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Lucid Gravity Touring: specs revealed

Vette2Lucid

Vette2Lucid

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If you were lucky enough to read Motor Trend's article on the Lucid Gravity yesterday:
www.motortrend.com

The Fresh Lucid Gravity Is Fast, Luxurious, and Annoyingly Flawed

Lucid’s new three-row electric SUV impresses with design and dynamics, yet tech bugs and usability quirks show the brand has more to learn.
www.motortrend.com www.motortrend.com
You got actual power, torque, battery capacity, and EPA range and efficiency figures for not just the Grand Touring, but the Touring as well! They've since taken those out for the Touring but they're still sharing the weight, 0-60, quarter mile, figure-eight, and the MT road trip range and fast charging test figures.
 
That Touring they tested was super base spec, but it's 600lbs lighter than the GT. I can't imagine how much better it will ride and drive dynamically with that much less weight....The battery is smaller than I was expecting tho...even smaller than the Air Touring probably to keep the base price in check.
 
illopp00 said:
That Touring they tested was super base spec, but it's 600lbs lighter than the GT. I can't imagine how much better it will ride and drive dynamically with that much less weight....The battery is smaller than I was expecting tho...even smaller than the Air Touring probably to keep the base price in check.
Click to expand...

Some of the Gravity's handling prowess comes from its low center of gravity. Removing 500 pounds from the underbody will raise the center of gravity of the Touring. This might offset some or all of the handling advantages of the lighter weight. It would require seeing an engineering analysis for us to know to what extent.

(I don't know if all the weight loss is due to 6 fewer battery modules. I wonder if some of the horsepower loss results from using the Grand Touring's smaller front motor at both ends of the Touring?)

I was surprised to see that all the differences between the two trims are in the powertrain. Outside of that, you can option a Touring exactly as you can a Grand Touring, from the wheels and suspension right up to the roof or canopy and everything in between.
 
hmp10 said:
Some of the Gravity's handling prowess comes from its low center of gravity. Removing 500 pounds from the underbody will raise the center of gravity of the Touring. This might offset some or all of the handling advantages of the lighter weight. It would require seeing an engineering analysis for us to know to what extent.

(I don't know if all the weight loss is due to 6 fewer battery modules. I wonder if some of the horsepower loss results from using the Grand Touring's smaller front motor at both ends of the Touring?)

I was surprised to see that all the differences between the two trims are in the powertrain. Outside of that, you can option a Touring exactly as you can a Grand Touring, from the wheels and suspension right up to the roof or canopy and everything in between.
Click to expand...
Handling-wise, I think the weight savings will provide far better benefits, especially since the Gravity is already relatively lower to the ground compared to its competition
 
Need4Sleep said:
Handling-wise, I think the weight savings will provide far better benefits, especially since the Gravity is already relatively lower to the ground compared to its competition
Click to expand...

Yes, the Gravity is lower to the ground than its competition. But it's not the height of the vehicle in and of itself that matters, it's the center of gravity. The question here is comparing a Touring to a Grand Touring, and the center of gravity of the Touring will be higher than in a Grand Touring. Removing 8% of the weight from that low in a vehicle means a considerable shift in center of gravity.

For example, Audi viewed center of gravity as so important for handling that it used an elaborate dry sump oil system in the R8 in order to dispense with an oil pan to get the engine just a few inches lower in the chassis -- and that engine constituted only about 12% of the vehicle's weight.

I traded an Audi R8 V10 for our first Tesla. The Audi was about 850 pounds lighter than the Tesla, but the Tesla had an extraordinarily low center of gravity (18" above the ground). I was shocked at how close the Tesla came -- despite its much skinnier tires -- to matching the Audi on very familiar curves.
 
socktucker said:
I wonder if they will ever roll out something like a Gravity Pure that's just RWD and maybe high 60's?
Click to expand...

Me, too. But given that there are no changes in features and options other than in the powertrains between the Touring and the Grand Touring, it looks as if Lucid was really trying to control manufacturing complexity and costs by keeping as much commonality as possible between the two trims.

Taking the Gravity down to one motor would mean significant re-engineering of the chassis and suspension. Remember that the single-motor Air Pure didn't come out until almost a year after the dual-motor Pure. Lucid explained that it relied on learnings from the chassis and suspension engineering of the Sapphire -- which had its own strong rear power bias and which came out a bit before the Pure single-motor -- to introduce the Pure single-motor.

If there is going to be a Gravity Sapphire (and there has been some recent waffling at Lucid about that prospect), a single-motor Gravity Pure might have to wait for that, if they do it at all.

Also, a single-motor Gravity would pretty much put any off-roading pretensions to bed (which is probably not that big a deal, anyway, for most buyers).
 
A lot of the German competition I still believe offer a RWD version of their EV SUVs (i think BMW, MB and Porsche), since none of them pretend to be off-road focused, mostly about on-road luxury and performance. They will probably make Sapphire Tri-motor just because the Cayenne has 1100 HP now....

I also don't think all that weight different is just battery, that was a totally base Touring with no options. Here are all the extra weight of options too - massage seats, trays, 3rd row, RWS actuators, extra Speakers, extra sensors and processing modules, heated rear seats etc etc...

This leads me to believe the only way you get 450 miles EPA with a Gravity GT is with the small wheels AND 0 options.
 
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