We all have moments that make us question our financial choices, like spending $2,000 on headlights (sorry, mum) or closing a bar tab in the financial district. Even though car values are still fairly strong compared to pre-pandemic levels, there are still ways to lose a ton of money on a new ride, like this 2023 Lucid Air Pure that depreciated $52,350 in less than nine months. Yikes.
The Lucid Air is a neat luxury sedan. Sure, the A-pillars may be the size of giant sequoias, but the chassis tuning is stellar and the packaging is rather phenomenal. I recently had a chance to drive the single-motor rear-wheel-drive Pure trim as part of AJAC EcoRun and came away positively impressed, not just because all the software worked flawlessly (unlike some cars I’ve driven from more historic marques) but also because it drove incredibly well.
However, just because a car drives incredibly well and features amazing packaging doesn’t mean it’ll hold value. Now, big luxury sedans are known for rapid depreciation, but when this Lucid Air Pure went up for auction on Cars & Bids, I wasn’t expecting an apocalyptic decline in value.
According to the CarFax, this electric luxury sedan was registered on Sept. 26, 2023, which means that it was in the previous owner’s possession for all of eight months and 18 days before the hammer dropped at $58,000. That’s $199.80 per day in depreciation. Per day.
Wilder still, there don’t appear to be any crazy stories with this car. When photographed for auction, its odometer read 1,720 miles, it had no hits on its Carfax, and was pretty close to new. It even has some nice options including the 21-speaker Surreal Sound Pro audio system, Lucid’s DreamDrive Pro suite of advanced driver assistance systems, upgraded 19-inch wheels, and an Alcantara headliner. The original owner simply bought it for $110,350 including freight, drove it fewer than 1,800 miles, and took a massive bath in depreciation. The craziest part? This wasn’t a no-reserve auction. The owner was okay with a low reserve, which is simply amazing considering how heartbreaking it must be to lose $199.80 per day on a car.
On the plus side, depreciation like this will put used Lucid Air sedans into the hands of more enthusiasts fairly quickly. They’re brilliant to drive, with more than a touch of what made BMW the brand to beat for sports sedans. They’re engineering marvels that charge quickly, offer enormous practicality, and can genuinely be road-tripping machines, as far as non-Tesla EVs go. At $58,000, this is a serious amount of car for the money, and a tempting alternative to say, a brand-new well-specced Ford Mustang Mach-E.
On the minus side, depreciation like this could scare people away from the fledgling automaker, which could hurt everyone involved. Slow sales could affect business, but they could also affect the number of these sedans trickling into the used market and thus the number of parts available from third-party sources. Rapid depreciation and relatively slow sales numbers don’t exactly make it easy to maintain some specialty cars of the past.
In the end, all I can say is congratulations to whoever bought this Lucid Air for $58,000, and oof to the fact that the previous owner burned $8.33 an hour in depreciation alone. It’s one hell of a buy and one hell of a sale, even if one party seems to be winning more than the other here.
(Photo credits: Cars & Bids)
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How do you know what the previous owner paid for it? I believe all you have determined is the difference between MSRP and hammer. It’s almost certainly depreciated, but I see no basis for your claim of how much.
What the article misses is that the car has a LOAN on it, suggesting not some rich person’s toy being cast off, but a leveraged asset. One that’s likely upside down. Depreciation number aside, that’s the real tragedy.
I hope they stay in business. The world needs the most techno savvy up to date Mercury Sable available today. Sorry, but these give me the same joy I had when the 86 Mercury Sable was unveiled. Hear me out, monobrow front lighting, wrap-around greenhouse, swoopy wind cheating sheet metal, butt wide reach-around taillights (shout out to Jason) and cool interior trims and materials. I just may be able to afford a Lucid Air in a few more years when their deprecation has hit rock bottom.
But think of all the money saved on not buying gas.
The Lucid Pure new has dropped dramatically in price! I could get one now for $67,725. He paid $110,350! The Pure is the entry level trim. You can now get the top trim the Grand Touring for $111,475. Buying a new Pure today would hardly drop in value at all!
$58k is not a spectacular deal for this car. There are a few listed on Autotempest for around that price with similar mileage. Those are for sale at dealers so presumably you can knock one or two thousand off the asking price. This appears to be a case where someone bought this car for an appropriate price.
Also, the MSRP of a 2024 Lucid Air Pure is around $70k. The MSRP os a 2023 was $88k. Whoever paid $110k for this thing was not a shrewd negotiator.
This reminds me of the article a few weeks ago about how Cybertruck prices are crashing because people are no longer massively overpaying to be the first to own one. This Lucid was never worth $110k, even if someone was willing to pay that.
Check the window sticker, my Stiggy friend. Base model, but the original owner ordered the most expensive options. It was worth $110k on paper, I guess. Oof.
D’oh. I forgot options existed, apparently. I’m surprised those options added $22k to this vehicle, but that appears to be the case.
I suppose the buyer didn’t overpay, although the buyer did pay a massive early adopter tax.
What is this article talking about. This isn’t the 200k version it’s the 65k model.
Don’t mislead people. The pure is cheap.. cheap as it gets.
Look at the window sticker included in the auction. Base price for that model year was $88k. Tack on a handful of options and boom $110k. 🙂
Usually in order to get this kind of massive depreciation you have to buy something German or Italian, consumers now have more options on how to make large amounts of cash disappear quickly.
Which $100,000+ sedans don’t depreciate like lead balloons? I know most wont drop that fast, but maybe this is more about the MSRP being way too high to begin with?
Out of curiosity I looked up used BMW i7s. There is a 2023 xDrive 60 near me with 6k miles for $85k. When they first listed it in April, it was $99k. MSRP starts at $125k. The as-tested on Car and Driver was $160k. Clean CarFax. They are just dropping like rocks.
I just had a horrible thought. Maybe it was Guo Wengui’s. He’s the Chinese billionaire who had his buddy Steve Bannon on his yacht when he was arrested, and Guo himself was charged with fraud in the US last year. His chief-of-staff pleaded guilty last month, so he may need whatever cash he can get quickly (corruption allegations mean he can’t go back to China either.) This would mean it’s likely Bannon rode in the car for some of those 1,800 miles, and that residual stench is going to take A Lot of work and money to eradicate.
Time to flood the car with ozone for a day or two. Preferably with Bannon inside 😉 (jk)
Can’t be, as this was not a salvage title.
Guo Wengui. He makes the CCP look good.
I suspect this was more of a poor choice of venue for selling the car and a poor choice of no reserve auction. Perhaps the seller thought we were still in the market of two years ago and they would make a killing?
The article says it wasnt a no-reserve auction.
Ha, should’ve skimmed it. Poor choice of reserve then.
There’s no point to a high reserve unless you think the car may be going up in value.
This is someone who could afford to buy an expensive car without any real need for it as transportation (according to the odometer). Yes, they took a depreciation hit but I doubt they’re that worried about it.
So the original owner was obviously not Lucid when that “No Reserve” choice was made?
It wasn’t no reserve.
Apology extended on that. But I was being a bit sarcastic with the “No Reserve” remark. Actually more than a bit…
Is this the modern electric version of a classic Jaguar sedan? Beautiful, finicky, and affordable after 5 years to the unwashed masses
I haven’t heard many complaints towards the finicky side, but the rest seems on point.
I soooo want one of these Airs. I can be legit in saying I’m putting on airs. Sorry, bad attempt at trying British comedy. Sorry Adrian
Me too! I love these things!
I’m not sure where the information came from that the owner paid $110,000 for the car–the Pure is presently available brand new for the mid-to-high 70’s. Of course, freight and tax are costs that go into thin air on day two.
I once looked at an Olds Aurora that had depreciated $0.75 per mile, and this was 25 years ago. But the Aurora was a good car and this one is, too. Its selling price at auction was fair.
$110k does seem high for the Pure trim. I got mine in May for a sticker price of ~$70k, but it is has minimal options. That said, the depreciation concern is real (and so is my concern that Lucid will be around in the long term) so I went with a lease.
It’s an awesome car, though. Definitely the best riding and accelerating sedan I’ve driven. It’s terrific for long (30+ mile) twisty road commuting as well.
“It’s one hell of a buy”
Not sure about that, given the slumping popularity of evs and the tenuous position of Lucid in the marketplace. This could easily be a 25 grand car in two years. There’s an old maxim in the financial world “never try and catch a falling knife”.
It wouldn’t be all that unusual for a huge percentage of cars to lose about half their value in a surprisingly few years time. Just look at what all those off lease mid size and full size cars & SUVs from Audi, BMW, and Mercedes sell for. I mean, does this do it 12-18 months faster than an S Class? Probably, but for an EV, from a start up, with pretty unknown reliability, and I’d assume way less service availability; it honestly doesn’t sound that much worse all things considered. I’m certainly much more tempted by a used $58k Lucid than I am a $58k 7 Series or new $55k M3P.
Surely that only applies to other people, and I am the exception
For under $60k this is a no-brainer for anyone considering an i5 or Model S. For a performance EV, I still think the Ioniq 5N is still the best <$100k option
Now see David, if you hadn’t been so impetuous with your purchases since going California, you could be rocking Air!
Potential parts availability concerns be damned, I’d take one of these over any Mach E or Tesla any day. They’re just neat and one of the few current EVs that I actually like.
Wow. From the depreciation the seller was fine with to the short term of ownership and the low mileage, that’s nuts. With that loss of value, it makes more sense to keep it until it’s dead unless it’s a lemon the manufacturer somehow weaseled out of taking back or the owner need to liquidate assets in a hurry to GTF to a non-extradition country before the inevitable indictments come in. Yeah, there’s not caring about money much as you have plenty of it (in which case, just keep it or give it to family, friend, mistress, or even donate it to something other than Kars for Kids), but that’s like the financial decision making you hear about from those lottery winners who go broke. Unless they really hated the car, but I didn’t even hate a Kia Rio rental I had that much.
Tempting, but I’m afraid Lucid won’t be around in a few years.
I’d recommend leasing instead of purchase just to guard against the orphan brand possibility.
They have a better chance of that than Rivian, at least, what with the Saudis bankrolling everything. Lucid will have a bottomless bank account until they get impatient and cut off the funds.
I think their prospects come down to how well the Gravity is received. Even if it doesn’t make money, the Saudis are more likely to continue bankrolling if there’s a decent enough follow up product. I put Lucid somewhere below Rivian but notably above Fisker on the EV startup prospect rankings.
BTW – Please tell me that username is a Sturgill Simpson reference!
It is a Sturgill reference. Just got tickets for the DC and Hampton tour stops!
I can’t imagine any enthusiast wanting a Lucid. They’re great at being a fancier version of a Tesla, but it’s still an iPhone with wheels.
Guess I’m not an enthusiast ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why are we even here? This can’t be the site for us.
I will not rest until they bring back KNOBS and BUTTONS and NEEDLES and the 90’s GM CROTCH VENT! (the crotch vent def should make a comeback though for real).
Of all the places that really need ventilation, crotch is a close second to lungs and/or gills.
My ’92 Mitsubishi Galant had one. Great on a really warm day. Nowadays tho I’ll take a ventilated seat over the crotch vent.
You tell ’em Angrycat Meowmeow!
My 2015 Land Rover LR4 has the crotch vent, interestingly enough. So have several Lexus models in the past.
I want one.
The only requirement to be an automobile enthusiast is that you be enthusiastic about some kind of automobile(s). Last time I checked, Lucid still makes automobiles, ergo an enthusiast could want a Lucid.
But, hey… No True Scotsman. Amiritre?
So the Air failed to inflate, but instead deflated? Makes sense.
The Air’s value exhaled deeply.
I’ve been waiting for that comment.