2023 Lucid Air

The MSRP of the Lucid Air Pure RWD is $77,400 and adding AWD will cost you $5,500 on top of that. All the other trims are AWD by default, starting with the Touring, which costs $95,000, followed by the Grand Touring at $125,600, and the Grand Touring Performance at $149,600. These prices don't include the $1,650 destination fee.

For a first effort, Lucid has done an excellent job to make the Air a fine car to pilot. A big sedan should be comfortable and refined and, in its Smooth mode, the Air absorbs bumps well and glides along effortlessly. Horsepower is reduced somewhat to improve range, but it's still instantly responsive, as you'd expect from an EV. The brake-pedal feel is a bit soggy and not very progressive, but thankfully you rarely have to touch that pedal in normal driving with the regenerative braking set to High. The steering is light and quite lifeless, but this suits Smooth mode. Switching to Swift or Sport introduces a welcome degree of steering feel and firms up the dampers while sharpening up the entire powertrain's responses, giving a fair impression of sportiness, even if its width and weight prevent it from every feeling as light-footed as a Taycan. This is exacerbated by the standard all-season tires, which have low grip limits and takes the edge off the handling.

In many ways, the Lucid Air is everything the Tesla Model S should have been by now. Tesla's big sedan still looks almost the way it did a decade ago despite frequent updates, but the Air is a brand-new design that has a leg up on Tesla with superior levels of luxury and even better range figures - a metric on which the once class-leading Tesla has now finally been beaten - and how! With up to 516 miles of range, the Air is in a different class and shows that electric progress can be in leaps and bounds and doesn't have to be incremental. It sets the cat among the pigeons with more power and far better range than a Taycan, while outgunning the aging Model S on almost every front - all that with abundant space and practicality to boot. Nothing from Audi, BMW, or Mercedes can keep up either, even if these cars still have the edge on interior finishes. As a package, the Air might just be the most complete electric sedan out there.

Realistically, why would you need more than the Pure? It can get to 60 mph in less than four seconds and go more than 400 miles on a charge, so it's a compelling package at less than $80k - especially if you consider it comes as standard with adaptive suspension, 19-inch wheels, navigation, and the entire DreamDrive driver-assist suite. However, the Touring is just $20k more expensive and is a clear step up in power and performance, with 620 hp and an even longer range. It looks smarter on its 20-inch wheels and gets genuine leather upholstery, so we feel it gives you the most bang for your buck. The Grand Touring trims are substantially more expensive, making the Touring the sweet spot in the lineup.