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Air conditioning impact on range

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hjelmn

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Cars
Model 3/X, Gravity GT
Posting this to see what other people are seeing. I have a 2026 Lucid Gravity GT, 3 row, loaded that I took delivery of in December 2025. It has been mostly flawless since the updates in UX 3.5 (there are still minor annoyances) but I noticed that it no longer gets above 2.5 miles/kWh. It got closer to 3 in the spring which isn't great but is better. I started digging with help from the energy screen and noticed that the climate control was responsible for ~ 25% of the energy usage in my most recent drive. I am currently running experiments to see if this is indeed the cause of the lost efficiency and I am convinced it is 100% responsible.

Examples with the same round trip: 8 miles in city with speed varying from 25mph to 55mph. AC set to 68 in all cases. Similar traffic and speeds.

- Outside temperature: 90F, sunny. AC on. Efficiency: 2.5 miles/kWh with climate control responsible for ~ 2.5 miles of range usage vs actual driving of 8 miles or 31% of the energy usage.
- Outside temperature: 75F, cloudy. AC on. Efficiency: 2.9 miles/kWh with climate control responsible for ~ 1.0 miles of range vs actual driving of 8 miles or 12.5% of the energy usage.
- Outside temperature: 70F, sunny. AC off. Efficiency: 3.6 miles/kWh with climate control responsible for ~ 0.1 miles of range vs actual driving of 8 miles or 1.25% of the energy usage. This is pretty close to rated.

This is by no means conclusive as I need to collect more data but it looks like I see a loss of efficiency anywhere from 12 to 31% from just the AC. This seems high to me, especially when it is 75F out and the AC doesn't really have to work hard. I need to do this round trip more and collect more data. Do others see this kind of efficiency loss from running the climate control?
 
Was the car outside in the heat before you got in? For shorter trips AC will have an outsized impact as it works to cool down the car.
 
The_Don said:
Was the car outside in the heat before you got in? For shorter trips AC will have an outsized impact as it works to cool down the car.
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Preconditioned to 68F and plugged in. Trying to get the data as close as possible.
 
hjelmn said:
This seems high to me, especially when it is 75F out and the AC doesn't really have to work hard
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Have you tried driving any sort of distance with the windows closed and the AC off? I think the system is doing more work than you might think.
 
knewman said:
Have you tried driving any sort of distance with the windows closed and the AC off? I think the system is doing more work than you might think.
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Not yet. Starting small with a known path that is driven twice a day and will move to longer routes to see that. Comfort for the short round trip at 75F was fine.
 
I have never seen above 12% and that is during hotter weather with AC on all 3 rows set to 72. 25% is very high unless its a trip where the car was heat soaked and trying to cool down over 3 miles....
 
Honestly, I only care if it's a road trip where range matters. For short drives close to home, I'm just plugging in at home on cheap residential rates. So I'm fine burning whatever juice to make the car comfortable.

Much bigger deal on a long road trip with charging stops. But once the car is cooled down, maintaining it doesn't take nearly as much. It's the first 10 minutes that it can use a lot.
 
I have noticed the same pattern: at 75 to 80 degrees, my Air GT achieves 4.2 to 4.8, but at 95 to 98 degrees, it drops to 2.3 to 2.8. I believe the air conditioning is not the sole factor; most power likely goes toward cooling the battery pack. You might try parking in a covered or basement garage, setting your preferred temperature before starting, and waiting for the cabin to cool and the battery pack to reach idle temperature. Checking the mph afterward should reveal a notable difference, even when the outside temperature is high.
 
Don't forget that as the temperature rises it's not only the AC but the BMS is keeping the battery cool too. Here in AZ it's been 110+ for a long while the temps certainly effects the efficiency and range. We just recently finished a road trip to OC, CA in our GGT and I averaged 2.5 or so driving through the 115-117 degree desert with a full load and a portable fridge plugged in. Can't wait till the fall! :cool:
 
hjelmn said:
- Outside temperature: 90F, sunny. AC on. Efficiency: 2.5 miles/kWh with climate control responsible for ~ 2.5 miles of range usage vs actual driving of 8 miles or 31% of the energy usage.
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You can make the AC efficiency number look as bad or as good as you want, with shorter distances making it artificially look bad. You can sit parked, with the AC running, and the efficiency would be 0.0 miles/kWh with AC taking 100% of energy usage.

Let’s take your worse stat of 2.5 miles/kWh with AC using 2.5 miles of range. This translates to your AC using 1 kWh. Since the Gravity has a usable pack size of roughly 117 kWh, this means you can sit in your car, parked, for nearly 5 days with the AC running.

Basically, AC energy usage is negligible compared to energy used for driving.
 
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