- Joined
- Jun 28, 2022
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- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Cars
- AirT,i4e50,R8,NSX,718GT4
Valley Fair, San Jose
10/24/25
Process:
Route:
General Impressions:
Extra #1:
Extra #2:
Recommendations:
10/24/25
Process:
I was the first drive of the day, so after signing in and DL check in the showroom, they took me down to the underground parking where the lucid rep (Anthony) drove the vehicle out of the garage and up to the street where he pulled over to let me drive. Every other test drive of the day will be different - you will meet the car coming back from previous test drive out on the street... last guy/girl gets out, frunk gets popped so they can hand you the gift bag from the supply they keep up there, then new driver waiting there at the curb can jump in. The rep who was with you on your drive stays and takes next person, the rep who escorted last person out to curb now escorts you back to showroom where you can then spend more time exploring the showroom car, including playing with the full UI, checking out seat folding, storage things, whatever you want.
All drives are scheduled for 20 minutes and a roughly-planned-out (but not strict) route that includes highway and city streets. Mine was the first of the day, and I was there early and they were ready early, so we left at 9:50am (10am reservation) and I got 30 minutes instead of the strict 20 minute drives after mine. They were VERY insistent we must be back at 10:20am for the next driver lest the whole day start getting backed up.
Route:
For those that know the area, we left Valley Fair on Stevens Creek towards Winchester, left on Winchester, right onto Hwy 280N. Then only allowed travel on 280 for one exit to Saratoga Ave., turn right, right again on Stevens Creek, back to Winchester, left on Winchester, and then to back area of mall to the disused bus stop area that Lucid now has marked off for the test drive day, where switchover to next driver/family takes place.
General Impressions:
I don't think I'll give any insight that hasn't been better described by some of the great youtube reviews and industry reviewers, but I wanted specifically to compare it to how my Air Touring drove, and I'd say overall driving feel and comfort, road holding, etc., it does feel AT LEAST as good in almost every way to the Air. Very taught, nicely dampened road feel but still feels connected via wheel and butt to the road.
The only case I can find where it may give up a little bit of dynamics to the Air is a silly case you'd likely never encounter in normal driving... a back-and-forth twisting of the wheel to deliberately kinda bounce the vehicle left and right... like if you were trying to make your passengers sick or spill their drink on their lap. Unless you're autocrossing or doing some slalom type course, you'd not really do this in any case I can think of. BUT I could feel the Gravity being a little taller with a little more sway left-and-right when doing this. Not sure if it's how the suspension is designed, if it is due to the 4WS/DHP, or just due to higher center of gravity, but it sways a little more if you really attempt to get it to sway. Didn't concern me at all, just an observation.
In normal high-speed turns, (hwy entrance ramps, normal turns, lane changes...) it felt as good or better than my Air. Then again, this car had the big wheels and my air has the 19" range wheels, so the larger wheels, lower aspect ratio rubber, specific tire compound difference, etc. probably should make the gravity feel tighter, and I think in most cases, those things probably offset the higher CoG in the gravity to give it slightly better handling feel. If you're coming from a GT with larger wheels or an AirDE-P, then you might find the Gravity as good, or maybe just slightly not quite as good, but I can't speak to that. But I walked away super impressed with the handling on the Gravity.
Extra #1:
Since I had about 10 extra minutes, I went into the big parking area near Saratoga & Stevens Creek to try turning radius checks and some auto-park testing. The former went great... very surprising how tight you can turn it around... did several 360 loops... definitely felt tighter than my Air touring, clearly due to the Dynamic Handling (4WS) option. The latter (auto-park tests, both parallel and perpendicular tests between parked cars nearby and on nearby streets) didn't go well... or I should say it worked every bit as good as it does on the Air. I tried it 5 times, on what seemed to be perfect/easy test cases, plenty of room, both parallel and perpendicular, and we enabled parking search mode, drove SUPER slowly past the perfect test spots, went quite a bit past the spot waiting for the chime and indication it found the spot... and... nothing. The Lucid guy (also an Air owner) was sure he could make it work, but he couldn't either. We suspect software improvements to come will fix it?
Extra #2:
We still had a few minutes, so he let me try launch mode at a stoplight since there was almost no one around on the streets behind the mall. Got a full 0-65 sprint with launch mode and it was great. For me, used to Air Touring launch mode, I think I expected it to feel like it pulled even stronger than my car due to much more horsepower, but offset by greater weight and slightly higher center of gravity, and if it is faster it didn't feel like it was by very much. For ICE drivers and maybe Air Pure drivers, it will feel breathtaking, but if you're used to Tesla 3-Performance/S-Plaid or Air T/GT/DE, you won't be blown away, but for a full size "SUV", it's damn impressive.
Recommendations:
- Plan for, or hope for, little highway traffic at. your drive time if you can. There was very little traffic this time of the day in this area, so we were very lucky. If you can plan your time to avoid rush hour, obviously try to do that. If 280 had had a lot of traffic, it would have been a bummer of test drive. We were lucky... no one behind me on entrance ramps and fast-moving light traffic on highway, so i literally stopped right at start of very long entrance ramp to let traffic ahead merge on, then did full blast acceleration onto highway, merging in at 70mph.
- get there early for your test drive, and if possible, get to the waiting area early. So if you can get in the car ahead of your appointment if last guy returns a little early, you will get more time which you should take on some sidestreets or parking lots to get a feel for turning radius, parking ease, etc. Ask to use the full time you can get... but know they focus on return time for the next person at the :00, :20, :40 after hour rather than the length of your drive. Leave early = longer drive if you ask for it.
- Don't spend ANY of your test drive time exploring the screens or UI, the frunk, folding rear sets (unless you have passengers with you), etc. Do the very basics (seats and mirrors) and then get going and really explore the driving. Any time you spend trying out immersive spa mode or whatever, or trying Tidal sound, or exploring rear seat access or frunk storage, or Carplay, or whatever, you will not get back for your driving time. If your setup is like the San Jose setup, you can do all this back in the showroom where they have a production Gravity there that is fully explorable... try all those things with no time limit in the showroom. The mall and the Lucid showroom were nearly empty midweek morning like my time, so there was no time pressure and I spent probably 30-40 minutes in the showroom car checking out all the menus and interface stuff, really exploring seat movement, storage, etc.
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