Lucid sets up the Air with Pure, Touring, Grand Touring, and Sapphire trims. My Touring test unit came with dual electric motors for all-wheel drive. The transmission is a single-speed with a 7:1 gear ratio. Total system output is 620 horsepower and 885 lb-ft of torque, and the battery capacity is 92 kWh, with a DC charging power of up to 250 kW.
Torque News Takes The 2026 Lucid Air Touring To The Road
Most EVs have instant torque on tap, and the Lucid Air Touring is no exception. This thing moves. It’s heavy, so that dulls some of the drama, but it still more than scoots from a stop. In fact, the biggest limit to acceleration is that you don’t normally have the space needed to fully explore the car’s capabilities. And if you do, you’re still risking trouble with law enforcement.
The Air feels big and heavy, like a proper luxury sport sedan, which makes it a relaxed freeway cruiser. Push it, however, and it’s sharper than you’d expect, with limited body roll. It never feels smaller than it is, but it will handle most back-road blasts with aplomb.
Lucid tuned the steering to be nice and heavy, though occasionally numb.
Get back to the freeway, or even pothole-pocked urban streets, and the Air Touring rides smoothly. It’s never stiff nor soft, always striking a nice balance between sport and comfort.
Given its EV powertrain and luxury aspirations, the Lucid Air Touring is appropriately quiet.
Quiet comfort is the overall vibe when you aren’t driving hard, and the interior offers comfortable seats. Leg- and headroom feel a tad tight, though.
I also didn’t love the dependence on screens for interior controls. The good news is that the screens are large and easy to read, and they respond quickly when a control is touched. The bad news is that some controls that should be simple are buried deep in menus.
I also found the key card door control to be a bit difficult to work with. In theory, it should be easy - just walk up to the car with the key card in your pocket and it unlocks, park it and close the door and walk away and it locks. But it could be a pain in various situations, such as using a valet or trying to keep doors open for loading groceries or packages. A regular key fob would’ve been easier to work with.
The trunk is unsurprisingly cavernous - once again, this is a big car.
It’s also a good-looking car. The styling is aerodynamic and curvy without being complex. It’s plain enough to blend but cool-looking enough that heads turn anyway. The Lucid Air Touring is expensive, and the styling befits that.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of every interior material. Most above-the-beltline stuff looks and feels like it should for six figures, but some of the plastic stuff below the dash looks a bit cheaper. Feels that way, too.
Torque News Breaks Down The Available Features Of The 2026 Lucid Air Touring
Lucid’s whole vibe, at least right now, is that it’s offering quiet luxury EVs. The company offers just two models – the Air and the Gravity crossover.
The Lucid Touring I tested started at $79,900. Standard features included 19-inch wheels, power open/close trunk, LED lighting, adaptive headlights, rear fog lamp, 34-inch cockpit screen, retractable screen, heated front seats, navigation, leather-alternative seats, satellite radio, wireless Apple CarPlay, Bluetooth, wireless cell-phone charging, tri-zone automatic climate control, and adaptive cruise-control.
Available advanced driver-assist systems include 3D 360-degree camera with blind-spot alert, blind-spot warning, lane-departure protection, park-distance warning, front and rear cross-traffic protection, and driver monitoring system with distracted driver alert and drowsy driver alert.
Options included a hands-free driving-assist system, upscale 19-inch wheels, soft-close doors, heated rear seats, heated steering wheel, heated wipers, an appearance package, uplevel audio, and massaging front seats.
The total price ended up being, with D and D fees, $100,350.
Range on this unit was 406 miles, or 4.4 miles per kWh, or 132 MPGe.
Lucid has cooked up a winner here – if you can afford it, and if you can live the EV lifestyle. The downside to this car is that the company needlessly complicates some controls, seemingly for the sake of being “cool.” Meanwhile, the upside is that despite some of those decisions, Lucid produced a vehicle that isn’t too gimmicky. Odd key-card system and too screen-dependent controls aside, the Lucid experience isn’t all that different than driving a Lexus or Benz or BMW.
That, plus prodigious acceleration, are strong arguments in favor of breathing this Air.
Return tomorrow, or check our Torque News Home Page for more interesting automotive news articles.
About The Author
Tim Healey is an experienced automotive writer and editor from Chicago. He has covered automotive news at Consumer Guide Automotive, Web2Carz, AutoGuide, and was the managing editor at The Truth About Cars. Tim is a member of the Midwest Automotive Media Association. You can find him on Facebook, X/Twitter, and on LinkedIn.
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