Inside EV ride along

[hmp10]

Many cars use their air suspensions to lower ride height at speed, as it lowers aerodynamic drag. If the Lucid ride height can't be adjusted, they probably had to set the static ride height this low to attain the Cd number they did.

This issue first caught my attention with a comment that Derek Jenkins made in a video ride-along about the close-to-the-ground stance of the car.

Several recent interviews and videos from Lucid have teased that other announcements about the car's cutting-edge features are coming. I've been hoping that Lucid would announce some novel way to control ride height with a coil spring suspension, but Jenkins' comment threw a bit of cold water on that hope.

 

[Lucken]

This could present a real issue. Unless the ride is extremely firm, which I seriously doubt, the car may frequently bottom out at the front with everyday ‘obstacles’. My driveway presents no issues for my e-Tron Sportback with its adjustable air suspension, but I don’t want to constantly scrape the front end going in & out. Sooner or later that will lead to damage.

 

[hmp10]

I was discussing this with my brother as we were looking over photos I took in the Miami Design Studio. That car was sitting just as low as the white one in the photo I posted. We both decided that Lucid must have something up its sleeve for raising the ride height, as neither car would make it over some of the speed bumps we routinely encounter if it remained that low to the ground.

 

[Alex]

I had a Lamborghini Diablo VT. It's ground clearance was 5.5" The Lucid looks about the same or a bit lower than that. I had no problems with speed bumps in my neighborhood, although one Ferrari driver called me to join him in a battle with the HOA because his car would scrape when going over the bumps. The Diablo had a firmness setting on the shocks, which helped prevent any bounce when going over the bumps. The HOA changed to speed "humps" (longer bumps that go up slower), which appeased the Ferrari driver.

That said, I would always be cautions about taking the Diablo out and would back into many steeply sloped entrances. I hope I don't have to repeat that with the Lucid Air: I will be driving a luxury car, not a finicky supercar.

 

[Lucken]

Continuing the discussion regarding the low ground clearance, I was thinking today about driving in snow. I know, you guys down south don’t worry about such things, but for us mere mortals in the northeast it’s a reality.

We had a car years ago, I believe it was the Acura Legend, but I could be wrong. What ever it was, it had very low ground clearance and when the snow depth was greater than a few inches, we were terrified to take it out. I well remember having the car somehow literally suspended with all 4 wheels off the ground sitting on a bank of snow. That’s not an easy task to accomplish.

In looking at the Lucid, I’m concerned about a repeat of this issue. I’m having trouble envisioning how the Lucid navigates in snow over a few inches in depth.

Perhaps this is needless worry, perhaps not.

 

[hmp10]

I lived in Connecticut when I owned a Corvette and in Chicago when I bought my first Audi R8, both cars with very low ground clearance. I drove both cars year-round by putting full snow tires on them as opposed to the all-seasons most people used. I used the Corvette to commute 24 miles to work on mostly semi-rural roads. The Audi was used more for city commuting where the roads were quickly cleared of snow.

There wasn't much of a selection of snow tires that would fit the stock wheels, so I bought smaller diameter winter wheels. Sometimes the cars would become snow plows if I got on a road before the snow plows did, but I never got stranded. The Audi, with its 4-wheel drive, left me with fewer white knuckles, though, than the rear-wheel drive Corvette.

My guess is that, unless you live in a very hilly region, you could use an all-wheel-drive Lucid year-round if you mounted the 19-inch wheels shod with true snow tires for the winter. One of the advantages of EVs is that their traction control systems can cycle much more precisely than ICE car systems, so you might find the traction in snow surprisingly good. The way my Tesla can sprint from a stoplight in heavy rain still astonishes me after six years.