Lucid has spent years working on its second EV — a plush van-like SUV designed to be the category killer that could take market share from the likes of other luxury EV and internal combustion people haulers like the Rivian R1S, Cadillac Escalade IQ, BMW X7, and Audi Q8.
The Saudi-backed company’s aim was to create an SUV without compromise — a lofty goal other automakers have tried and failed at before. After a first drive in the EV, which has a starting price of $96,550, it’s clear the company did more than just focus on luxurious touches. Although there are plenty.
The Lucid Gravity may just be over-engineering at its best. The EV is loaded with tech and upgrades from its predecessor, the Lucid Air sedan. Peter Rawlinson, the former Lucid CEO and CTO, who stepped aside in February, may no longer be at the company, but his engineering fingerprints are all over the new Lucid Gravity.
And while customers may never see the tech under the proverbial hood, they will experience it.
The Lucid Gravity has up to 450 miles of EPA-rated range, a zero to 60 mph time under 3.5 seconds, and charging times that are unheard of for current EVs. The Gravity can charge up to 200 miles in just 11 minutes on DC fast charging, according to the company, thanks to a new boost mode that leverages the rear motor as a transformer to boost charging.
All of this luxury, tech, and spaciousness do come with a price. The vehicle’s price tag ranges between 96,550 for the two-row Grand Touring trim to $99,450 for the three-row version. A “cheaper” $81,550 Touring model is expected to arrive later this year.
Lucid Gravity’s tech guts
Engineers working on Gravity took what they learned from Lucid Air Sapphire and the Lucid Air, to create the company’s new Gen 2 system that underpins the SUV. That includes a new battery developed in partnership with Panasonic (which Lucid says offers a 40% charging speed improvement over the competitive set) , a new drive unit, a new thermal system, and a new charging system.
Specifically, engineers created a system that allows the Lucid Gravity to charge at 225 kW on 500-volt architecture (which underpins Tesla’s V3 chargers) chargers and at up to 400 kW on 1000-volt chargers (which underpins Tesla’s new V4 chargers that are due to roll out this year).
To do this, engineers used the Gravity’s motor and inverter as a transformer to boost 500-volt charging to the battery’s required voltage without adding extra hardware. They also implemented plug-and-charge for the system so that owners don’t have to fuss with payment and charge initiation at certain chargers.
EV charging innovation
The changes are part of Tesla’s North American Charging standard that came out last year. The announcement of the standard came at a time when the development of the Gravity was nearly complete.
The updated standard required a significant rethinking of the underpinnings of the Gravity when it was roughly 70% developed in late 2022 and early 2023, according to Emad Delala, the senior vice president of powertrain at Lucid.
“When I joined in 2015, 400-volt was state of the art,” Delala said. “Quickly, we realized that we needed to take it to the next level,” he continued, “So we developed a new technology that enabled charging through a legacy 500-volt charging architecture through a future 1000-volt charging architecture. What we learned from Air in 2021 has been completely changed.”
The team behind Gravity also made a number of hardware changes to add in redundancy, support its infotainment system, and to allow the company to eventually add more automated driving features to its advanced driver assistance system.
The company is using NVIDIA’s Orin-X processors for AI perception and video processing for its advanced driver assistance system, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8295 for infotainment, and Infineon TC397 for vehicle dynamics and body control.
Today, the Gravity offers what is known as Level 2 automated driving, a system that automates some of the driving, but still requires the driver to pay attention. Lucid is aiming to eventually offer Level 3, or L3, which typically offers hands-off, eyes-off driving on the highways in certain conditions.
Its upcoming Dream Drive 2 Pro, an upgrade to its ASAS is coming soon, according to the company, and will offer features like visualization of up to five lanes of traffic, curve speed control, lane change assistance, curb rash alert, and automated parking.
Lucid Gravity: cargo and passenger space
The Gravity was designed to be spacious for occupants and their cargo. And engineers and designers achieved that goal. The interior is cavernous inside with a whopping 120 cubic feet of interior space, which Lucid says is 40% more than the closest competitor.
It turns out an effort to avoid fuses helped them get there.
The company wanted to find a way to not use fuses since they need to be regularly accessed and replaced when they blow, and they tend to take up precious interior space that could be used for cargo and passengers, according to Jean-Phillipe Gauthier, the head of software engineering at Lucid.
Instead, Lucid decided to use diffusers in the Gravity, which are essentially electronic switches. These diffusers reset automatically when the car is cycled off, respond faster to shorts in the system, eliminate the potential error of installing a fuse with the wrong amperage during replacement and allow the fuse box to be buried deeper inside the vehicle instead of encroaching on interior space. Diffusers also can power down unneeded systems and reduce parasitic losses in the vehicle.
To prove the Gravity was roomier than its competitors, the EV maker lined up a Cadillac Escalade IQ, Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, Rivian R1S and BMW X7 on hand at the event in Los Olivios, California. Reporters were challenged to take boxes that filled the Gravity (including its spacious frunk) and stack them into the EQS SUV.
It was an impossible task and with no other close competitor on hand. One fellow journalist who happens to be 6-foot, 6-inches was able to lie down in the rear of the Gravity comfortably and close the rear hatch without any issues.
Lucid Gravity on the road
The Gravity is big and measures a whopping 198.2 inches in length and 87.2 inches wide. That puts the EV SUV slightly below the Chevrolet Suburban in size. Still, the vehicle is massive, which helps boost the interior space.
Typically, full-size SUVs with that kind of footprint tend to be boomy inside and giant rollie-pollies on the road, making them uncomfortable to hustle, especially on winding roads.
Not so with the Lucid Gravity.
I drove the Gravity from Nipomo, California on the Central Coast along Cuyama Highway and Tepusquet Road, a steep, one-lane, sharply winding road, to Los Olivos for my test drive and it was surprisingly enjoyable and, dare I say, fun to drive.
The Gravity is heavy (6,000-plus pounds in the three-row option I drove). I did feel some of that weight on the road. However, once I placed the vehicle in its comfort setting known as “Smooth,” it handled highway cruising and wide sweepers with ease.
I toggled it up to Swift for Tepusquet Road, and the adaptive dampers and air springs ate up the rough undulations and curves without unsettling the vehicle, or getting nauseatingly rolly at any point. It was so smooth on that winding road in the Swift setting that my passenger fell asleep.
The Gravity gets rear wheel steering when outfitted with the Dynamic Package (which adds around $,2900 to the base price), which gives you an additional 3-degrees of rear wheel steering — both in phase and out of phase depending on how quickly (or slowly) you’re moving.
That rear wheel steer increases the agility of the vehicle and take up less of the road as it drives on single-lane mountain roads and even dirt track, which I did try out at a local ranch where Lucid set up a rally cross experience for us.
Even when pushed (and sliding) through the dirt, the Gravity stayed remarkably flat and comfortable. And yes, you can do some very light off-roading with the Gravity as it gets 7-inches of ground clearance that can go up to 9-plus inches of clearance when raised.
One of the surprising things that I liked the most about Gravity was the so-called “squircal” steering wheel. Having driven other vehicles with (dumb) yokes, the squared-off circle wheel makes the Gravity feel even more agile and responsive, and the electrically-assisted rack and pinion steering is adjusted to be absolutely spot on: where you point the wheel, the vehicle goes without any mushiness.
Lucid also tuned one pedal drive to be so intuitive that I didn’t have to touch the brake once on the winding roads around Los Olivos.
All in, it’s clear that after more than four years in development, the seven-passenger all-electric SUV delivers remarkable range and efficiency, agility, and functionality for a wealthy buyer looking for an “American-made” vehicle that isn’t a Tesla.
Add comment