2023 Lucid Air

The 2023 volume configuration was the dual-motor Air Pure AWD, rated at 480 hp. The 2023 lineup extended through Touring, Grand Touring, Grand Touring Performance, and the late-year Sapphire.

The Pure AWD's two motors produce a combined 686 lb-ft, exceptionally strong output for an entry full-size luxury sedan.

Lucid quotes 3.8 seconds for the 2023 Pure AWD, while instrumented tests bettered that claim. This is sports-car acceleration from the volume Air.

Immediate, linear dual-motor response combines with near-silent operation and exceptionally strong roll-on thrust. Reviews consistently praise the Pure as quick, composed, and effortless rather than abrupt or coarse.

Single-speed direct drive eliminates shifts, gear hunting, and interruption of torque. The result is seamless acceleration across normal and performance driving.

Dual-motor AWD was standard on the 2023 Pure volume configuration and throughout the principal Touring and Grand Touring range. The system delivers very high traction and performance, though it lacks off-road-oriented terrain hardware.

Every Air is electric, but 2023 offered a notably broad spread of dual- and tri-motor outputs, from the 480-hp Pure through 620-hp Touring, 819-hp Grand Touring, 1,050-hp Grand Touring Performance, and 1,200-plus-hp Sapphire. It lacks a gas or hybrid alternative but covers a very wide EV performance range.

The standard-wheel Pure AWD is extraordinarily efficient for a full-size luxury EV. The optional 20-inch-wheel configuration falls to 121 MPGe combined.

Regenerative braking and the Air's highly efficient drive units produce an exceptional EPA city result despite the sedan's size and performance.

The aerodynamic body keeps highway efficiency almost identical to the city figure and above the top of the EV-sedan normalization band.

A 410-mile EPA rating gives the volume Air one of the longest ranges among 2023 EVs. This is the 2023 Pure AWD figure; the Pure RWD announced in October 2023 is an EPA model-year 2024 vehicle and is not substituted here.

The Air Pure's 900-volt architecture accepts up to 250 kW, a high peak for its model year and enough for Lucid's quoted 200 miles in 15 minutes under ideal conditions.

Lucid published a miles-added claim rather than a 10–80% time for the 2023 Pure AWD. The model-specific charging dataset estimates 25 minutes over that window, consistent with the 92-kWh pack's approximately 160-kW average charging power.

The Pure AWD's exceptional efficiency yields an EPA annual electricity-cost estimate near the bottom of the EV-sedan cost band.

Electricity-only operation avoids premium gasoline, while the unusually strong 19.2-kW onboard AC capability and 900-volt fast-charging system make home and road-trip charging practical. Its original CCS port lacks native NACS access, keeping it below the very top of the band.

NHTSA did not publish an overall rating for the 2023 Air, so 4.5 stars is an estimate based on full-size luxury-sedan norms and the same-generation Air's strong independent European crash result; it is not presented as an earned US rating.

IIHS did not test or award the 2023 Air, preventing Top Safety Pick credit. The same-generation Air's five-star Euro NCAP result, including near-maximum side-impact performance, is strong corroborating evidence but cannot substitute fully for IIHS testing.

The volume Air Pure's standard DreamDrive suite covers all five benchmark functions: AEB, adaptive cruise, lane keeping, blind-spot warning, and rear cross-traffic protection. Lane centering and surround-view monitoring required the optional DreamDrive Pro package in 2023, but the core suite itself was unusually complete.

No IIHS front-crash-prevention test exists, but standard DreamDrive includes vehicle, pedestrian, and cyclist AEB at both city and highway speeds. Euro NCAP independently found strong vulnerable-road-user braking performance, though the evidence does not establish a top IIHS nighttime-pedestrian grade.

Blind-spot warning plus front and rear cross-traffic warning with emergency braking are standard, giving the Air broader cross-traffic protection than alert-only systems. DreamDrive Pro added blind-spot camera display and surround view, so the best visual coverage was optional on the volume trim.

Standard DreamDrive provides lane-departure warning and lane-keeping intervention, but true Highway Assist lane centering was part of the costly DreamDrive Pro option. Reviewers found that optional centering overly sensitive and prone to canceling during small steering corrections.

Adaptive cruise is standard and reviewers found its speed and gap control generally smooth, including in traffic. The integrated highway experience scores lower because hands-on Highway Assist required DreamDrive Pro and its lane-centering behavior was inconsistent and sometimes unavailable.

The 2023 Air offered no hands-free driving mode: even DreamDrive Pro's Highway Assist required hands on the wheel. Later over-the-air hands-free capability does not change the vehicle's model-year-2023 feature score.

LED headlights and automatic high beams are standard, a solid equipment baseline across the lineup. IIHS published no headlight test for the Air, so beam reach, glare, and curve performance cannot support a Good-equivalent top-band score.

Large side windows help, but thick front pillars, a wide and shallow rear window, and the windshield tint line impede natural sightlines. The optional DreamDrive Pro surround-view and blind-spot cameras compensate well when fitted, but they were not standard on the volume 2023 Pure.

The roomy rear cabin, nearly 90-degree doors, and easy top tethers make two-seat installations convenient, but the firm upholstery makes the lower anchors hard to reach. Cars.com's standardized check could not safely fit three seats across because a center seat overlapped a buckle.

The 2023 Air Pure uses a conventional two-row, five-seat layout.

The Pure's standard metal roof preserves excellent front headroom for a low sedan.

The cab-forward EV packaging yields exceptional front-seat stretch-out room.

Rear headroom is generous for a sleek full-size sedan and avoids the glass-roof heat penalty of higher trims.

The number is mid-pack by the rubric, though the flat floor and abundant toe room make the rear feel more spacious than the figure suggests.

The rear trunk alone exceeds the sedan normalization ceiling, and the unusually large frunk adds substantial separate storage.

A 10-cu-ft frunk, deep underfloor trunk well, sizable door pockets, clever center console, and hidden bin behind the retractable Pilot Panel make the Air unusually inventive for a sedan.

The broad adjustment range and long-distance comfort are strong, although support is less disciplined than the best German luxury seats and the 2023 Pure lacks standard ventilation.

The coil-sprung Pure combines a restful ride with excellent body control, though broken pavement can make it slightly busy.

Wind and road noise are very low on the Pure's standard 19-inch wheels, although occasional trim creaks prevent a class-leading score.

The Pure includes heated front and rear seats, a heated wheel, rear climate controls, and app preconditioning, but ventilation and massage were not standard on the volume 2023 Pure.

The Pure RWD arrived late in 2023 and became the model-year entry trim. Lucid's advertised $77,400 price excluded the mandatory $1,500 destination charge.

Pure AWD was the attainable, broadly available Air for most of 2023 and is the representative volume configuration; Pure RWD did not enter production until September. This uses the post-August 2023 model-year price in effect when Lucid expanded the lineup.

The Air avoids engine and transmission service, but annual inspections, cabin filters, alignments, wipers, and replacement of expensive performance tires keep it above a mass-market EV. Edmunds does not publish a model-specific 2023 Air TCO total, so this is a conservative class estimate rather than a directly reported Lucid figure.

The 2023 Air has already retained only 44% after three years, so a roughly 30% five-year residual is realistic even with depreciation moderating. Lucid's repeated new-car price reductions and the rapid luxury-EV depreciation cycle materially weaken resale.

Lucid's bumper-to-bumper term matches the established luxury-brand norm and exceeds mainstream 3-year/36,000-mile coverage.

Eight-year/100,000-mile EV-system coverage is strong, and the explicit 70% battery-capacity guarantee makes the protection more useful.

The 2023 Air did not include the two-year scheduled-maintenance plan Lucid added in 2024, but eligible 2023 purchases received unusually valuable two- or three-year unlimited Electrify America charging plus warranty-period roadside assistance. Eligibility and charging duration depended on order and delivery timing, preventing a higher score.

$83,900 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (30% retained, or about $25,170) leaves about $58,730 in depreciation. Add the projected $4,500 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $63,230 in total.

Consumer Reports currently describes the 2023 Air as about average versus other vehicles from the same model year, but notes that detailed survey data are unavailable. J.D. Power publishes no Quality & Reliability score for this model, so the single-source average prediction is tempered by limited sample depth.

Lucid was a new, single-model automaker when it built the 2023 Air and had no multi-year dependability record to support an average or above-average brand score. Consumer Reports has continued to exclude Lucid from its brand ranking for insufficient data, and there is no Lucid result in J.D. Power's major dependability study.

Eleven NHTSA safety campaigns is heavy activity for a low-volume, early-production luxury sedan. The record includes repeated safety-critical themes—unexpected loss of propulsion, high-voltage heater/defrost failure, and rear-camera failures—even though several remedies were delivered over the air.

The volume Air Touring's Lucid-designed dual-motor EV system and battery were only in their second model year, leaving no meaningful high-mileage history. The absence of a demonstrated battery degradation epidemic helps, but recalls involving contactors, inverter-module handling, and loss of drive power keep this unproven system below average.

The 2023 Air uses rich-looking upholstery, real wood, and attractive sustainable materials, giving the Touring a convincingly luxurious cabin overall. It falls short of class-leading at its six-figure price because reviewers consistently identify cheap-feeling window switches, steering-wheel buttons, and other controls.

Early Air assembly was inconsistent rather than uniformly poor. Edmunds documented wide door gaps, a rear door that needed slamming, a failed exterior handle, and continuing build-quality faults during its long-term experience; contemporary reviews also noted software glitches and imperfect fit and finish.

Lucid supplemented physical facilities with mobile service and certified partners, but nationwide coverage remained sparse for a luxury car likely to require specialized attention. At year-end 2023 the company had only 33 combined studios and service centers in the United States, concentrated in a limited set of states.

The low-volume Air has little aftermarket support and relies heavily on Lucid or Lucid-authorized channels for specialized parts, structural work, and calibration. Documented owner cases describe months-long waits for back-ordered parts, while Lucid's own repair guidance identifies body castings that are not available as service parts.

The lower Pilot Panel is the Air's center touchscreen, supplemented by the expansive curved Glass Cockpit.

The multi-screen layout is visually excellent and retains temperature and fan toggles, but early software lag, fussy menus, and touchscreen-only mirror and wheel adjustment undermine daily usability.

Wireless Apple CarPlay arrived by OTA in March 2023, but Android Auto was not offered, so the Air only fulfills half of the rubric's phone-projection target.

Native navigation is EV-aware and the car includes Alexa voice integration, but neither was consistently regarded as class-leading in 2023.

The Pure's base system is merely adequate, but the available 21-speaker Surreal Sound Pro with Dolby Atmos is a genuine premium offering.

The standard curved 34-inch 5K Glass Cockpit integrates a crisp driver display with navigation and assistance graphics and is a visual benchmark for the class.

Lucid delivers regular whole-vehicle OTA releases that add features and refine access, climate, stability control, charging, and driver assistance.

The app provides mobile key, remote locking, charging status/control, location, and climate preconditioning, but early owners and reviewers encountered inconsistent wake and key behavior.

USB-C connectivity and a wireless charging pad cover normal needs, but port count and access are modest for a full-size flagship and there is no household AC outlet.

Phone-as-key, proximity unlocking, walk-away locking, profile loading, and powered cargo access make entry highly seamless, despite some early reliability complaints.

The Pure includes surround-view monitoring, front and rear cross-traffic protection, parking sensors, and automatic park-in/out, an unusually complete standard set.

No windshield head-up display was offered; Lucid instead places driving information in the close-set Glass Cockpit.

Near-90-degree rear doors, ample rear-facing-seat room, five seats, and two large cargo compartments work well for families, though buried lower anchors and inability to fit three test seats across are compromises.

AEB, blind-spot warning, lane assistance, adaptive cruise, cross-traffic protection, and automatic parking are comprehensive, but the 2023 Air lacks a published US NCAP or IIHS crash-test result.

A quiet cabin, comfortable seats, excellent passenger space, heated rear seats, and 32.1 cu ft of combined trunk/frunk capacity suit four-person trips very well; rear entertainment is absent.

Smooth EV response, selectable regeneration, adaptive cruise, comfortable seats, and excellent ride tuning reduce fatigue, while the wide body and software/control quirks add friction.

The Pure is exceptionally energy-efficient for a large luxury sedan and avoids fuel and routine engine service, though costly tires, insurance, and depreciation keep it below economy-car running costs.

A 195.9-in length, 76.2-in body width, thick front pillars, and 39.4-ft turning circle demand care, although surround cameras, sensors, and automatic parking help substantially.

The Air can carry people and ordinary cargo briskly but has no published 2023 US tow rating, bed, or meaningful payload-oriented design.

This first-generation luxury EV had no fleet-proven work record in 2023, and delicate trim, low-profile bodywork, and reported early build creaks are poorly suited to abuse.

There are no bed tie-downs, onboard AC power, factory racks, washable work surfaces, or meaningful upfit ecosystem.

A 410-mile EPA range, very fast DC charging, quiet cabin, excellent damping, and standard adaptive cruise make the Pure one of the best long-distance EV sedans of its year.

The volume Pure AWD has all-weather traction and enormous range, but 4.9-in clearance, no tow rating, and little factory gear support keep it pavement-oriented.

A 22.1-cu-ft trunk, 10-cu-ft frunk, underfloor well, and split-folding rear seat swallow normal luggage exceptionally well, but the sedan opening is less useful for bulky objects than a liftback.

The Pure combines sharp responses, excellent damping, strong balance, and playful adjustability despite weighing nearly 5,000 pounds.

Accurate, well-weighted steering and the Pure's relatively low mass for an Air produce unusually natural responses for a large EV sedan.

The 168-ft 70-to-zero stop is solid for its weight and regen integration is predictable, but the distance and pedal feel do not set the performance-sedan benchmark.

Immediate, seamless dual-motor thrust and well-judged accelerator mapping make the Pure both effortless in traffic and genuinely rapid without driveline transitions.

The electric drive units are virtually silent and vibration-free even under strong acceleration; tire noise is the more noticeable sound source.

The turning diameter sits close to the unfavorable end of the sedan band and reinforces the Air's large-car feel in tight spaces.

Seat and wheel adjustment are broad and physical climate toggles help, but tall drivers may sit too high, thick pillars impair sightlines, and touchscreen mirror/wheel controls frustrate.

Fast, balanced, and unexpectedly playful, the Pure preserves the higher Air trims' sports-sedan character while carrying less weight.

Even the late-2023 Pure RWD included a 34-inch Glass Cockpit, heated front and rear seats and steering wheel, Apple CarPlay, LED headlights, navigation and DreamDrive driver assists. Costly DreamDrive Pro, premium audio, glass roof and comfort features remained optional on lower trims, so it was generous rather than fully loaded.

Pure AWD delivered 480 hp and up to 410 EPA miles for $83,900 including destination, while Touring paired 620 hp with more than 400 miles—exceptional range, space and performance for a luxury EV. Five-figure option prices and an expensive upper range keep it just below the standout-bargain band.

By late 2023 the Air spanned Pure RWD, the outgoing Pure AWD, Touring, Grand Touring, Grand Touring Performance and the 1,234-hp Sapphire, with multiple wheel, roof, audio and driver-assistance choices. That is exceptional powertrain and price breadth for a single EV sedan, albeit with no combustion or hybrid alternative.

Deliveries grew strongly in 2023, but only 6,001 vehicles globally across Lucid's sole nameplate is niche volume and far below established luxury-sedan and Tesla Model S scale. Production exceeded deliveries by more than 2,400 units, reinforcing weak absorption despite the positive trajectory.

Lucid rapidly built a credible technology-and-luxury halo around industry-leading range, efficiency and performance. Its startup risk, tiny service footprint, software/build-quality complaints and lack of long-term loyalty prevent the brand from matching Porsche or Mercedes desirability.

Buyers had unusually rich factory support: Lucid cut Pure by $5,000 and Touring/Grand Touring by $12,400 in August, while separate 2023 programs offered a $7,500 lease credit, $4,000 audio credit, 0.99% financing and free charging. These were genuine buyer benefits, though their depth also signaled demand weakness.

The 2023 Air was only the second model year of the generation that began in 2022 and still represented cutting-edge 900-volt EV technology. It was also a meaningful lineup-change year, adding lower Pure/Touring variants, Pure RWD and the Sapphire rather than merely carrying over 2022.

Few new luxury sedans have received stronger recognition: the Air followed its 2022 MotorTrend Car of the Year win with 2023 World Luxury Car, multiple best-EV citations and a 2024 Car and Driver 10Best selection for the 2023-introduced Pure. Reviewers consistently praised its range, packaging, speed and ride, with software and build consistency the recurring caveats.