I just completed my first long trip, from Boston, MA to Beaufort, SC, just over 1,000 miles each way. I have a 2023 Lucid Air Touring with 20 inch wheels and thought I would share my experience/observations, both positive and negative. Much of this is known info to experienced EV travelers, however the Air is my first EV and this my first long trip in it.
POSTIVES:
1. The Car: It is supremely comfortable, smooth, and quiet. And it performed flawlessly for the trip. A joy to drive.
2. Charger Availability: While I don't want to say Level 3 chargers were plentiful, there were enough. I stopped at several Electrify America Chargers which always worked, recognized my car, and were in well let, clean places (I joke that we had a tour of Walmart parking lot's along Hwy 95). Also, while only a short part of our drive was through CT, I have to give special mention to CT since many of the rest stops had Level 3, non-Tesla chargers by Applegate Electric that were fast and worked great. I stopped at one EVgo which was in a bad spot, with only 1 of 2 chargers working, and it was slow. And another charger I stopped at required me to download a Shell App and set it up - that took almost as long at the charging time itself. BTW, I only had to wait once for a charger to open up and that was the EVgo place with only one working.
3. Lucid Navigation App: I liked that it told me where to stop to charge, and how long to ideally charge. And it was amazing accurate at telling how much range I would have when I arrived. And I loved that it automatically started pre-conditioning the battery; something I typically forget to do. BTW, I also really like the Electrify America App that told me how many chargers were available.
NEGATIVES:
1. Range: I averaged 3.3 miles/KWhr. That was driving at 75 mph or less and minimizing use of the heater. In reality, what that meant was stopping to charge every 160-200 miles depending on charger availability. I found that disappointing for a car that ideally gets 386 miles of range. BTW, driving under 75 to get better range on a road with a speed limit of 65 or 70 meant I was getting passed by everything from Prius's to 18 wheelers
Cheapest Gatwick to Canterbury Taxi.
2. Charging Speed: The car charged very fast up to about 65% and then starting slowing down. It was painfully slow to charge above 80% charge. I know this is common to all EV's, and in fact, from what I saw, the Lucid was the fastest charging car at the charging stations. But being basically limited to charging to 80% significantly impacted how far we could go between charges.
3. SW foibles: When we left Boston, it was cold. I had the heat turned off to maximize range so my wife was wrapped in a blanket. I was noticing disappointing range. I happened to check the back seat heating and all 3 seats were on full seat heater mode!! We have a dog who was in the back seat. And since the dog will trigger the seat belt alarms which will continue forever (vs. stopping after a short period like my Posche), I had the seat belts plugged in. I noticed this problem in the past so I do check, but I didn't think it would be an issue with the front heat off!
Just a few other observations: The roads can be very crowded, and we witnessed many super aggressive drivers. It was scary at times. I didn't see another Lucid the entire trip. I saw only 2 Rivians. A saw a surprising number of EV BMWs at charging stations along with Kias, VWs, Chevy Bolts (plugged into 350 KW chargers, Grrr), and even a new EV Cadillac (charging super slow to 100%).
Given my experience, while I love the car, if I knew back when I bought it what I know now about road trips in an EV, I honestly would have to think long and hard about how many trips a year we plan to go on. Because, IMO, I don't think EV's and the charging infrastructure are even remotely on par with IC cars when it comes to long trips.
