Move over, Elon Musk. Tesla
may have been the first to build an electric car with over 400 miles of
range, but Lucid has some pretty astounding news to tell us.
The startup, which once teetered on the brink of collapse, said on Tuesday its Air electric sedan will go an astounding 517 estimated miles on a single charge. Five-hundred and seventeen miles, folks. Today, the Tesla Model S is king with a 402-mile EPA-estimated range,
and in reality, it will remain at the top until Lucid actually builds
the Air. But when it does, it could deliver a might blow to Tesla.
Now,
of course it's easy to toss numbers around when it comes to startups
and wild concepts. But Lucid did its homework. They took the Air to FEV
North America to undergo independent testing. There, FEV applied the
EPA's current test cycle
with the standard adjustment factor, and that returned the 517-mile
range. In addition to the indepedent test results, Lucid said its own
testing indicated the Air would go well beyond its original estimate of
400-plus miles of range.
"A few years ago we revealed our alpha
prototypes of the Lucid Air and promised over 400 miles of range; a
reflection of our technology at that time," Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson
said. "In the intervening period we have achieved a series of
technological breakthroughs, culminating in an unsurpassed degree of
energy efficiency."