Longest Range Electric Car is 517 Mile Lucid Air

The Lucid Air electric car has been independently tested with an estimated EPA range of 517 miles on a single charge. This range appears to be for a 175 or 205 kWh from two battery packs for an extended range vehicle that costs over $100,000.

The Tesla Model S has a range of just over 400 miles. North American Model S Long Range Plus vehicles have an official EPA-rated range of 402 miles. This was a nearly 20% increase in range when compared to a 2019 Model S 100D with the same battery pack design. The Model S Long Range Plus costs $74,990. It uses a 100 kWh battery.

Lucid Motors uses lithium-ion battery cells sourced from Samsung SDI as the Air’s primary powertrain. The base Lucid Air will be equipped with a 75kWh battery with rear-wheel drive and will have 240 mi (386 km) of range. A second battery pack with a capacity of either 100kWh or 130kWh with all-wheel drive can also be equipped.

They use an in-house developed drivetrain. Lucid miniaturized and integrated the Air’s motors, transmission, and inverter, and paired this with an ultra-high, 900+ volt architecture to achieve unmatched compactness and efficiency.

Their technology division, Atieva, has supplied battery packs for the entire field of the Formula E racing series since 2018 — and will continue to supply these packs through 2022.

In 2018, Lucid Motors closed a $1 billion investment deal with Saudi Arabia to fund the Air’s production, which is expected to commence in late 2020 following the construction of its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona

Lucid aims to improve energy efficiency to 5 miles per kilowatt-hour as opposed to an average of 3 miles per kilowatt hour. The price of batteries is expected to drop to $100 per kWh within the next decade, which will enable Lucid to produce a luxury EV for less than $30,000.

SOURCES- Lucid Air, wikipedia
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

20 thoughts on “Longest Range Electric Car is 517 Mile Lucid Air”

  1. That's like saying you can ride in a horse buggy for nearly free so why bother with cars, would guess a lot of people talk about the automobiles with the same disdain you have now back in the early 20th century.

  2. I'm pessimistic about Tesla. I would like to see some leap via solid electrolite and lithium metal anode. But I don't think I'll get that.

  3. I remember the 1980s and 90s having loads of off-road vehicles driving around town. At least the current girly-trucks are somewhat adapted for town life. The old diesel toyota landcruiser troop carriers were completely unsuitable.

  4. Yeah, but people like riding high so they can see better. But by blocking the view of others, they encourage more people to go the same route, ultimately eliminating most of the advantage but making it difficult to go back to a smaller car.

  5. I remember the automotive landscape of the 1980s and 1990s. Nothing at all like we have today. We went from driving sporty elegant cars to driving these large utility third world nations-looking transportation things. We don’t have bad roads here, there’s no need for this.

  6. Sports cars? Or something sporty, now you have my vote. Tired of all the high-riding, sight-line blocking vehicles on the road these days.

  7. The innovation you speak of this happening every day. Small incremental improvements here and there, with the occasional big one, as Tesla is likely to disclose in several months.

  8. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about stuffing more batteries in there to get a little extra range. Increase the battery energy density and then you’ll have my attention and applause.

  9. Tesla could have patented the idea of having an electric car be luxurious, attractive and high performance.
    Because, bizarrely, that was apparently “not obvious”. Given the ridiculous boxes on wheels that had been the EV market up until that point.

  10. Sports cars: that’s what the world needs more of.

    2 passengers, or 2+2. Which is what most cars actually are used for on a daily basis
    Small, lightweight, and aero to give better energy efficiency.
    Can appeal to customers without needing to be a 6m long 2.5t mobile building.

  11. “Hyperion’s first salvo in the battle against combustion is the XP-1 prototype—a futuristic supercar
    with a claimed 1,016-mile range and the ability to haul to 60 mph in
    2.2 seconds. Oh, and the recharge time is less than five minutes.” Or are H cars not electric?

  12. Ah… ummm… a little math goes a LONG way to defrag the hype:

    517 mi / ( 90% × 200 kWh ) = 2.9 mi/kWh
    517 mi / ( 90% × 175 kWh ) = 3.3 mi/kWh

    Seems to be quite a bit removed from the hopefully specified 5 mi/kWh.  

    If anything, the above calculation shows that the MASS of the additional batteries is sapping range. In a way not unlike adding more fuel to airplanes… since there’s more to life, there’s less range per kilogram of net fuel. 

    While it might attract down-votes, I also really don’t think that there is anything particularly ground-breaking by lashing more batteries to the undercarriage of an electric car. No Nobel Prize, LOL. Even in WW–1, when silk-and-bamboo biplanes were being used for manual bomb dropping and reconnaisance, strapping more fuel tanks was the obvious solution to limited range. Even my brother in law’s aviation friend upgraded his Piper Cub with wingtip fuel tanks to give 50% greater range.  

    Maybe we could argue that the New Sleek Car has managed to squeeze in the 200 kilowatt hours in a way that doesn’t take away from passenger cabin space, cargo space or negatively impacting structural integrity.  Righ?  OK. That’d be nice  

    But I would also be tempted to lay down a bet that adding +100 to +125 kWh of additional battery capacity DID negatively affect passenger cabin space, or cargo space, or compromised impact structural integrity.  

    ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
    ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

  13. Like we need more agricultural equipment or work trucks plowing along the highways. People had class once, they drove cars. The other stuff was for farmers and construction workers.

  14. Yep, as I have mentioned here before, if someone raises the bar on what can be done with existing technology in a certain field, in a free market he doesn’t have a monopoly from that moment on preventing others to match and surpass him.

  15. Imagine bragging that you spent 100k for the privilege of driving over 500 miles without filling up. Pretty dumb. I can do that for much cheaper in a petrol car. These cars are subsidized playthings for rich wannabes who think it bestows some kind of status on them, or those who virtue signal their eco superiority to the rest of us. EVs will be dominate someday, but the economies on this mode of transport is completely stupid; therefore the subsidies.

  16. Because what the market has been begging for is another large luxury sedan…

    Sell an EV truck, SUV, or go away.

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