This week I finally got to try out the Lucid Air Pure, the base trim of the electric sedan and the only one available with rear-wheel drive. For a starting price of $78,900 including destination you get 430 horsepower and a range of up to 419 miles, the latter of which is longer than any other EV save higher-end versions of the Air. Lucid says the Air Pure will hit 60 mph in 4.4 seconds, which is pretty damn quick, but even more impressive is its braking performance.
Even the base Air Pure has 15-inch front brake discs with 6-piston calipers and 14.8-inch rear discs with 4-piston calipers, with great stopping power and good brake pedal feel. But you’ll rarely need to engage the friction brakes, as the Air has some of the strongest regenerative braking on the market. Lucid says the Air can decelerate at a rate of 0.3 g using regen alone, and it’s so powerful that I find myself stopping far too short at lights and in traffic until I get used to it. Even when zipping through the canyon roads surrounding Palm Springs I almost never have to hit the brake pedal, and it’s pretty easy to modulate.
To show off just how good the regen is, I decided to do a decidedly unscientific acceleration and braking run on a safe, empty stretch of road out in the desert, to see how long it would take to bring the car to a total stop using regenerative braking alone. The Air’s launch control is easy to use – just put the car in the Sprint drive mode, put one foot on each pedal until the cute bear logo pops up, and release the brake.
My test car has the optional 20-inch wheels, which wear Michelin Pilot Sport summer tires and are 20 mm wider in the rear compared to the standard 19s, and the car instantly grips and rockets off toward the horizon. I do apologize for hitting 65-ish mph instead of the traditional 60 before I left off the accelerator and started decelerating using regen, but you get the gist. Obviously this isn’t a legit instrumented test – go to Car and Driver’s review for that – and I can’t tell you how much distance it took to complete the run, but it’s still pretty cool to see how quickly the Air slows down after accelerating hard.
If you really want to stop and go as quickly as possible, though, you’ll need to step up to the 1,234-hp Air Sapphire. It’s one of the quickest accelerating production cars in the world, able to go from 0 to 60 mph in 1.89 seconds and run the quarter-mile in 8.95 seconds. Understandably, the Sapphire is fitted with carbon-ceramic brakes that have larger rotors with special construction and 10-piston front calipers.
