Lucid Air Is Coming For Tesla’s Electric Kingdom

What’s your excuse for not wanting an electric car?

For some, the issue is price. No matter how much we might pine for that Tesla Model S, EVs are still not as affordable as gas-powered cars (although some states have tax credits in place to mitigate the sticker shock). It’s a perfectly reasonable complaint, especially when coupled with the next most obvious reason why buyers don’t go electric: range. Why spend extra money on a car that can’t take you long distances without a charge? If you do embark on a road trip in your EV, how available will charging stations be? Wouldn’t it be better to just wait until this technology is more “reliable”? 

While consumers are certainly not wrong to ask these questions, they should know that the EVs they claim to be waiting for are already here. The EPA just released its official range rating for the new 2022 Lucid Air Dream Edition, and it runs all its competition off the road at an astounding 520 miles of range. For reference, this rating beats the Tesla Model S by over 100 miles, easily positioning Lucid Motors as the new industry standard. And the rating isn’t just a gamechanger for them – it’s big news for any company making electric cars, and any consumer looking to finally take the leap and buy one.

Ever since the earliest days of EVs, we’ve been operating under the assumption that these vehicles can’t take you very far. But this assumption has never really been true, even back at the turn of the 20th century. In 1908, an electrical engineer named Oliver Fritchle invented an electric car that had a maximum range of 100 miles, impressive even by today’s standards.

But just like today, many back then were skeptical that Fritchle’s car could make good on its promises, so he embarked on a publicity tour to both test the vehicle and drum up public enthusiasm. As Lucid is probably about to find out, sometimes seeing is believing.

The 520-mile rating means that, theoretically, the Lucid Air should be good for 8-9 hours of driving, which is probably more than any reasonable person would want to do in a single day (it certainly should handle your morning commute). Now that this range record has been broken, it’s up to other car companies to try to match it, which means we will almost certainly see other EVs with similar capabilities. Tesla is already pretty close, and we can’t imagine that not holding the record for longest electric car range will sit well with Elon Musk. So, the Lucid Air’s achievement is sure to have a ripple effect throughout the industry, producing a new generation of long-range EVs that might just entice the naysayers once and for all. It’s taken a while to get to this point, but the excuses are finally running out.