As a Touring owner that's spent close to 20k miles road-tripping across the western U.S. I figured I'd throw in my $0.02. For the record, these are my own opinions, and many of my points have already been addressed by others. TL;DR - I think the Touring is an "acceptable" road-tripping EV, but the charging performance really pushes it into mediocre territory in terms of total time spent travelling, and it falls short of all the other 800V architecture vehicles, and even behind many 400V vehicles as well.
I consider the Touring an acceptable road-tripping EV, at best, but that of course depends on what you consider acceptable or not. Obviously, owners that are equipped with the 19" wheels and that travel at or below the speed limit will have much better range and efficiency results than those that have the 20" or 21" wheels and travel 10+mph over the speed limit (myself falling into the latter category). However, all trims and configurations of this car are at the mercy of the same variables and conditions, and most road trips won't have the perfect combination to achieve maximum/EPA rated range. This goes for all EV's, of course, but the Lucid Air seems particularly susceptible to less-than-ideal conditions than some of it's competitors, in my opinion.
Before I continue, I just want to mention that these opinions don't mean I don't enjoy driving or road-tripping my Lucid. There's a reason I've put so many miles on my car in less than 2 years of ownership, and my complaints are mainly focused around charging, which is, of course, often outside of my or the car's control. I really love the style and pacing of EV road-tripping, as it encourages you to stop more often and stretch your legs. I definitely arrive at my destinations feeling better and more refreshed than I did before driving this car.
The thing that holds this car most, in my opinion, is the weak charging performance and mediocre charging curve. I know that charging is a contentious topic, and I know there are probably relatively few owners here that care about it much, but I know I'm certainly not alone in my stance, either. I certainly agree that charging for a lot of owners only really matters in a very small set of circumstances, but as someone who road-trips often, I frequently find myself disappointed with the charging performance of this vehicle. To be fair, U.S. charging infrastructure still has a long ways to go to support these high voltage and fast charging vehicles, and broken and malfunctions are still common, but from my own experiences things have been improving, albeit it slowly.
For me, part of the reason I decided to purchase the Lucid was because I believed at the time it was the most capable road-tripping vehicle available due to it's fast charging and impressive range and efficiency. I thought these characteristics would carry over from the Dream and GT to the Touring, but I've found myself disappointed at how much weaker the charging performance is. I certainly understand why these trims don't have the same peak charging speeds or curve, but I feel like there's more to it than just the smaller total capacity and voltage due to having fewer cells. I'm suspicious that the LG cells in my battery pack are really underperforming compared to the other suppliers, but that's just my suspicion.
Typically when I'm road tripping I try to limit charging to 50-60% SoC due to the nature of the charging curve. Under ideal conditions, my car will peak at around 240kW and will be at or under 100kW after 50%. It takes 35-40 minutes to go from single digit SoC up to 80%. Personally, I prefer my charging stops to last 20 minutes at most, but it's often necessary to extend that to around 30 minutes so that I can reach 60-70% SoC and be able to travel a reasonable distance at higher speeds. Certainly not the end of the world, but I'm often ready to get back on the road 10-15 minutes sooner than the car is. If my car was capable of charging from 10-80% in 20-30 minutes as some of its competition does instead of 30-40 I'd be much happier.
I apologize for the rant, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on this subject, as the road-tripping capability of my car is what I've been most disappointed with. All the best!
