The 2024 Lucid Air Grand Touring — the longest-range version of the Air luxury sedan — features some small but notable changes to the current model year, Lucid announced Wednesday in a press release.
The Grand Touring is the second Air model to feature a heat pump, following the high-performance Sapphire. As shown previously in other electric vehicles, a heat pump often means improved efficiency in cold weather, on longer trips. That helps solve some problems loss of cold weather range in electric vehicles.
Fresh air 2024
Tesla claims it doesn’t need a heat pump and that its electric vehicles could run less efficiently if they use a heat pump until introducing one in 2023. Other models that added them in the past year included Mercedes-Benz EQS and EQEand several versions of Ford F-150 Lightning. General Motors plans to install heat pumps every one of its Ultium EVsAnd Rivian plans to add them early.
Lucid also claims “approximately 15-30% faster DC charging” for the 2024 Air Grand Touring, as well as improved automatic battery pre-conditioning on the way to the charging station to further maximize charging speeds (the Air also allows manual pre-conditioning).
Fresh air 2024
According to Lucid, changes to the engine, battery chemistry and “thermal properties” also reduce waste heat, allowing the Grand Touring to “perform at its best even when driving with a spirit of endurance.”
The Air Grand Touring maintains an EPA-estimated 516-mile range and is priced at $111,400 with a mandatory destination fee of $1,500. It sits above the 419-mile Air Pure and the 411-mile Air Touring, which start at $71,400 and $79,400, respectively, including destination. The 1,234-horsepower, 427-mile Air Sapphire starts at $250,500 with destination. These prices are basically consistent Lucid cuts made in February.
