2023 Lucid Air Touring First Test: Less Spendy But Is It Still Superb?

The Lucid Air electric luxury sedan, if you haven't heard us say it enough, is an exceptional car. Of course, for well over $100,000, it better be. To date, most of the Airs we've driven have actually been closer to $200,000 than $100,000, as production started with the spendiest versions. But now that the company is turning out less expensive, lower-trim Airs like the 2023 Touring, the pricier models may be a bit harder to justify.

That's because the Air Touring is superb. So much so that you really need to think about whether you need massaging seats and even more horsepower and even more range before you spend tens of thousands of dollars more on a Grand Touring.

The major differences between the Touring and Grand Touring are in cost, range, and output. The Touring starts at $109,050, the Grand Touring at $139,650 (or $180,650 if you want the Grand Touring Performance). The Touring goes up to 425 miles on a charge, while Grand Tourings go as far as 516 miles. The Touring delivers a combined 620 horsepower and 885 lb-ft of torque from its front and rear motors, the Grand Touring up to 1,050 hp and 921 lb-ft. So far, the price difference makes sense.

On the move at the test track, however, the deltas are subtler. The Touring may be down on power and torque, but it's also more than 200 pounds lighter than any other Air we've tested. Less mass to accelerate means the power can work more efficiently. As such, the 620-hp Touring hit 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, just 0.1 second slower than the 819-hp Grand Touring and only 0.4 second behind the 1,050-hp Grand Touring Performance. In regular driving, you'll never feel differences that small. The Touring is just as unbelievably quick, and it in no way feels like a lesser car. The gap widens a bit in the quarter-mile sprint, where peak horsepower comes into play, but compared to most cars, the Touring still pulls crazy hard if not quite as hard as the mind-bending Grands.

The Touring's lighter weight is also an asset to handling. All Airs use comparatively skinny tires to reduce both frontal area/drag and rolling resistance, improving range. With less mass to corral, the Touring's tires hold on that much tighter. We measured the best instrumented handling results of any Air, Grand Touring Performance included, with the midgrade Touring.

On the skidpad, the Touring held on to the tune of 0.95 average lateral g, notably better than the 0.91 the Grand Touring managed and considerably better than the Performance's 0.87. Similarly, the Touring 24.2-second figure-eight lap at a 0.83 g average was comfortably ahead of the Grand Touring's 24.6-second lap and the Performance's 24.8-second lap.

It's the same story with braking. The lightest Air, unsurprisingly, needs the least amount of space to stop from 60 mph. Here, it's a total blowout, with the Touring stopping in just 109 feet to the Grand's 115 and the Performance's 118.

Back out in the real world, you'll again struggle to notice the difference, and that's a big compliment. The Grand Touring Performance is the best-driving EV sport sedan on the market, and the Touring drives nearly as well. The lesser Touring feels just as quick on short straights, stops just as hard, holds on tenaciously in the corners, and comes out of turns just as fiercely. Until you get to the big, long, high-speed straights, you won't miss the Grand Touring or Performance's extra power.

The Touring's softer suspension is perhaps the thing you'll notice most. Where the Grand Touring and particularly the Performance are tied down like serious sport sedans, the Touring has a bit more body roll and a bit less jounce damping. You feel it especially over midcorner bumps, where the Touring is ever so slightly less composed, moving through more of its suspension travel. It offers performance, just slightly less of it—as if it's merely lacking an optional Sport package.

The Touring's charging system is rated for 700 volts, down from 900 on the Grands Touring. In practical terms, this means the Touring charges slightly slower, needing 15 minutes to add 200 miles of range compared to 12. Still, it remains among the quickest-charging EVs on the market, able to guzzle from a 350-kW fast charger, so it's not likely to make a meaningful difference day to day.

That's when you actually plug in. With up to 425 miles of range, it'll still go farther on a charge than any other electric car that isn't another Lucid. Even when the battery is half dead, you still have 200 miles of range. Unless you're getting ready to leave on a road trip, plugging in is something you can do once a week or less, whenever it's most convenient. Running out of battery with this car takes effort.

In the past, we've had issues with the software running the Air's various screens. It was, in a word, slow. Slow to boot up, slow to load apps, and slow to respond to inputs. Thanks to the modern magic that is over-the-air software updates, things have improved greatly.

Now, the Lucid's screens are generally up and ready by the time you're finished buckling your seat belt. It's a massive improvement over previous versions, where you'd be ready to go and just sitting there staring at the screen waiting for permission to put the car in drive. It still sometimes takes a few seconds to load the navigation system if you haven't used it in a while, but it's only slightly slower than other cars these days. The latency between when you touch a screen and when it responds, meanwhile, is dramatically reduced.

Lucid's driver assistance systems have also been updated. The eye-tracking camera that makes sure you're not looking at your phone is less sensitive, but it still throws too many false alarms, enough to make us turn it off entirely. The biggest issue seems to be when you're looking out the passenger's side of the windshield to see around a right turn. The system seems to mistake that for focusing slightly lower at the upper center screen.

We remain less than thrilled, too, with the lane departure prevention system. It's now thankfully less aggressive, but it still freezes the steering wheel when it intervenes, and the amount of force needed to break through and regain control inevitably results in jerking the car around in the lane.

On the features front, aside from the power and range deficits, the Touring has a standard solid roof (our test car had the optional glass roof included on Grand Tourings) and lacks massaging seats. That's basically it in terms of deficit. The interior is otherwise just as sleek and crafted from the same high-quality materials. The Touring is as quiet inside, and more spacious since shrinking the battery opens up deeper rear footwells.

It's even more impressive when you compare the Air Touring to cars from other automakers. Take the Tesla Model S. The Air Touring costs about $5,000 more, but it goes farther, charges faster, puts up slightly better performance numbers, has more space, and has a wildly better interior. A Mercedes-Benz EQS sedan is $2,700 cheaper than the Tesla and its interior is also better than the Tesla's, but the Air Touring blows it out of the water on range, charging, performance, and interior space.

You do get more for your money if you buy a more expensive Lucid Air. However, it mostly comes down to how much you need to have the best of something. If you're feeling even a little frugal, though, or aren't someone who covets the fastest and most expensive car in the showroom, you'll drive away happy—and with a fuller wallet—in an Air Touring.