“HOLY CRAP! How is this even possible?!” I yelled as Lucid’s head of vehicle dynamics, David Lickfold, threw his company’s first-ever SUV around California’s canyon roads at a speed that seemed simply impossible. “OH my, is that oversteer?!” I screamed as he carefully placed the 3-row EV’s nose into a turn and punched the accelerator on the way out, 828 horsepower and 909 lb-ft of torque rotating the car through the turn and in the process melting my brain. “How are we doing this in what is, essentially, a sliding door-less minivan?” I wondered. “This is madness!”
The Lucid Gravity may not look it, but it truly is madness; there’s never been a vehicle in the history of cars quite like it. That shouldn’t be a surprise, though, because Lucid, as a company, doesn’t build normal vehicles, it builds world-beaters. Just look at the Lucid Air, a vehicle that offers not only the most range of any EV sold in the U.S., but also happens to scorch the earth with sub-2-second 0-60 mph runs.
In terms of performance, Lucid has left the Tesla Model S in its rearview mirror, and now the California-based, largely-Saudi Arabia-funded company is going to leave the Rivian R1S — California’s best-selling large luxury EV SUV — in it, too. Well, at least from a technology standpoint.
A Fast And Spacious 7-Passenger SUV That Handles Like A Sports Car And Goes 450 mi On A Charge
Let’s just get to the specs: The Lucid Gravity will drive 450 miles on a single charge, per the EPA’s rating. Yes, 450 miles out of a seven-passenger vehicle. And when I say seven-passenger, I don’t mean “five passenger plus two borderline-unusable seats in the rear,” I mean literally a seven adult-passenger vehicle.
But a car’s range doesn’t tell the whole story; I recently drove a 141 kWh Rivian R1S that goes 410 miles on a charge, and that’s a taller vehicle with higher ground clearance and bigger tires. That may seem impressive, but shoving a big battery into a vehicle to get more range is anything but; Lucid itself refers to this concept as “dumb range.” The real skill — the “smart range” — comes when you make a vehicle capable of driving farther on less, and that’s exactly what Lucid did with the Gravity. The SUV can travel 40 miles farther than the Rivian R1S on a 20-ish kWh smaller battery, while still offering loads of interior volume.
Here, have a look at the Gravity’s side profile compared to competitors like the Rivian R1S (the green car; the red car is a Suburban, which has more cargo volume, but the rear passengers aren’t as comfortable, per Lucid):
You’ll notice that the Gravity sits lower and actually has a significantly smaller frontal area (you can’t see the width, but per Lucid, it does). The Gravity is also more rounded off, with an impressive drag coefficient of just 0.24 (Lucid mentioned that its chief aerodynamicist came from Red Bull Racing) — that’s more than just a few counts lower than the Rivian’s.
This might make you think: “Well, with a lower roof, there’s not going to be as much space inside,” but that’s the beauty of focusing on vehicle efficiency — it pays dividends ten times over. The aerodynamic Lucid Gravity may be low and sleek, but its resulting 3.6+ mi/kWh efficiency means the vehicle can have a smaller battery than the 2.85 mi/kWh Rivian, and a smaller battery takes up less space, which means more interior volume. It also means a lighter curb weight (over 800 pounds lighter, if I recall correctly), which pays handling and ride dividends. Then there’s charging speed (for a given charging rate you can add more miles of range in less time — Lucid promises 200 miles in 15 minutes), cost savings thanks to being able to make do with a smaller pack, and I can go on and on.
So we’ve now established that the Lucid Gravity is big, it’s efficient, and it makes insane amounts of power. But what’s it like in the twisties?
How Does It Drive?
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Let’s continue my introductory paragraph in which I’m being thrown around by Lucid’s head of vehicle dynamics, David Lickfold — an absolute surgeon behind the wheel of the Gravity. The way he tossed that thing through the canyons — hammering the accelerator to take the seven-row vehicle from zero to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds, turning in, dealing with a little understeer before oversteer rotated the car through the turns, and smashing those excellent brakes with authority to enter each turn just right — it was pure poetry in motion, and it made me nearly vomit. Here’s me resisting my lunch slowly working its way up my esophagus:
I myself had a chance to drive the Gravity through these twisty roads, and I thought it handled great, with little body roll when in Sprint Mode, strong brakes, absolutely monumental acceleration out of turns, and a generally solid sense of balance. I was especially impressed by its multitude of demeanors depending upon which drive mode the vehicle was in.
I’ve driven lots of cars with “drive modes,” and plenty had adaptive damping. I don’t think any of them had a “triple valve” air spring with three different spring rates, which may be why I was so impressed by how well the Gravity’s air spring technology melded with its “infinite damping adjustment.” Lucid said it aimed to offer a Range Rover-like ride in the suspension’s smoothest setting and Porsche Cayenne/Aston Martin DBX-like handling in its stiffest setting.
In soft mode, I could barely feel anything as I piloted the vehicle over expansion joints and cracks in the road. But as soon as Lickfold helped me throw the car into a more dynamic setting (Sprint Mode), the vehicle tightened up, allowed a few more of the road’s imperfections into the cabin, and became significantly more precise in the corners. In fact, in its softest setting, the Gravity felt a bit underdamped over bumps, but once in a sportier mode, it became a different animal.
I liked the squirkle steering wheel that allowed me to see the screen ahead, I liked the interior quality, and I thought the vehicle — aided perhaps by the excellent visibility or the four-wheel steering with its only 38-foot turning circle — felt a lot smaller than its interior volume would indicate.
In fact, let’s get into that interior a bit more, because it’s remarkable.
The Interior Space Is Humongous
Look at the screenshot below of me sitting in the Lucid Gravity’s third row with plenty of legroom to spare, and of the second screenshot showing that even the roof offered enough height to clear my head. My cameraperson, Griffin, who is over six-foot, was also able to sit back there without issue. The Lucid Gravity’s third row is legit, even for adults.
In the image below, you can see just how carefully Lucid built the vehicle around its powertrain and battery pack to ensure ample space for all occupants; note how the rear seat sits just above the rear drive unit, with the footwell just ahead:
You’ll also see that there’s a deep well just aft of the rear drive unit/axle, and it’s there that the rear seats fold flat:
Here’s a look at what that seat looks like folded:
The second row’s folding function, though, is even more legit. With the press of a button, it goes from this:
To this:
To fully folded.
You’re right; we definitely need a GIF of that:
The result is a gigantic area to load things:
The downside is that the area is not perfectly flat, with the space aft of the second row featuring a deep well normally acting as the footwell for the rear seats when they’re not folded down.
Lucid says it will offer something to make the floor completely flat for those interested in, say, camping in their car.
Up front is an 8.1 cubic-foot trunk that can be optioned with a cushion, which I initially thought was wack since it takes up a bunch of space, but then immediately changed my mind about as soon as my arse hit the cushion. It really does feel like a supremely comfortable park bench, and I’d probably use it all the time.
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There are so many other storage areas I could show, like the deep center console (shown in the Instagram reel above), the glovebox (which I didn’t open because there’s no physical latch, just a button on the touchscreen), and two deep bins on the left and right side of the rear cargo floor:
Here’s a look at how Lucid went about maximizing interior volume, from Lucid itself:
The Cabin Tech Seems Extremely Cool
So now that we’ve established that Lucid has built an extremely space-efficient, energy-efficient, dynamically-elite, insanely fast three-row SUV, it’s worth talking about what the cabin feels like.
Lucid calls its designs “California Modern Interiors,” featuring all sorts of sustainable materials like walnut orchard waste-wood, fishing net waste (used for carpeting), recycled water bottles (for textile), and more. It comes in various colors, and the lighter one that I sat in was awesome — great vibes.
Surrounding the driver is what Lucid calls the “Clearview Cockpit” consisting of a giant, single-piece 34-inch OLED display ahead of the driver and a tilted-back 12.6-incher off to the right. I’ve been a fan of such a setup since I used something similar in a Lincoln Nautilus, and I could imagine this setup becoming an industry standard before you know it. Having an upper-dash mounted screen lets you keep your eyes from venturing too far off the road ahead, and the screens allow for multitasking that can help one avoid spending too much time flipping through menus when you should be driving.
Ahead of the driver is an optional Augmented Reality Head-Up Display (an “AR HUD”), which essentially “paints” the road ahead to help you understand not only what the car is seeing, but also what you should be doing. For example, if you arrive at a stop sign that the navigation wants you to turn left at, you will end up driving up to a big instruction arrow “painted” into the world ahead of you, right next to the stop sign. That arrow will ensure that you don’t miss your turn. I didn’t have a chance to test the system, but it seems supremely cool, in theory.
There’s also a Sanctuary Mode, which is there to “envelop[e] passengers in a cocoon of tranquility inspired by California’s natural wonders.”
It seems like some pretty woo-woo hippy stuff, but hey, as someone who’s enjoyed attending a sound bath here in LA, I really can’t knock an in-car “multi-sensory immersion” that adjust lights, audio, massage seats, HVAC, and video screens to “coalesce into custom content experiences that offer a symphony of sensation, unlike anything else on the market.” I’m a Californian now, after all.
Lucid Engineered Its Way To A World-Beating SUV
Lucid’s “compromise nothing” slogan is a hard mindset to take into the design of an SUV, a category of car that Lucid’s Sr. VP Derek Jenkins said right at the start of his presentation is inherently compromised.
He’s not wrong. Historically, if you wanted an off-road SUV or a high-performance SUV or a large SUV, you paid for it dearly with efficiency. Lucid, perhaps more than anything, hates the idea of making a vehicle less efficient than it can be, so this was a challenge.
Numerous times in their presentations, multiple Lucid representatives talked about “divergent attributes” and “opposite ideals” — and how The Gravity aimed to break the SUV mold by doing it all. In many ways, the team actually pulled it off, in part because of the inherent nature of EVs vs ICEs; in part because of great technology like air suspension and rear steering and adaptive damping; but also in large part due to Lucid’s fundamental obsessiveness with reducing Vehicle Demand Energy.
The company built a powerful, nimble, spacious three-row SUV that is extremely efficient, and that simply has never happened before in automotive history — certainly not to this degree.
Lucid’s Chief Engineer Eric Bach told me that were three main enablers that allowed Lucid to do this. First, it’s the focus on minimizing powertrain size in order to maximize space; this is something that CEO Peter Rawlinson mentioned to me during my interview earlier this year, and the number of benefits of minimizing powertrain packaging is more than you might expect (Rawlinson mentioned reducing frontal area by allowing for a more optimized seating position made possible by reducing powertrain size). Packaging is a critical element in vehicle efficiency, and Lucid is extremely diligent about minimizing wasted space; the Gravity’s rear steering system, for example, doesn’t use a regular steering rack, but rather individual actuators to steer reach rear wheel; this gives the third-row passenger a bit of extra heel room, which prevents the need for any other changes (for example to the roof height) that could hurt the car’s efficiency.
The second enabler, Bach told me, is just maximizing efficiency of both the powertrain itself but especially the vehicle’s overall aerodynamics (frontal area and Cd).
Third, he mentioned the concept of “jelly-setting,” which is an analogy that I’ll admit I may not have fully understood. The way I interpreted it was that it was the concept of starting with the optimal passenger space and working from there instead of having various engineers’ packaging requirements (for their various components/systems) dictate what the passenger space ends up being. The way I interpreted that was essentially ensuring that you define optimal up front, and use that as a strict starting point that forces engineers to innovate.
Lucid also talked a lot about its simulation tools. These are a big deal if you want to optimize anything. It’s not just that simulation tools let you more carefully and quickly assess your designs, it’s that Lucid says it has validated its simulation tools to the point where their results match up almost perfectly to actual physical testing.
This is a big deal in vehicle development, where knowledge is power; if you don’t know your simulation is accurate, you may have to build in an extra safety factor into your design to feel confident that it won’t fail, and that often results in unnecessary weight and cost. High-fidelity models are the key to maximum vehicle efficiency.
The Lucid Gravity Does Indeed Make Compromises, And One Is A Big One
Lucid bills the Gravity as “the first SUV that delivers everything that matters, without compromise.”
If you look at the interior volume numbers, the handling performance, the acceleration, and the efficiency (mi/kWh), you might think that indeed, Lucid has built a no-compromise SUV. But in truth, there’s always compromise; in fact, I always tell people that engineering is the art of strategic compromising.
In the case of the Lucid Gravity, there are two compromises that are apparent to pretty much anyone: Price and off-road capability. On the pricing front, the Lucid Gravity Grand Touring that I drove — the 450 mile-range one — starts at $94,900. Later in 2025, a Lucid Gravity Touring will come in at $79,900. While these figures are competitive with the likes of the Tesla Model X and Rivian R1S, the reality is that the Lucid Gravity is an expensive car.
As for off-road capability, one look at the Lucid Gravity tells you that it’s got some severe limitations off-road. That’s because off-roading is all about geometry, and — despite its 9 inches of ground clearance — the Lucid Gravity’s approach and departure angle are just too low to do anything serious. It could climb over some small rocks, go through mud (where its sophisticated traction control could come in handy), and certainly get you to a typical campsite. But it won’t get through even one of Moab’s easiest trails, Fins ‘N Things.
And that’s OK. These two — cost and off-road capability — are two compromises that Lucid had to make in order to build a three-row vehicle that can crush the competition in terms of both range and performance. Building a world-beater isn’t cheap, and it requires a low-slung body and relatively small tires. I do think that a bit more off-road capability and a bit less handling capability would have been welcomed, as I’m not sure how many 7-passenger vehicle-shoppers like to carve canyons, but again, these two compromises are fine.
But there’s a third compromise that I’m not sure I can get behind: the styling.
Here’s Lucid’s mission statement:
At Lucid
We are driving a revolution.
One that compromises nothing
by obsessing over everything.Performance that defies limits.
Going farther with less.
Space large enough for life.
Design that’s impossible to ignore.
All with a passion for preserving our planet.Here’s to advancing technology
that drives the world forward.
You may notice that performance, efficiency, and space all come before design. That may not have been intentional, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had.
Lucid is a company run by engineers, and in fact, that’s one of the reasons why I like it so much. I’m a former engineer, I have a number of friends who work at Lucid, and my conversation with CEO Peter Rawlinson was nothing short of epic. Lucid is an organization run by the best kind of nerds obsessed with maximizing efficiency, and that’s usually a good thing.
But with the Lucid Gravity, I have a suspicion that engineers won most of the arguments with designers, and I have always been firmly in the camp that thinks designers should tell engineers what to do, thereby compelling them to come up with interesting technical solutions. I don’t think it should be the other way around, because design is simply too important, especially in this price class.
“We’ve had a lot of philosophical discussion about [the design],” David Lickfold told me during our spirited drive. “And something that Derek Jenkins, [Sr.] VP of design, said really well is ‘This is the future of the SUV, if you want an SUV that is extremely efficient and has high performance and has all this space and usability, this is what it looks like.”
This quote supports my suspicion that engineering drove the Gravity’s design, and I have to say: I think that strategy is a mistake. I think any team developing a vehicle should recognize that range, price, and style all share roughly equal weight in the EV marketplace. To build a masterpiece that doesn’t look like a masterpiece seems like an exercise in futility.
Even Tesla understood this with the Tesla Model X. The vehicle, too, looks like a big Jellybean, but it at least has Falcon-Wing doors to give it a bit of pizazz, and boy do you need pizazz when you’re selling cars for $100,000. Heck, even at a lower price point, Toyota chose to have its new Prius gain a few counts of drag for a bit of sex appeal (and that has been a boon). Style is worth compromising for.
Personally, I’m blinded by the car’s performance and engineering prowess, so I dig it despite the looks. But the layperson, I fear, will expect more than a Chrysler Pacifica lookalike for a nearly six-figure sum. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
But from where I stand, it seems that, by trying to avoid compromises, Lucid may have made the biggest one of all.
Images: Lucid, David Tracy, Griffin Riley
The amount of people who will carve canyons in a 100K, 7 passenger vehicle is a higher number than the number of people who will take it off rode, but the percentages for both are likely in the single digits.
“A Fast And Spacious 7-Passenger SUV That Handles Like A Sports Car…”
I’ve been suspicious of that phrase ever since a guy from AM General threw me the keys to a Humvee and said: “you’ll like this, it handles like a sports car”. It did not.
I daily drive a GT86 and a Europa. I’ve had all the MR2s, an Elise and an MX5. Does this thing really handle like a sports car or does it handle like a massive SUV with good body control and huge grip?
That aside: thanks for your rant on compromise. “Compromise Nothing” is such an immediately stupid slogan, even picking a font size to type the words in is a compromise, much less any feature of a vehicle. I’d have immediately fired whoever suggested that as a tag line, but then my company only had one employee, and then it shut down. Maybe marketing requires phrases that are obviously false.
Given the engineering constraints there is still a huge amount of scope for Design/Styling. They could have gone mad with lighting graphics and fake grills, creases, shut lines, rear window deletes. They’ve deliberately made it look conservative. And why not? Are any SUVs beautiful? Nope. Are there some that are so ugly you’d avoid them? Yep. It’s a 7 seat car, it’s going to be a sensible purchase.
I hate the term handles like a sports car because to me sports cars are inherently light. No car this heavy can handle like a sports car. It can handle well but you can’t overcome physics.
Plus there is the issue of exactly which sports car it handles like. An early 911, Miata and an Elise all handle in very different ways.
I think what DT really means when he uses the phrase is “doesn’t handle like an old broken Jeep”.
“run by engineers”, “compromise nothing”, small company, better living through design, expensive but not super-lux pricing…
…is Lucid the new Saab?
Can you tow the car sideways out of a snow drift using the door handles?
I loved that that was a design requirement at SAAB.
I had never heard that! And I owned a Saab 9000 Turbo. Fortunately, I never found myself in a snow drift in that car.
“…if you want an SUV that is extremely efficient and has high performance and has all this space and usability, this is what it looks like.”
I think this was ultimately the problem with the EQS. From everything I’ve read it’s a great EV…it just doesn’t have the “presence” of an S-Class. Sometimes it’s not about being the best product when someone else has a better looking one. Just look at Apple.
But will it come with a tent and an air mattress?
I totally disagree that more focus on off-roading would be welcome. The number of owners of SUVs in this class who do anything more than occasionally travel on gravel roads in vanishingly small. Making the vehicle more competent offroad would have severely compromised its drag coefficient, and consequently range and miles per KWh
I also thing putting engineering before design to get not just acceptable, but excellent KWh in this class was the right choice. I think it looks fine. It’s high time EV manufacturers started chasing efficiency instead of trying to make the most outrageous looking vehicle.
SUV’s and Trucks are aspirational – the represent a life buyers want to live rather than the life they actually live. This is what sells vehicles. If people were making pragmatic transportation decisions, we wouldn’t be witnessing the extinction of the four-door sedan or compact hatch.
People buy SUVs with almost no offroad capabilities all the time. I don’t think it’s at the forefront of anyone’s mind unless they are buying a Grenadier.
I’d argue that the CRV and RAV4 feel like they have more off-road chops than the Gravity, which to to my eye looks like a Minivan. As you move up in price of the SUV, the off-road chops (or illusion of chops) becomes even more important. Lexus’s 2 top trims (GX and LX) are the most off-road worthy, Mercedes is similar (G-Class and GLS.) The EQS SUV is very similar to the Gravity in that it’s a electric minivan masquerading as an SUV and it’s sales are terrible which gives credence to the argument that it needed more of those off-road looks.
I really wish there were more reasonable electric vehicles out there. Unfortunately, it seems that this isn’t what’s profitable.
Well, with no sales yet, only time will tell if this EV is successful. However I don’t think the EQS comparison is valid as it’s a terrible EV, compromised as a vehicle in many ways, and absurdly ugly.
Agreed. I can’t think of any three-row SUV I would want to take over seriously challenging terrain. Or that could if it were in someone else’s braver and more competent hands. Heck, I can’t think of any group of six people who would be willing to be passengers in such a venture. More likely, they’d rather be doing it themselves in smaller, more agile, vehicles.
And I can’t even comprehend how much it would cost to have a crew in a Sikorsky Skycrane come pluck it out of somewhere where something bad happened.
All that said, it seems to be an impressive engineering accomplishment, and I even like the way it looks. It’s been years since I have needed more than four reasonable roomy seats in a vehicle. And I wish them well.
To my relatively untrained eyes, the recent Suburbans with IRS don’t look very off-road capable.
There are two kinds of off-roading – the first is dirt/gravel/unimproved roads to get to the cabin/trailhead/lake/fishing hole – this is likely the more typical use for a car like this and a use that most cars can actually handle with some careful driving and maybe some scratch’s and chips in the paint. The second is rock-crawling, which is much rarer with limited places to legally to this, so not much of a use case there. The real question is will the park service ticket you if you take this on one of their off-road roads – it doesn’t have a locking central differential??
Also, you may need less off-road macho-ness than you think in many cases. I seem to remember a video DT did years ago when he was in Moab and ran across a guy driving on fairly primitive rocky trails with a Panther Crown Vic… You would be surprised what you can do – I remember taking my RWD Cutlass Supreme deep into the Virginia woods on dirt roads to get to trailheads.
As a child, my Dad managed to get to trail heads, fishing holes etc in a 1965 Oldsmobile 88. I managed to do those things in a litany of cars on my own, as an adult.
The only reason I have ever signed up for an AWD vehicle is because my wife worried about snow. I’ve driven two-wheel drive vehicles oriented both ways and somehow managed to never get stuck in snow. I tried to tell her that once you’re moving, it doesn’t matter how many wheels got you moving, it’s how you manage the ones that will eventually need to steer and stop you.
Agree, but I will further note that although I have mostly had success with RWD (and at least one FWD) cars, there are certain things like plowing through 6” of snow where the AWD makes it easier. Of course it is tough to compare cars apples to apples since how the differentials work and the traction control works makes a huge difference. I remember blowing by multiple old school 4x4s that had gotten stuck in the snow (Bronco and Blazer, maybe a jeep) going down my friends mile long Vermont driveway with my RWD E46 with all season tires.
A 1980’s VW Polo (a small fwd hatchback) will get up some pretty gnarly tracks, especially if it’s driven by a teenager. They’re also fine in 4″ of snow, although you might need a bit of a run-up for hills.
When I was a kid in the late 60’s, my Dad often drove us up into the Sierras near Grass Valley down heavily rutted fire roads in our Chevy II wagon.
We only got stuck once, when we slipped off the crown and were high centered. A local guy in a 2wd Dodge pickup dragged us out.
Just look at the photos in the 1972 Mercury catalog: Almost all the cars are off road.
I have a deep and unabiding appreciation for David’s inclusion of what I legitimately consider to be a high critical consideration in a vehicle – how flat is the load floor with the seats folded.
It never seems to get included by ‘normie’ auto journos who are usually too busy breaking their arm jerking themselves off about the level of understeer and driving dynamics of something wholly uninteresting (not that this is, but you get the point)
I appreciate the analysis that despite how amazing the Gravity is, it falls down on design. It’s not that it’s unattractive, necessarily, but for what it is? It looks like a minivan without sliding doors The Air’s design language just doesn’t translate; no one is going to aspire to be seen in this, and that is going to be a problem. They need the cheaper trims ASAP.
I obviously haven’t seen a Gravity in person, but I have to say – in pictures, the Air looks just okay, but the first time I saw one in person (at twilight with the light bars illuminated), it stunned me more than any other modern vehicle I can recall.
Lucid’s current vehicles definitely have a gravitas and presence in person that photos just don’t capture. The same may be true for the Gravity.
It’s called an SUV because if it was called what it truly is(minivan/MPV) they would sell seven of them. I agree with David though that the styling is the biggest hurdle. To me, it looks great but I am not the target market. To the target market, it’ll do as well as the Mercedes R-Class did, which is to say not well.
I like it. The exterior styling is sedate, which I vastly prefer to a lot of the overstyled stuff out there today. The interior is pretty. The range is market-leading. The price seems reasonable for a luxury, 3-row EV at this point.
My only issue is simply calling this an SUV when it’s a minivan. I mean, maybe it’s an SUV cause it has 1-2 extra inches of ground clearance?? Why?
I’m so frustrated with the absolute insistence of the SUV in our country.
I agree. I have come to the understanding that marketers are the source of these kinds of frustrations. They can call something whatever they want. Who the hell is going to sue them? Hyundai had a product called “America’s Best Warranty”.
BMW decided that they would call a sedan a coupe (I know; there are arguments on what a ‘coupe’ is and what a ‘sedan’ is, but that is the point I am getting at).
If a car company got up tomorrow and released a Seagull, which they defined as a BOF 4×4 that can tow the gates off of Hell, then that is what it is. As it stands, making a tall Corolla and calling it an SUV (I think some marques do use ‘CUV’, which I don’t hate) just catches some sales buzz. They don’t care that they are lying to purists because they are printing cash.
My solution, which is only for my sanity, is to avoid discussions on anyone that says they have an SUV, including my wife’s BMW 1 series that was FWD (sorry, sweetie; that’s a hatchback), and buy what I like. It has made clothes shopping much simpler too.
Regardless, I have felt a little bit of your pain, even if I only understood your current statement in a tangential way.
Yes, we are agreed. Just seems like they will do anything they can just to shove the “SUV” nomenclature into the name just for clicks/sales.
My take goes in the other direction. It’s not “they can call it an SUV because it has 1-2 extra inches of ground clearance”, but rather “they can’t call it a minivan because no slidey doors”.
Huh, good point. Slidey door does make a minivan. Hmm. Is that it? I mean, it makes sense to me.
I suspect manufacturers go this route so they can take advantage of the relaxed CAFE and safety standards for non-passenger vehicles.
This is the future of the SUV, if you want an SUV that is extremely efficient and has high performance and has all this space and usability, this is what it looks like.”
A much worse minivan. FFS put in the sliding doors already!
Right??? That’s the one compromise I couldn’t live with. The sliders are really handy.
Just like animals will separately evolve into crabs, no matter how many time you hit reset it is the nature of vehicles to evolve into minivans and wagons.
Everyone knows (but few will admit) that minivans, sliding doors and all, are the most practical vehicles for most everything but towing over 3000#.
Yeah, but why on Earth would you want a HP minivan? Passengers, especially little ones, are going to be vomiting everywhere!
For exactly the same reasons anyone would want this HP faux “SUV”.
I don’t think the styling is any worse than any other modern large SUV.
Neither the styling nor the price bothers me, as I do think this is a lot for your money. Nor do I think off-road capability is a serious concern with anything in this class.
I do think if you market a vehicle as having no compromises, it should be able to tow without stopping every 200 miles (at best). Similarly, it should be able to drive all day in any temperature without any more than 5 minute refueling stops.
I don’t want to seem particularly harsh on Lucid, because they really do the best job with range of anyone, but their marketing (and DT’s statement of “greatest 3 row SUV ever”) really bothers me on this vehicle.
Marketers exist to lie to you to make you give their company money.
Well, maybe not lie, but it feels close enough. Would we really sue them to argue that there were compromises in this and that I was injured monetarily by my purchase of it? Odds are no, so they get away with stretching the truth a bit.
To paraphrase Obi-wan Kenobi: it’s the truth…from a certain point of view. That old guy sure was a good salesman. Convinced a stupid farm kid to go on a damn fool crusade, try to kill his father, and overthrow a dictator. Master of manipulation, he was.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi, we hereby award you a doctorate of Marketing from Carnegie University”
Lets put it this way, (eventually) only a few grand more to start than an R1S with better packaging and efficiency, what is arguably the best chassis control in the industry, and is a vehicle that genuinely fits the needs of a 3-Row EV SUV better than any other car on the market. It’s not cheap, and it’s not perfect, but there is no better vehicle fit for the people/stuff hauling EV game than this, and I sincerely hope they sell like hotcakes.
3 row SUVs only exist because there are people that need a minivan but are too vain to drive a minivan. If your 3 row SUV looks just like a minivan, you’ve missed the plot.
I own a minivan and this statement is nonsense.
There’s plenty that SUVs offer that minivans don’t, and it’s silly to assume otherwise.
What utility do hinged doors offer that sliding doors do not?
If that were the only difference between an SUV and a minivan, I might have a different opinion.
How much different are we talking?? I feel like it’s akin to comparing two of the same exact types of fruit, just one is a bit larger and more ripe than the other. I don’t know, something like that. It seems like we are becoming pretty padantic about these definitions.
Minivans are constrained by the limitations of their FWD unibody platforms. That means they are generally bad at towing, handling, performance, and ground clearance.
If the first statement had been “3 row crossovers are strictly worse than minivans”, my argument would be tougher. But it’s pretty silly to paint with such a broad brush that you end up arguing that a Suburban, an X5, and a LX600 collectively have zero advantages over a Pacifica.
Yeah, makes sense. I look at cars the same way I look at colors, there are basically only 3-4 different types. Everything in between is just a shade. I think my brain needs this to remain sane.
Minivans are constrained by the limitations of their FWD unibody platforms. That means they are generally bad at towing, handling, performance, and ground clearance.
They are surprisingly capable as I found out myself bombing around Death Valley and other points Southwest in a 1999 4cyl/3A Dodge Caravan. I even made it a pretty good way up the Imogene pass in Colorado. That’s a LOT more than most people ever do with a SUV.
Handling was fine and much much better than any truck I’ve driven. Also better than my XJ Jeep.
It’s worth mentioning that some of the most well regarded, trail happy SUVs ever made (XJ, WJ Jeeps as well as the X5 of your example) have been unibody. So unibodies – when designed to do – so are fine for towing and ground clearance.
Also worth pointing out minivans in the past HAVE come in BOF, AWD configurations. Ford Aerostar, Chevy Astro come to mind and they were rated for 4800 and 5300 lbs towing respectively. So the right minivan can tow and go offroad just fine too.
Huh, unibody is better for performance and handling. That is why sports cars are unibody. Body on frame is just good for towing.
Right back at you. What untility does a sliding door provide that a hinged door does not? I drive a Pacifica and I like, but if the sliding door is the only practical difference, why demonize SUVs?
A sliding door provides a TON of utility when you have kids. Especially a sliding door that opens and closes with the push of a button.
But I still think the “SUVs are evil, vans are life” rhetoric is overblown.
WAY overblown. To the point that for those making such comments, unless they personally own a minivan they need to STFU. Same thing for the utility trailer crowd. I have kids, which is why we bought the Pacifica, but if it wasn’t for Dieselgate we’d still have the Passat TDI that was serving our family very well.
It’s nice to know that as an owner of a 2004 Odyssey I can continue to rage against the stupidity of SUVs.
We also have a Corrola Cross so I guess I’d be slamming myself at the same time.
I guess I’ll just enjoy both and not rage then?
Keep fighting the good fight. Personally I’m tired of trying to get people to do things I want them to do.
I don’t have kids, and don’t intend to, but one of my vehicles is a minivan, and it’s the most versatile and useful one I own. It’s an AWD Sienna, so with good tires it can get through some mud and snow off of the beaten path. I can take everything out of the back and haul around all the parts/tools/supplies I need for just about any project. I built a bed frame for the back and installed a solar system on it so I can comfortably camp off-grid for as long as I desire. Plus, with all the seats in, it’s a very comfortable vehicle to take my elderly parents places, including my dad who has major mobility issues and is really difficult to get in and out of a regular car. An SUV can’t do most of those things as well as a minivan does.
Congratulations on purchasing what you wanted, for whatever reason it was you wanted to.
Thanks. To your point, I do not, apparently, need to STFU.
The ability to fully open the door in a tight parking spot for one. That’s worth a lot. Especially in a tight garage.
When there are kids in the back seat the ability for those kids to throw the door open without denting the vehicle next door. That’s worth something too.
To the point that for those making such comments, unless they personally own a minivan they need to STFU.
Yes I have a minivan (Mazda 5) and have previously owned a Dodge Caravan. And yes, I have used both to move a LOT of stuff, kids and dogs included. I have found sliding doors much more useful than the hinged doors of SUVs. My vans did not have power doors but I can see that can be a useful feature to some.
They’re useful, but it isn’t like it’s impossible to not hit the garage wall or ding the car next to you without a sliding door. We survived kids in car seats in the back of a Passat and a Mazda6. And the front doors still swing on a minivan.
When it came time for me to choose, I picked a minivan instead of an SUV. The bellyaching about SUVs is getting to be too much, as if the only major difference anymore, the sliding door, is the end all, be all.
For a lot of ample belt lined Americans it is. Its also nice to be able to hold the doors on two adjacent vehicles open when transferring stuff. That’s trivial with sliding doors, much harder to do with hinged doors.
And that belly aching may hold for some SUVs but certainly not all. The Suburban, LX600, etc are closer to full sized vans.
IMO had manufacturers put in the same effort into vans as they’ve put into SUVs over the past 30 years we’d have much better vans today. Instead we have worse vans in the form of SUVs.
That nobody would buy them. It’s the same argument could’ve been made about station wagons, or sedans, or hatchbacks, or any number of other form factors that customers have abandoned over the years. We’re also seeing what happens when manufacturers just decide to make a bold move when the market isn’t ready for it, and now they’re trying to reverse course on BEVs because the demand isn’t there.
SUVs only became popular because they were more profitable for manufacturers so manufacturers promoted them heavily.
SUVs became popular when manufacturers started shrinking cars to comply with CAFE, only to find out that 1) customers didn’t like the smaller cars, and 2) trucks weren’t included in CAFE calculations. Profitability came with commonality and volume, but if there weren’t people to buy them.
The idea that the customer has no influence on any of this is silly.
The customers absolutely have influence on this but the customers are themselves highly influenced by advertising.
When manufacturers show manly men doing manly men things in big ass trucks and SUVs during manly men sportsball events sportsball fans feel want/need.
When manufacturers show hot young women looking hot and rich, getting attention, getting respect (or mild fear), feeling safe and secure in big ass trucks and SUVs during whatever it is women watch women feel want/need.
When manufacturers do not show minivans and smaller cars except when being driven by not so attractive, may as well be beige NPCs sportsball fans and women have feels other than want/need.
The advertising goes hand-in-hand with demand, and doesn’t account for the generational change in preference. The SUV buyer of today was the kid who was driven to soccer practices in the back of mom’s minivan. The minivan mom drove because she wouldn’t be caught dead in a station wagon like her mom drove.
And nothing about CAFE standards, which the loophole in incentivized the manufacturers to tart up and develop their SUVs in the first place?
“Fuel economy regulations were first introduced in 1978, only for passenger vehicles. NHTSA kept CAFE standards for cars the same from 1985 to 2010, except for a slight decrease in required mpg from 1986 to 1989.[3] The next year, a second category was defined for light trucks. These were distinguished from heavy duty vehicles by a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 6000 pounds or less. The GVWR threshold was raised to 8500 pounds in 1980 and has remained at that level through 2010. Thus certain large trucks and SUV’s were exempt, such as the Hummer and the Ford Excursion. From 1979 to 1991, separate standards were established for two-wheel drive (2WD) and four-wheel drive (4WD) light trucks, but for most of this period, car makers were allowed to choose between these separate standards or a combined standard to be applied to the entire fleet of light trucks they sold that model year. In 1980 and 1981, respectively, a manufacturer whose light truck fleet was powered exclusively by basic engines which were not also used in passenger cars could meet standards of 14 mpg and 14.5 mpg.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy
CAFE standards are only part of the reason.
Look also to looser safety regulations and emission requirements which meant those F-150s and Explorers were cheaper to build, thus more profitable.
Copy/pasting the Wikipedia article isn’t really answering the question. The emissions requirements were a knock-on of the CAFE standards, they are not independent.
The Wiki quote is there for clarity. And I’ve already partly agreed that CAFE encouraged manufacturers to promote trucks and SUVs at the expense of cars.
As to “the emissions requirements were a knock-on of the CAFE standards, they are not independent.” Perhaps I don’t understand what you are getting at. Thanks to the Wiki we now see CAFE began in 1978 long after the clean air act of 1963 and 1970 began to require emissions controls on motor vehicles and the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 began to require better safety. Those came first. As did the OPEC embargo which lead many folks to already seek out more fuel efficient vehicles by the time CAFE began. My own family permanently downsized its vehicles to much more fuel efficient options as a direct consequence of that event despite living in car friendly LA and doing plenty of big car (now big truck/SUV) things long before CAFE.
The purpose of CAFE was to reduce our dependence on oil, but also to continue the efforts of the Clean Air Acts, in between which we also eliminated leaded fuel and adopted catalytic converters. It is all steps in the same, sometimes disjointed, process.
In the late 60s early 70s, Detroit’s response to the then new emissions regulations perversely led to worse fuel mileage than the cars got before. It’s also probable that cars continued to gain weight in that early malaise period.
The F150 and its similarly sized brethren were also a response to emissions rules. As written above, a GVW of 6500# or more reduced the burden of emissions regulations. The earlier light pickups (F100 and so on) were included under the passenger car regulations and thus were tougher to meet.and resulted in weak performance.
What? Towing? Offroading? There might actually be a few dozen people per year that buy a 3 row SUV because they need to tow a boat while transporting 7 people at the same time, but that’s not why 99% of the people that buy them buy them.
Towing, ground clearance, RWD layout and associated benefits to performance and handling, 4×4 availability, etc.
If you want to argue that a Sienna is superior to a Highlander in pretty much every way, go ahead. Again, I voted with my own money and bought a Sienna
But if you try to tell me no one tows with a Suburban, or goes off-roading in a Land Cruiser, or enjoys the handling of an X5 or acceleration of a Model X, or try to tell me that they could do anything comparable in a minivan, I’m just going to say you’re wrong.
I’m saying they aren’t doing those things while transporting 7 people. I’m not aruguing that all SUV sales are vanity-diverted minivan sales, I’m saying the 3 row SUV market came into existence and continues to exist solely because minivans are considered uncool by the majority of the people that need seating for 7.
I’m saying the 3 row SUV market came into existence and continues to exist solely because minivans are considered uncool
And I’m continuing to say that’s nonsense.
Suburbans, Land Cruisers, Jeep Grand Cherokees/Wagoneers, and others have been sold for decades, long before the minivan became popular.
People with minivans don’t use them to haul 7 people all the time either. I’ve never once had 7 people in mine. It’s something designed to haul people and stuff. Just like an SUV is.
Someone who commutes alone in a Suburban, picks up their kids and friends with it after school, and tows a boat or camper on the weekends with a bunch of gear behind and in the 3rd row seems like a pretty common use case to me, at least among people I know. And they never once have 7 people and a boat at the same time.
Suburbans, Land Cruisers, Jeep Grand Cherokees/Wagoneers, sold in very low volumes back when they were the only 3 row SUVs. Because the use case for a 3 row SUV was niche. The reason everyone now makes one, and they sell in large numbers, is because they are the go-to family hauler for image conscious suburban moms who think driving a minivan would make them look OLD. It has nothing to do with their SUV capabilities.
I live in a place where every seat full and a camper behind a suburban has been common since the 80’s at minimum.
As a person with kids, the disadvantage of an SUV never seemed a disadvantage. What, for a couple of years I had to open a door and hoist my kid in? OH ON, so terrible! Now my kids are old enough it doesn’t matter. But a minivan was never going to make me feel old, it was going to make me sad when I looked back at it. They are ugly, bar none. I don’t give two shits what anyone else thinks about me for what I drive, but I care a great deal about how it makes me feel. So I own SUVs, because I like the way they look, I like the v8 sounds they make.
And then yeah, I go ahead and tow decently often.
I own a minivan, and honestly I find the love they inspire in the comments section a little perplexing. It’s fine and all, but interior volume isn’t that exciting. I suspect a lot of this is just reaction to the market dominance of SUVs and CUVs. Perhaps in 20 years, CUVs will go the way of wagons and minivans, and enthusiasts will love them then. Something similar may be happening to truck based SUVs already—any 4Runner fans out there?
Wonderful option for a 7-seater but $80k for the cheapest? Ouch. Might look at one 3-4 years after it launches. $45 or $50 would be really tempting if it proves to be reliable.
Have you looked at the price of a suburban lately?
This oversized SUV, on the highway, is as efficient as a 1st Nissan Leaf.
Let the implications of this sink in.
An ICE-hybrid sedan like the 1999 GM Precept has a 0.159 Cd and a frontal area around 2.0 m^2. And it was 2600 lbs. This would be a 200+ mile range EV at 70 mph with a tiny 30 kWh battery. At the time, GM also had the EV1, which wasn’t as aero efficient, but could still get a 160-ish mile range at 70 mph on a 27 kWh pack. James Worden claimed his Solectria Sunrise could have been under $20,000 MSRP in mass production, in 1996.
Lucid gets it. But they don’t yet have the cash to do an affordable model.
A sub-$25k EV with 200+ miles range is something that could have been done 25 years ago. We need this car today if the goal is actually making them affordable to more people. For environmental sustainability, give them a lot less bells and whistles, make them repairable with basic tools, use physical buttons/switches/knobs for everything, as few computers as possible(only where they improve functionality/reliability vs the alternatives, NO proprietary software and have it all open source and freely/readily available), and have an easy process sorted out on how to work on/repair and also replace the battery.
You’re complaining that a massive hyper fast SUV is *only* as efficient as a small economy commuter?!
I dunno, sounds more like progress to me.
I interpreted is as exactly the opposite. This massive hyper fast SUV is as efficient as a Leaf, which is a very big deal for the 15 or so years between them.
My complaint is that no one make a midsized sedan or a subcompact hatchback that goes twice as far per kWh of energy, because this SUV shows it is possible.
For the type of car it is, the Nissan Leaf had almost twice as much drag as was necessary for its degree of functionality and comfort. This is free range, passed up. The Leaf could have easily had 50% more range on the same pack than it did.
Yeah, this is the same phenomenon starting to really show in EVs that has been happening in ICE cars for years, with Toyota building full size sedans with 40+mpg, something that small economy cars once struggled to achieve. It’s the way of the future, Lucid’s next model will likely be more efficient still, and the rest of the industry will have to make it a priority going forward
Yeah, styling is maybe a little generic minivan, but I’ll take that over techno-squiggle fake vent overly aggressive wannabe road warrior madness any day. They’ll depreciate at $1/mi and maybe one day one of these will replace our Q7.
Off-roading is obviously not the intent of this car. Judging by how many fast SUV’s are sold every year from the Germans, I think there are plenty of corner carving 3 row buyers out there. Mentioning approach and departure angles of the Gravity is a bit silly. Like complaining that a Wrangler does poorly in the slalom.
Sounds like a decent 3 row, and even the price sadly isnt outrageous these days.
But stupid touchscreen glovebox opener. Integrate the button or lever or knob into the dash! It worked in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. And they were well hidden and worked! And looked good! And didnt need power to work, the car on, or software. Listen to Torch, in Torch we trust.
I’ve given up bitching about HVAC controls on touchscreens, but goddamnit, why do they think stuff like a glove box latch or HVAC vent orientation is a good idea to put on one?!
Glovebox is a pretty easy answer — because that reduces manufacturing complexity (an actuator is cheaper to snap into a dash than multiple parts that need to interface properly) and also means you can easily build a lockout for valet mode.
The ThrottleHouse guys did a bit about that in one of their reviews (I don’t remember what it was, either a Bentley or a Rolls) where they couldn’t get an Epi-pen out of the glove box to treat a food allergy because the latch was buried in a menu. As someone with a food allergy that isn’t always completely avoidable… I will never stop bitching about that.
Lucid’s “compromise nothing” slogan
but also
the glovebox (which I didn’t open because there’s no physical latch, just a button on the touchscreen)
It doesn’t have sliding doors. Those seem to be the kiss of death for anything, so it’s good there.
Do want. But I’ll make do with my present EV.
After living with electric sliding doors for the last 6 years, we simply can’t give them up while we have school-aged children.
That’s what I was thinking. Give me one with sliding doors and lower options that get it down to like $65k, and I would be seriously considering it for a next vehicle should the Sienna ever die.
I like sliding doors too. Unfortunately we’re a vanishingly small population of vehicle buyers. Most people decided that style wins over practicality. Minivans are niche while the world groans under the weight of 3 row CUV’s.
Toyota still has waiting lists for Siennas. They seemed to have found something that resonates with plenty of buyers despite the sliding doors.
The Pacifica Hybrid on the other hand has massive discounts but lacks AWD and has Chrysler “quality” baked in apparently.
Will be curious to see how the Kia Carnival Hybrid ends up doing. I haven’t seen any so far, but not sure if they are really even available yet.
The Sienna has a cult following. People who like them really like them and will accept nothing else. A family member engaged a car broker to hunt nationwide for one with AWD and specific interior options. The broker found a late model used van down the street from me at the local Toyota dealer after months of looking. They mentioned that they had multiple inquiries but my family member’s broker was first. Sweet ride. The ones I see around me are all AWD in both V6 and hybrid flavors. Aside from the Kia, there’s nothing else like it on the market.
I don’t think the Kia hybrid will have AWD, so still nothing else like it.
3 row wagons are good.
3 row wagon=minivan but yes I agree.
The argument would probably be that wagons are sedan based – and minivans, while sharing the platform, may not have much else in common with any other model in a lineup.
As such this, the Ford Flex, and that weird Mercedes 3 row thing may be considered vans….
Indeed. And people claim all the time that vans have to have sliding doors, but the first gen Odyssey didn’t, but no one claims that’s a crossover because of it. I definitely consider the Flex and the R class minivans.
It looks like something Chrysler should’ve had on sale 3 years ago.
Pretty much, yeah. Speaking of which, that production-ready Airflow EV crossover concept will have debuted 3 years ago next month.
All part of Carlos’ brilliant plan to cut costs by not producing any vehicles.
Well it is not a real “volume” car, I believe it is more a luxury car, so, it may justify its price tag being a bit higher. Also, there will be other options far better suited for off-road use, like the International Harvester, so this is a big crossover, not a SUV.
BTW, are you losing hair just before the wedding David? Maybe I never realized but the hat on/hat off pictures close to each other made it really evident.
Basically 90’s blob GM with a chrome bumper shoved into the headlights.
Not good.