2024 Lucid Air Mega Road Test: We drive'em all, but cheapest Pure steals the show

NEWARK, Calif. – All four versions of the 2024 Lucid Air are before me, from the entry-level Pure to the ballistic-missile-like Sapphire. I’m to drive all of them in a single day on some of the Bay Area’s most beautiful mountain roads. No city stop-and-go or highway cruising involved. Nope, Lucid wants to show off the dynamics of its Air lineup on roads that seem best suited to Porsches, BMW M cars and others of that ilk. The Air is no two-door sports car on the outside, but it becomes clear in a hurry that every single version of this electric, luxury sports sedan belongs in this arena.

Of course, it makes sense that the Air performs well on the roads engineers validated their work on – I’m starting out only a short 20-mile drive from the company’s Newark, Calif. headquarters. While visiting Lucid’s headquarters the previous night, CEO Peter Rawlinson endlessly nerded out about how and why Lucid’s electric powertrain tech contributes to the Air being such an efficient and powerful EV. It’s impossible not to come away impressed at what Lucid has engineered to put its cars in motion, further validated by a car company as prestigious as Aston Martin signing a deal to use Lucid’s electric motors and battery systems in the future. And in case you didn’t realize, Formula E uses Lucid battery and motor technology in its latest generation race cars today. You know what they say: Win on Sunday, sell on Monday … and now that I’ve tried out the road car wares, there’s a good reason why a company like Aston or a racing series like Formula E have taken notice.

The Sapphire is silent violence. It’s also what the Tesla Model S Plaid wishes it was. Both the Lucid and Tesla boast 0-60 times under 2 seconds, but there’s a $160,000 gulf between their starting prices. Only when you’ve driven them both do you understand why the price difference is so stark. Lucid’s Sapphire is a complete, high-performance luxury car from stem to stern, while the Plaid feels like a half-hearted muscle car; a one-trick pony from yesteryear.

To put things into perspective for the gasoline-driven gearheads among us, the Sapphire is to the Air lineup what the M5 Competition is to the 5 Series range. It’s