Lucid Air's battery range blows past Tesla
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been boasting about the Model S electric sedan's new range, which is now above 400 miles on a single battery charge. That pales in comparison to the upcoming Lucid Air's range.
Lucid's first electric vehicle is a sleek sedan with a record-breaking U.S. EPA range right out of the gate — an estimated 517 miles, the company announced Tuesday. When Tesla's most comparable luxury electric sedan, the Model S, first arrived in 2012 it lasted 265 miles on a charge.
For the past two months, Tesla's 402-mile range is indeed the best EV offering out there. But once the Air starts shipping next year, the Model S will be in a distant second place.
Lucid announced the record-breaking range after 15 hours of testing on July 17 with FEV, an independent powertrain test center. Using the SAE International standard for testing battery energy consumption that the federal environmental agency also uses, the 500+ mile range was determined.
Lucid's 900-volt battery system (compared to Tesla's 400 volts) and its electric vehicle racing expertise from its in-house battery maker Atieva likely helped propel the new car past 500 miles. It's also expected to reach 60 mph in 2.5 seconds.
The California-based company is unveiling the Air at a virtual event on Sept. 9. Pricing will start around $60,000, but for the highest-end version we'll find out more details next month.
Topics Electric Vehicles
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
