross-traffic alerts. That option now seems to be included on the 2025 Air Grand Touring.
But for an additional $2,500, you can also have DreamDrive Pro, which includes LIDAR-backed hardware for hands-free driving—whenever Lucid gets around to adding it in the future.
If we're going to draw the EQS comparison, then Mercedes has Lucid smoked on the tech front: It has better utility, better software and better automated driving assistance, however limited it may be for now. But for every other metric that counts, the points go to Lucid.
Lucid Air Grand Touring: The Verdict
I did 460 miles of driving in one day in this thing. Yes, I was exhausted by the end of it. But my back didn't hurt. My knees didn't hurt. My neck didn't hurt. And at no point did I fear we'd run out of range. Then, finally, I missed it when I had to give it back.
I'd say all of those are the hallmarks of a truly great luxury car: when done right, it's the best way to travel, and what you wish you were doing when you have to get around some other way.
Gallery: 2024 Lucid Air Grand Touring
Why draw comparisons to the S-Class and EQS? Because the Air Grand Touring feels like the same idea, just with vastly better execution. Superior range, better looks, more interesting, and clearly built by a company that wants to make EVs and isn't just being dragged kicking and screaming into it by global emissions regulations. It's the car the EQS should have been.
If you do have $125,000 to spend on an electric sedan, and you don't choose this one, you should probably rethink some things.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
