The all-electric 2025 Lucid Air Pure is a dreamy, sexy car that’s no less luxurious for being the cheapest trim in Lucid’s Air lineup. I felt fancy and discerning driving around, but in an understated way – as if I were wearing designer sweatpants.
But does fancy equal value? I spent about 10 days driving the Air Pure on two different coasts to find out. And the tl;dr is: Yes, but only if those over-the-air updates keep coming through.
The Air Pure is a technological dreamboat in many invisible “under the hood” ways — like its ultra efficient electric motor. And its roomy, air-tight interior coupled with a high-end sound system simply puts you in a good mood.
It’s the kind of car you want to spend time in, particularly if Lucid keeps working to iterate on its tech capabilities. The car’s many high-tech features justify that not-quite-afforable $69,900 price tag. However, I found there was still room for improvement, particularly in Lucid’s voice assistant and DreamDrive advanced driver assistance system. The good news is that even these feature have seen significant progress from earlier iterations.
Nuts and bolts
With an estimated 420 miles of range and a single rear-mounted motor with 430 horsepower, the Lucid Air Pure is a compelling alternative to the Tesla Model S, which has a 402-mile range in the all-wheel drive version and starts at $79,990. During one of my test drives, I comfortably traveled from San Francisco to Salinas and back, with extra city driving, all without needing to recharge. Lucid provided TechCrunch with the Air Pure on both occasions.
For quick top-ups, the Air Pure supports fast charging, adding 200 miles of range in just 15 minutes at stations owned by ChargePoint, EVgo, and Electrify America. Starting in 2025, Lucid owners will also gain access to Tesla’s network, though this will require an adapter. While Lucid’s upcoming Gravity SUV will feature Tesla’s NACS port from day one, the automaker hasn’t yet said whether future Air models will follow suit.
Sitting low on 19-inch wheels, the Air Pure is as aerodynamic as it looks with an impressive drag coefficient of 0.197.
When you approach the car, the electric motor and infotainment system automatically turn on and the flush door handles pop out. The front and back bar lights also illuminate in a fluid motion that extends outwards like rippling water, which sets the tone for the high tech, yet understated vibe.
The Lucid signature lighting is instantly recognizable, and the whole design comes together in a sleek, sophisticated “California New Money” way.
Expansive and tech-focused
Sitting down in a Lucid Air Pure is a sensory experience. You feel like you can breathe in the driver’s seat with 40 inches of headroom and 45.4 inches of leg room, and I found myself running my hands over the array of fabrics and textiles used on the interior. Even the oval-shaped steering wheel with its ergonomic grip feels nice in the palms.
The Air Pure has an ambient level of noise like a soft electrical humming that’s meant to simulate the sound of an engine, lending to its futuristic, spaceship vibes.
The 34-inch curved glass cockpit floats just behind the steering wheel with three distinct zones of control. On the left, a touchscreen manages quick-access functions like the charge port and windshield defroster. The center display shows critical driving information – speed, gear, range, and DreamDrive visualizations. On the right, you’ll find connectivity and entertainment options, including Apple CarPlay integration, native navigation, media, and communication.
Below this, the 12.5-inch Pilot Panel sits above the center console. This vertical screen, which can be tucked away for extra storage, handles climate controls, parking, and driver settings. It also automatically displays a 360-degree camera view when navigating tight spaces.
Adjustments like the rear and sideview mirrors are only accessible through the so-called Pilot Panel, which some might loathe. I didn’t mind, as it’s a one-time setup. Another standout is the ability to adjust lumbar support and, for an extra $7,500, upgrade to get a massager and ventilated seats — a luxury I’d absolutely splurge on.
I appreciated Lucid’s decision to keep some physical controls. Above the Pilot Panel are tactile knobs for adjusting the temperature and volume. The steering wheel also features physical buttons to launch the advanced driver assistance system, change a song, and activate the voice assistant.
The center console features two plugs for USB-C and Lightning cables, and a sliding cover to keep items secure.
The backseat was also generous with 39 inches of headroom and 37.6 inches of legroom, something friends and family who were seated in the back commented on. Backseat passengers also have their own little touchscreen where they can control things like seat heating, air temperature, and summon or banish the sunshade.
While we’re on the subject of space, the trunk offers 22.1 cubic feet of storage, and the frunk has 10 cubic-feet of space. All in all, Lucid passed the Costco run test.
The Lucid Assistant – swing and a miss
Lucid originally launched its Pure series with Amazon’s Alexa powering voice assist, and it wasn’t very good. Within the last couple of months, Lucid has started rolling out a replacement — a white-labeled version that appears to be from SoundHound AI. Lucid wouldn’t confirm.
The Lucid Assistant isn’t very good either. But really, is there a car voice assistant that doesn’t sometimes make you want to scream? The Lucid Assistant can handle commands and answer questions about very specific car things. You could ask it for the weather, get directions to the nearest charging station, and command it to turn up the seat heating.
When it comes to music commands, those were limited. The Assistant could, say, turn on Spotify and even play certain songs, but it often didn’t recognize what I asked for. I also couldn’t get it to play a type of music. For example, in a moment of panicked indecision, I asked it to play Top 40. Suddenly Sublime’s “40 oz. to Freedom” was playing through the speakers. I’m not complaining, but it wasn’t what I asked for.
And while we’re on the subject of music, while the Dolby Atmos sound system somehow struck the perfect balance of bass, treble, and mid, the connectivity to music streaming services like Spotify was often spotty. The connection dropped several times, leaving me to fumble with the pre-programmed Sirius XM options.
Native GPS and the Lucid app
A few words on Lucid’s native navigation system with custom routing. When compared to Waze or Apple Maps, it didn’t always seem to account for traffic, with ETA differentials sometimes as large as 20 minutes.
My eyes took some getting used to how Lucid’s native system manifested, too. Lucid displays the immediate directions on the curved cockpit, with a larger map below on the Panel pilot, and I found my eyes jumping between the two screens.
The Lucid app was perfectly fine. It worked as it should to open the trunk, unlock the car, open the charge ports, flash the lights, and see nearby chargers. It’s not as advanced as Tesla’s app, but I expect it will continue to improve.
Mature handling
The Lucid Air Pure is low to the ground (and you really feel it when getting in and out), giving it a centered grippy feel as it takes on turns. The acceleration is firm, although you don’t get the same zippy boost as you might in a Tesla or the Ford Mustang Mach-E. Still, the car is no slouch with a 0-60 miles per hour acceleration in 4.5 seconds. The suspension is also great – I barely felt any bumps in the road.
The Air Pure has three drive modes accessible via the Pilot Panel: Smooth, Swift, and Sprint. Smooth is relaxed for everyday driving. Swift gives it a bit more oomph for when you’re keen to have a little fun or are in a rush on the highway, and Sprint is designed for “advanced drivers” with “maximum power and torque for short bursts of intense performance.” I didn’t notice too much of a difference between the modes.
For those who also want more control over regenerative braking, you can adjust those in your driver settings, including turning on creep mode, which allows you to move without applying the accelerator.
So many cameras and sensors
The model year 2025 Lucid Air Pure comes standard with 24 sensors, including six cameras, infrared, ultrasonic, and radar that are used to power Lucid’s brand of ADAS called DreamDrive Premium. This includes features like 3D surround view monitoring and blind spot display, lane departure warnings, automatic parking, adaptive cruise control, and a driver monitoring system for distracted and drowsy driving.
For an additional one-time fee of $2,500, Lucid buyers can upgrade to the DreamDrive Pro, which ups the number of sensors to 32 — including solid-state lidar, radar, ultrasonic sensors, and a whopping 13 cameras — and has a highway assist feature that combines lane centering and adaptive cruise control.
The benefit in purchasing this feature and its accompanying hardware isn’t what it can do now, but the promise of what it can do in the future. This is all to say that while Lucid’s DreamDrive still has a ways to go, if you buy the Pro ADAS, you’ll have all the necessary hardware for Lucid to add more automated driving capabilities via over-the-air updates in the future.
I found the visuals like the 3D surround view monitoring, front and rearview visuals, and blind spot detection helpful, if not a little overwhelming, when maneuvering tight spaces or switching lanes.
I found the Highway Assist the most useful, particularly in stop-and-go traffic on California’s highways. The feature basically steers for you, as long as you stay within the same lane and at a pre-set speed and follow distance. You can initiate lane-change assist on the highway by long-pressing the turn signal.
Deactivating Highway Assist was also simple and smooth. Just press the brake pedal, and you’re good – no weird jerking or clunky transitions, which has been an issue in older software versions.
Lucid vehicles equipped with the standard DreamDrive or the Pro provide drowsy and distracted driver warnings, which only worked sometimes for me. The Air Pure monitors the driver via an infrared sensor mounted at the top of the steering column that gets the shape of your face and can tell if you aren’t facing front. But it doesn’t watch your eyes, like other driver monitoring systems. Which I suppose is good for privacy and surveillance reasons, but bad for actually monitoring if someone has fallen asleep at the wheel.
I tested fate a few times while the car was in the highway assist mode, even closing my eyes for 30 full seconds. I also pretended to nod my head like I was falling asleep, looked down at my phone, and straight up stared out the window. Eventually, the car did hit me with an aggressive, repetitive alert saying it had detected unsafe driving, told me to take a break, and offered suggestions for nearby coffee shops. But those warnings came a couple of minutes after my experiments.
Finally, the Auto Park feature, which will scan the area for nearby places to park. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it completely failed to see available parking spaces. I could never get it to parallel park for me, but it did manage to park in a lot by backing up into the space. The feature promises to Auto Unpark for you, as well, but after checking to the left and to the right, my Lucid couldn’t quite get the hang of it.
An almost perfect EV
I really did love the Lucid, and if TechCrunch would only pay me double my salary, I could see me and this car being very happy together. Particularly if Lucid continues to iterate on the tech and make improvements, as it has already done over the last three years.
