, In fact its the Edmunds, Lucid Air, that we just bought with our own money., Now weve tested a Lucid Air before, but that model that we had in was pretty buggy and had a long list of problems.. This one is all ours, and it is finally here. Just wait until you hear all the drama that it took to get this into our hands.. This car is joining our long term test program where our writers and editors live with the car for a year and see what its really like to own over about 20000 miles.. We do this with hot ticket EVs whenever possible, to see if these flashy newcomers can hold their shine or if that initial glimmer fades fast.. Now its Lucids turn. In this video Ill show you what we got explain why we got it and what its like to take delivery of this brand spanking new EV.. Is this an improvement over that buggy, one that we had before? I sure hope so. Things expensive., But on top of that this is an unboxing video.. So for that reason we asked Lucid to keep on as much stuff as they possibly could. So Im talking protective screen, films, seat covers. Any and everything that Lucid could leave on. We asked them to do that. Real, quick though I just need one thing and thats. If you can, please hit that Like button and click Subscribe, because it will really help out our channel.

. Also, if youre looking to sell your car go to edmunds.comsellmycar and youll get a cash offer right. Now., If you dont know Lucid, is a startup EV company and the Air is their very first model.. This is a luxury electric sedan thats made in Arizona. Now weve already been very hands on with the Lucid Air, and if you havent watched Alistairs in depth, video on it, you should go. Do that now.? There were some things that we really liked and others that we really didnt.. For instance, there were a number of mishaps., Like I dont know, for one thing: the drivers door just stopped working., Also the soft close doors malfunctioned., And there was a long list of laggy or unresponsive tech. Issues. Dont get me wrong. Theres a lot to like about the Lucid Air. In our testing. We found it fast, comfortable and efficient.. In many ways we find it more ambitious than the Mercedes EQS and more user friendly than the Tesla Model S.. But if Lucid really wants to make a splash in this segment, it cant afford some of the missteps that we documented back then.. In fact, that video caused quite a stir. Shortly after it aired Lucid, informed customers of a rigorous new fit and finish policy that would impact every new model coming off. The line. Were confident our video had something to do with that. Heres, the sticky part.. At the time we already had a Lucid on order.

. In fact, it was physically on a truck on its way here., But that new fit and finish policy stopped. The delivery and eventually Lucid, decided that our car no longer met its standards for build quality.. In a strange way, we may have gotten our own car canceled. Oops., With our car. Officially scratched Lucid, asked if wed be interested in a similar model and gave us three colors to choose from.. We couldnt pick the original white that we wanted. That would have taken an extra six months, six months., So we got the gray. And now its here in the flesh with Lucids stamp of approval.. But was it worth the wait And has this car improved in all the ways where the previous one fell flat on its face? After all, this thing is certainly priced to impress.. Ours is the Air Grand Touring, which is the middle trim in the lineup, and we paid about 1’000 for it.. Now, since then, Lucid has increased the price of the Air by about 15000., But luckily we got our order in early enough that it didnt affect us.. We bought the Grand Touring trim to get 21 inch wheels and a premium stereo., But the big prize is this: an upgraded 112 kilowatt hour battery pack. Thats, more capacity than a Tesla Model S or about two Chevy Bolt batteries put together.. That means our Lucid is generating 800 horsepower from its front and rear electric motors., But, to be honest, were most interested in monitoring its real world efficiency and range.

. The last Lucid Air that we tested did 505 miles on our renowned Edmunds, EV test loop.. What can this one do? Thats? What well be watching closely., MUSIC PLAYING, WHISPERING? Remember when I taught you guys to get your headphones ready, Nows the time. Lets get started. PEELING SOUNDS WHISPERING Ooh thats, so satisfying. PEELING SOUNDS CRUMPLING. Sound PEELING SOUNDS MUSIC PLAYING Well. That was certainly fun. Well now that weve got all that stuff out of here lets see what else is inside our Lucid Air.. First of all, theres the Monroney or dealer sticker, as you may know, it. As you can see its got the price that we paid right here: 140500. Wow.. There are two other numbers on here that I want to call your attention to.. The first is estimated total range 469 miles.. Now weve already put a different, Lucid Air on our Edmunds EV range test.. You can watch Alistairs full instrumented test video to see how it performed on that.. The second one is this 28 kilowatt hours per 100 miles. Thats. How much electricity you use to get 100 miles on average.? These are two things well be monitoring very very closely on the long term blog. So now lets see whats in the glove box.. You open it by pressing this button, here. CLICKING SOUND Nice. Dont need that.. Bloop Weve got a couple of things in here., Looks like weve got a Lucid Air owners manual, quick guide., And this does seem to be real paper.

So its an actual real book manual., You dont, see those very often anymore. And then some dealer info and our paper plate, which we can get installed and hit the road. All right. Since I am the first one inside the Lucid Im going to set it up for all of my personal preferences. Before we do that, let me just put you in my seat for a second and lets talk about how it smells in here.. Its kind of an interesting, unique essence – I guess. So theres a lot of leather inside which is very nice and feels very nice and soft to the touch but Im not getting the rich, genuine leather smell that you get in a high end, Mercedes or BMW. Audi stuff, like that., Instead its much more Tesla ish and I think the look and the feel and surprisingly the smell too.. It just feels a little plasticky like clinical.. But again everything feels very nice. Its just not that pebble grain type of leather.. But there are lots of other materials in here. Theres, a pretty big variety., Theres, different metals, wood, some suede like Alcantara stuff and then a neat fabric that feels really nice too., So points for variety.. The smell is interesting. Im, not sure its luxury, but its interesting.. All right lets walk through the setup process. Conveniently Lucid has on the screen right here. Welcome to your Lucid. Lets. Get you started., OK Set Up.. What do we do? First Im going to select Home and program Edmunds headquarters as the address in there.

? No, I wont because it wants me to set up the Lucid ID first.. Ok, so it wants me to put in an email and password – and I dont know the email and password theyre using for this car.. So I guess I wont put in the address right. Now. Lets see if I can connect my phone instead. Connectivity, Bluetooth. Tap a device to pair. Ryans iPhone. Coolio. Confirm.. Now I can play my tunes. YODELING, MUSIC, OK, so the phone is all connected and thats important, because at least for now, Lucid doesnt have Apple, CarPlay or Android, Auto equipped., Instead theyre saying that they will be available in the future through an over the air update.. But for the moment, if you want to use phone functionality or play your music through, your phone, youve got to do it through your phone, not through a smartphone app.. But the last thing I want to do is check out the navigation system, so lets go to that. Nice big double screen layout.. I want to check out the charging stations so lets click charging and see if its good at locating nearby stations. No results for charging stations. Using your current preferred charger settings. I didnt do any charger. Settings. Show all chargers.. Oh now, theres a ton. Charge. Point charge. Point charge point charge point and there are a bunch in a short distance here.. So lets pick one. And if I pick one and go to it, oh there it goes.

OK, so it brought up directions to the charging station that I selected out of the 30. That it showed me. And we can get started on our way to go plug in. And with that lets, throw that up and just use the top screen. And matter of fact. Why dont, we just put this whole thing away Its pretty slick., With all that set up and out of the way lets talk about something that we need to focus on with any startup car company and thats build quality.. There are lots of different panels in here. Lots of different materials and were going to be monitoring very closely how they all hold up over time., But just first off there are a couple of areas.. I noticed this whole panel moves quite a bit.. This moves more than I would like., And then this section is clearly plastic and a fake metal trim. Its just not great to be moving around that much, but they dont make any creaking any rattling noises and they return to right where they were supposed to be.. So it doesnt seem to be a terrible sign at the moment, but well be keeping an eye on it. Things like this. That feels pretty good.. The wheel feels nice and soft and I actually really like these rotating knobs for the volume and for clicking through the menu here.. This volume knob is kind of a similar way with its wide ridges and thats pretty cool.

. Obviously, this tablet moves a little bit.. Hopefully, please be careful with your tablet in your Lucid.. I dont want anybody to mess that up. And to tuck it in you just do that., But the other thing I do want to point out is one of the panel gaps in the door.. This is pretty wide., I dont know if you can see it over here., But look you can stick a pen in it and it fits nice and snug. Thats. Not ideal.. Now lets take a look at the outside. MUSIC PLAYING Now when we move to the outside. There are a couple of things that stick out to the eye, basically right away and the first one we want to show you is where this trunk panel meets this rear quarter, panel. Between the two theres. This line that starts out pretty tight and then gets real wide down here, gets tight again and then gets real wide again., And if you run your fingers over these two areas, you can feel this ones popping out. On a similar note, where lots of different elements Are coming together, theres just some kind of inconsistency., So this strip should match up with this strip. On a Mercedes or a Porsche. This would be one continuous line. And instead you can see my fingers are taking a step down when they go over it. And then this part is just kind of off in no mans land and its creating just an interesting little gap and the other side is Even worse.

And then this panel kind of moves quite a bit., So in general, the body panels across the entire car. The gaps are just kind of large for a luxury car, especially one at this price. Thats, just how they built it. So, OK well see how that works out., But I think the inconsistency is kind of the worrying part where some areas will be real, tight and smooth and others will just be larger. Shall we say While we were looking at panel gaps earlier, we noticed one small thing over here, and that is this little bit of I dont know Styrofoam or rubber. Maybe sound deadening, material.. It seems like they forgot to cut it off this little excess part of it. And its visible when the doors are closed, which is just not very pleasant to look at. Now. Are we nit picking? Yes, but this is kind of a quality control issue, and it makes me wonder what other little hidden things are in there that were not seeing right now., But, while were here, this gives me a good chance to test the soft close doors. Lets see if this One works. Pretty nice. Success. Well, we showed you some of the bad, but now lets show you some of the good specifically in the frunk. Man. I love me. A good frunk., Lucid left us some goodies in here, so lets see what we got. A very rugged. Looking water bottle a very fashionable tote bag for your free range vegetables, a fitted hat cleaning cloth for all the screens and a lovely little note that says thank you for spending a small fortune with us, not really but basically.

As far as storage. This is a really wide space, but pretty shallow. Thats as far as it goes.. But if you pull up this cover, it gets much much deeper. And in fact this is a really actually very useful storage space to have, in addition to the trunk. Check it out.. Its really big in here. All right, thats cool. Lets check out the trunk. Power trunk very cool.. Oh look at this Floor. Mats. Beautiful lily white floor mats that we will immediately get dirty, but they look very nice right now. So thats cool. Back here weve also got what looks like probably charging cords and is.. So this is the charging apparatus that youll be using to boost your Lucid. And its got a nice little storage spot right there in that pocket of the trunk.. Ok, what else? Well, this is a pretty spacious trunk., It doesnt go up very high, but its real real wide., Thats, really far. And then under here youve got even more space. And then one cool thing that we noticed is there: are these pass through tunnels to go into these Sides too.: This is actually a very clever use of space and packaging by Lucid.. Youve got a really nice sized trunk and plenty of extra storage in the front as well so Im pretty impressed by that. MUSIC PLAYING. How do you charge the dang thing? Well, youre charging port is right behind this door right here.

And, of course, you can use that cord that we pulled out of the trunk earlier. Us personally. We have level two charging stations installed here at the Edmunds office, so well be using those for overnight juice. And then well, occasionally use level three fast charging stations when were going around town. Now, depending on. When you placed your order for a Lucid, you could also get up to three years of free charging at Electrify America stations so well be documenting that process, as well. Interestingly Lucid uses a 900 volt onboard charging system. Thats a lot more than the 400 volt system. In a Tesla Model Y or Ford, Mustang, Mach E. Its even more than the 800 volt system in a Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Porsche Taycan.. Now the idea behind that is that, with the 900 volt system, the Lucid can give you a higher rate of maximum charging. Speed. So if, for instance, youre using one of those really speedy level, three 350 kilowatt chargers, the Lucid will be able to take advantage of that more than those other models. Will. Now do all these numbers just exist out in the universe, but dont really have any tangible difference on your ownership. Experience Well thats. What well be finding out so make sure you check out the blog. MUSIC PLAYING Now that the Lucid is in our hands, make sure to bookmark our long term page. So you can see where we take it, how it performs and what, if anything, goes wrong.

Has Lucids new approach to fit and finish made any discernible difference. Well, I mean the last car we tested barely had working door handles. At least we could get all the doors open and closed this time. And no the panel gaps arent great, but this does appear to be a tighter, cleaner execution. With our car. Lucid has made progress.. This is definitely a unique way to spend roughly 150000, but our Lucid makes us feel a little bit better about that proposition.. There are still some wrinkles to work out, but we consider the Lucid Air a more than worthy adversary to the Mercedes, EQS and Tesla Model S.. Now will we still feel that way after a year behind the wheel, Stay tuned., Leave a comment below and let me know your first impressions of our new long termer.. As for me, I still havent driven this thing yet so Im going to take a spin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ntO-mSPDo