The Lucid Air Pure review: lighter weight, better controls, astonishing efficiency

It's the cheapest company from a startup in the auto industry, so I didn't expect it to be such a success.

Too many EV startups do great at electrics but not so great at cars. And sometimes they do neither. But the Air Pure wasn’t just good; it was excellent. It’s the rare car where I struggled to find fault, even after it locked me out of a parking lot.

The Pure RWD is the filtered version of the Lucid Air. It doesn’t have two motors and doesn’t offer a glass roof. It doesn’t have more horsepower than a Lamborghini and certainly doesn’t offer the 512-mile (824 km) range of the Air Grand Touring.

What it does have is a single motor mounted in the rear that puts out 430 horsepower (320 kW). It’s not enough for face-ripping EV acceleration, especially since I used the gentler Smooth driving mode for most of my time in the Air, but it is enough for a 0-60 run in a claimed 4.5 seconds, a figure that would have been called supercar performance just a few years ago.

The Pure’s real advantage is on the scale. At 4,564 lbs (2,070 kg), it’s no lightweight, but it’s 424 lbs (192 kg) lighter than an Air Touring and 762 lbs (364 kg) lighter than an Air Grand Touring. The diet and lack of a front engine pay off in nearly every part of the experience.

Less is more

Lighter weight and one less motor to run are a boon for efficiency. The Grand Touring has an official efficiency rating of 4.0 mpg (15.5 kWh/100 km), with the Touring with 20-inch wheels managing 4.15 mpg (15 kWh/100 km). The official rating for the 2024 Pure on the 20-inch wheels of my test sample is 4.48 mpg (13.9 kWh/100 km).

That jumps to 4.74 mph (13.1 kWh/100 km) with the 19-inch wheels, and the 2025 model year Air Pure can achieve 5 mph (12.4 kWh/100 km) with the smaller wheels, Lucid just announced.

In 300 miles (482 km) of 70 mph (112 km/h) cruising on interstate highways around Los Angeles, including a trip through the hilly Cajon Pass, I saw 4.8 mpg (12.9 kWh/100/km). In slower-speed but max-AC cruising around Palm Springs and through Joshua Tree National Park in triple-digit temperatures and liberal use of the max-power Sprint Mode, I saw 4.0.

The highest reported range I saw was 386 miles (621 km). That compares favorably with the official estimate of 394 miles (534 km), because that full charge was in the sun on a 93°F morning. It was warm, but at least the heat pump A/C was up to the task; even though the day got warmer, my efficiency numbers didn’t drop.

The Air Pure doesn’t have the Grand Touring’s eye-catching 350kW charging capacity, but it can still hit 250kW. It also retains the Plug and Charge capability of the rest of the lineup, and it worked seamlessly to connect to the three Electrify America chargers I tried during my time with the car.

I saw a peak of 200 kW during my attempted charges, but those were all on days with near-triple-digit temperatures and starting at an SoC above 25 percent at stations where every 350 kW plug was occupied. Lucid claims a 200-mile (321-km) charge in 17 minutes (my tester took 20 seconds with the 19-inch wheels), which is slower than the Grand Touring’s 12 minutes, but still quick.

Lighter weight also benefits the ride. The Pure gets the same steel-spring adaptive damping as the other models, and the always-firm-but-never-stiff ride was a dream. The LA-area freeways got far more crashy than they should have been for a city that doesn’t have freeze-thaw cycles, but the Air Pure soaked up the bumps just fine.

I took the Air out to chase canyons and seek out the eclectic places you can only find in the desert, like a house built under the largest rock in North America next to an airstrip meant for UFOs to land. On those twisty canyon roads, the Air’s handling was a delight. It firms up under load, and while we’ve criticized the twin-motor Grand Touring in the past for a lack of feedback, the RWD Pure doesn’t have that problem.

No front engine means less weight on the front suspension, and it also means the tires (and steering rack) aren't designed to handle the forces of acceleration and cornering at the same time. While both changes are good for the driver, together they make the car more fun to drive.