- Lucid Gravity SUVs will get access to 20,000 Tesla Superchargers on January 31, the startup announced on Tuesday.
- The Gravity will be able to charge at 400 kW, faster than any other EV on the U.S. market.
- It'll max out at a respectable 225 kW on 500V Tesla Superchargers.
The Lucid Gravity SUV hit the market in late December as the first non-Tesla EV to come equipped with Tesla’s formerly exclusive charging port design. Starting on January 31, Gravity owners will gain access to Tesla’s vast Supercharger network, meaning they’ll be able to take full advantage of that new charging port, Lucid said on Tuesday.
Owners of the Air, Lucid’s other vehicle, will need to hang tight until the second quarter of this year for Supercharger access, the company said. Lucid said Gravity owners will be able to plug in at 20,000 Supercharger stalls.
On Tuesday, Lucid also took the opportunity to announce some truly monstrous charging speeds for the Gravity, both when hooked up to Superchargers and to other stations. Those speeds can be different, for reasons we’ll discuss in a moment.
The Gravity will be capable of taking in 400 kilowatts of charging power at certain stations thanks to its 926-volt architecture. (Most EVs operate at around 400V, while some operate at 800V or higher.) As far as we can tell, that’s the highest rating of any EV on the U.S. market. But good luck finding anywhere to test it out; 400 kW exceeds what most public DC fast chargers are capable of. Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging stations support those speeds, but those stations are few and far between.
Lucid says the Gravity can add 200 miles of range in less than 12 minutes, and we’re eager to test that out for ourselves. The startup says it was able to boost charging speeds thanks to an “advanced cooling system” and a new Panasonic battery cell. The more kilowatts an EV can absorb, the faster it'll charge, broadly speaking. And these days, anything substantially over 200 kW is very good.
There’s a catch, though: You’ll only get the quickest charging sessions at 1000V stations, Lucid says.
EVs that function at well over 400V—including new Hyundai and Kia EVs, the Porsche Taycan and more—don't perform particularly well at lower-voltage chargers, which most Tesla Superchargers are. The Lucid Air, for example, charges at more than 300 kW at certain high-powered stalls. Plug it into most Superchargers or another low-voltage stall, though, and the Air has to boost the voltage in order to accept a charge. So it’s only capable of charging at a sluggish 50 kW at those kinds of locations.
Lucid chief engineer Eric Bach told me recently that he sees that like more of a “flat-tire kit”—meaning, Lucid gave the Air just enough capability at those lower-voltage stalls to get owners out of a bind.
The Gravity should perform a lot better, with Lucid claiming it can hit “sustained speeds of up to 225 kW on 500V architecture fast chargers, including Tesla V3 Superchargers.” If you’re curious as to how this works, the Gravity uses its rear motor to boost a charger’s voltage up to match the 926V of its battery pack. Hyundai’s EVs using its E-GMP platform (like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6) do something similar. Some other EVs effectively split their 800V packs into a pair of 400V batteries to achieve a similar effect. Tesla is in the process of rolling out higher-voltage V4 charging stalls.
The Gravity is a milestone for Lucid. It’s the California-based EV startup’s second vehicle, and a seven-seat SUV that should help it reel in far more buyers than the Air luxury sedan ever could. And judging by a brief test drive InsideEVs took late last year, the Gravity is excellent. The company recently started delivering Gravitys to Lucid employees, plus their friends and families. Wider customer deliveries should start soon.
Tuesday’s news is also a big deal for the wider American EV landscape.
The whole auto industry is in the process of switching from the long-established Combined Charging System plug—which basically every non-Tesla EV has used for years—to the North American Charging Standard, which was proprietary to Tesla until recently. Over the last couple of years, carmakers have struck deals with Tesla to use its port design and give customers access to its huge charging network.
Customers from several brands can now use Superchargers, but only with an adapter. That list is growing steadily. The next wave of this transition will involve non-Tesla cars that come from the factory with the NACS port. Some of the first are the Gravity and new Ioniq 5, and many more will follow.
Lucid says all new Gravity SUVs will come with CCS-to-NACS adapters, as well as with J1772-to-NACS adapters, the latter of which work for slower, AC chargers. But with native access to 20,000 Tesla Supercharger stalls and plenty of Tesla Destination Chargers, you should be well covered for charging options.
