Lucid Comes Back From The Brink, With Tesla Supercharger Promise Fulfilled

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The US startup Lucid Group has been struggling for a toehold in the domestic EV market. Now it looks like the clouds have parted, just in time to attract drivers looking for an elite, high performance alternative to a Tesla vehicle.

Lucid Group Joins The NACS Club

Lucid Group was among the automakers caught in a bind a couple of years ago, when Tesla vigorously promoted the “North American Charging Standard” (NACS) in its Supercharger network of EV charging stations. At the time, of course, NACS was not recognized as the universal charging standard for the North American EV market. Tesla simply made the NACS name up out of whole cloth, while almost everyone else in the EV industry was already committed to the Combined Charging System.

Still, as the nation’s #1 EV maker Tesla was nothing if not persuasive, and other EV makers soon fell in line. On November 6 of 2023, Lucid Group pledged that its existing CCS  equipped vehicles would be able to use an adapter to charge at a Supercharger station, and that its new vehicles would integrate NACS equipment beginning in 2025.

“We believe that a unified charging standard, backed by the nationwide rollout of future-ready higher-voltage charging stations, will be a critical step in empowering American consumers to adopt electric vehicles,” explained Lucid CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson

Integrated NACS Charging For Lucid Gravity

True to its word, on January 28 Lucid announced that the new Lucid Gravity SUV will combine seating for up to seven adults and extra room for luggage with 450 miles of range, 400 kilowatt fast charging, and access to more than 20,000+ Superchargers beginning on January 31, no adapter required. The Lucid Gravity can also avail itself of the Electrify America network, among others.

Lucid claims that the Gravity SUV became the first non-Tesla vehicle sold with an integrated an NACS port when it delivered the first vehicles to customers in December of 2024 (fans of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 may disagree, but that’s what Lucid claims). On the Gravity, the NACS port is located on the rear driver’s side of the vehicle, to enable convenient use of V3 and V4 Tesla Superchargers, where a 12-minute fast charge can deliver 200 miles of range.

Lucid attributes its high performance EV charging to a propriety system that deploys the rear motor drive unit, giving the charging voltage of 500V a boost to match Lucid battery pack, which weighs in at 926V.

“Unlike the pack splitting solutions used by some competitors, this high-tech solution permits charging with the highest voltage that a charging station is capable of outputting and therefore enables the efficient utilization of electrical current and consequent reduction of cable heat,” the company elaborates, adding that the system is fully compatible with  500V and 1000V charging networks.

To complete the package, the Gravity SUV also comes with CCS1-to-NACS and SAE J1772-to-NACS adapters.

Sweetening The EV Charging Pot

Seamless Tesla Supercharger access for the Gravity SUV is just for starters. Lucid also notes that the Gravity has bi-directional charging capability, with its NACS port enabling up to 80 A at 19.2 kW.

“RangeXchange, first available on Lucid Air, also enables charging another electric vehicle directly via the NACS connector with an optional RangeXchange cable,” Lucid adds.

Speaking of the Lucid Air, Lucid is planning on NACS compatibility for that EV as well, with access to the Tesla Supercharger network planned for Q2 of this year.

New Life For Lucid Group

In my car-happy region of the US, drivers have been quick on the EV uptake. The Chevy Volt gas-electric hybrid made an appearance on local roads early on, soon followed by numerous Tesla EVs. I spotted one BMW i3 at a nearby toll booth a few years ago, but nothing else registered until just a couple of years ago. Now two homes on my block have non-Tesla EVs in the driveway, a Mustang Mach-E and a Hyundai Ioniq, and I’m seeing plenty of Rivians pass by.

And, I saw my very first Lucid Air just the other day. That’s a rare sighting indeed, considering that the company has only sold a few thousand cars a year since it launched the Air into production in 2021, a tiny fraction of Tesla EV sales

Still, signs of activity in the Lucid sales department appeared last year. On January 6 Lucid reported that it produced 9,029 vehicles in 2024 and delivered 10,241 vehicles, a figure that includes about 5% under operating lease accounting. That’s a healthy step up from the 8,428 vehicles it produced in 2023.

What Is This Gravity Of Which You Speak?

As for competing head-to-head against Tesla in the luxury market, Lucid was among the US EV makers to enjoy an increase in sales for 2024, presenting a striking contrast to the sales drop experienced by Tesla.

It remains to be seen to what extent Lucid attracted car buyers turned off by the Nazi-adjacent behavior of Tesla CEO and top Trump advisor Elon Musk. Either way, from the beginning Lucid aimed to compete head-to-head against Tesla in the rarefied world of luxury EVs manufactured by EV-only startups.

CleanTechnica editor Zachery Shahan drove a Lucid Air back in 2022, and had this to report:

“There is nothing else like it on the market. While many compare it to a Tesla Model S, it is distinctively different from the Model S (which I previously owned), and far more luxurious. From the interior design, to the massage seats, to the feel of the drivetrain, to the infotainment, Lucid is about one thing: luxe, luxe, luxe. The newly announced Lucid Gravity takes that to another level — the SUV level.”

Following up last month, Shahan took note of stiff competition in the luxury SUV market. “The Lucid Gravity is not cheap, ranging from about $95,000 to about $127,000, so don’t expect it to see soaring sales. Though, it could replace a lot of fossil-fueled luxury SUVs,” he observed.

To the extent that the luxury EV market depends partly on drivers who appreciate the opportunity to discuss the finer points of fuel efficiency, Lucid appears to have a significant edge on Tesla. Last August, Lucid Group CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson took to LinkedIn to emphasize that the Lucid Air Pure is “the most efficient production car ever” at 146MPGe.

“It’s interesting to place the significance of this into context by comparing Lucid Air with the most efficient versions of its competitor set, the Porsche Taycan, the Mercedes EQS and the Tesla Model S, and trace trends through respective production periods,” Rawlinson continued. “Efficiency is of critical importance in making a better, lighter, more spacious, longer-range vehicle, and directly impacts cost to manufacture. Therefore, efficiency is arguably the single most valid litmus of a company’s core EV technological capability.”

According to Lucid’s trendline calculations, Tesla won’t catch up on energy efficiency until 2032, or never. Perhaps Tesla can make up the difference by improving its brand reputation…on second thought, maybe not.

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Image: The new Lucid Gravity luxury SUV goes head-to-head with Tesla, as the first (or second) non-Tesla production vehicle sold with a built-in NACS charging port (courtesy of Lucid Group, via email).