Our writer Andy Reid is driving a Lucid Air for his time in Arizona for auction week, you can follow the first part of his journey here.
I met my Lucid Air in the parking lot in the morning to discover it covered with frost. After getting in the car and starting the front and rear defroster I discovered one of the hidden benefits of electric cars. The heater generates heat immediately, as there is no engine needed to warm and provide air for the heating system. This was good as the car let me know that at 7:15 AM the temperature outside was a balmy 33 degrees, something I had never seen in 23 years of attending Arizona auction week. I drove over to the Barrett-Jackson parking lot and went in to plan for my 10AM auction tour.
I did something a bit different this year in that I added two stops to the tour for new car displays. The reason for this is because Lucid has a full display set up at the auction, and most people have yet to see one of these great cars. The other stop was next door at the BMW display where they have the incredible new BMW 7 Series to view.
I had Dave Buchko from Lucid show people the car and answer questions about it. Then we moved over to BMW where one of their product specialists did the same.
After that we discussed some of the amazing cars being offered by the auction including a 1966 Shelby GT350R notchback.
After the tour ended, I got into the Air, engaged the seat massage function and drove over to the Westin Kierland to take a look at a few cars at Bonhams that I am planning to bid on. I took drives in both and then ran into my friend Mark from Bonhams. I told him about and gave him a tour of the Lucid Air. He was quite impressed and spent a lot of time looking at the amazing attention to detail and materials in the Air.
My Lucid was down to 35% power so I decided to give it some food in the form of electricity. This was the very first time I had used a charging station. It was interesting yet straightforward. I drove up to the charge station, plugged the car in, and after around 25 minutes it was up to 80% charge, so I then headed out to dinner.
Wednesday I will be giving my tours at Bonhams and RM Sotheby’s followed by a car guy dinner with my friend Clint Sly.
I love the car and I am still absolutely thrilled by its performance and comfort.
You could have had dinner instead of standing on one foot and the other while it was charging … or frozen you buns off in the lovely 33 degree morning air first. This is loonacy. And you think this is great?
It may be a great car but there are a lot of Chinese components in it. Like rare Earth metals! The Chinese profit greatly from each of these EV cars. For that reason I would not touch one.