What a giant, you think. But it is shorter than the apparently much shorter Audi Q7, which is not a small one either. It’s a difference of four centimeters, but it seems like a meter. The Lucid Gravity is therefore a clever design. It seems infinite due to its low roofline and the expanding effect of its voluptuous curves, while an Audi seems to shrink due to its sharp German angles. Inside, the Gravity has the expanse of a train compartment. From the driver’s seat, the rear window in the interior mirror is like the other side of your street. In between, there is plenty of practical space for up to seven adults on three rows of seats. They all sit on top of a mega battery with a net capacity of 123 kWh, hello, and sufficient reserve for a range of 748 kilometers, quite a lot.
On paper, a giga-SUV weighing 2,700 kilos, over five meters long, 839 hp, costing more than a ton, from a new brand financed with a lot of Saudi money has the motto act normal everything for a public punishment in this theater. In practice, the Gravity turns out to be a clever, extremely resourceful car. The fleet manager of a large family with sufficient family capital might find this out after comparing the most popular large SUVs from Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche and Volvo. I don’t see any brand unlocking the available interior space for passengers and goods so effectively. When it comes to ingenious interior design, the Gravity is a Hyundai Inster on a grand scale.
Click on the points for an explanation of the detailsPhoto Merlijn Doomernik
I am delighted with the folding mechanism for the second row of seats. It is brilliant in its ease of use. In two steps, clearly indicated on the backrests, you can make both seats for the sixth and seventh passenger disappear invisibly into a storage compartment under the loading floor. Under the former hood there is an extra luggage compartment of 230 liters, which due to its shape can also be used as an outside seat for two people. The fantastic, Volvo-like front seats take care of all parts of the body that need support. The finish is beautiful and tasteful. The Gravity is absurdly fast, but it has not become a hectic device. To mobilize its peak power, the sprint button must first be ticked and that urge quickly disappears once you experience how well it already performs with the 480 hp of its standard setting. A skilled brain has been in charge here and that was indeed not the least until his departure last year. Before he had a falling out with Elon Musk at Tesla, former CEO Peter Rawlinson developed the now even brilliant Model S. You can see the architectural similarities with that car in the Gravity, and just like the Model S, the Lucid is remarkably economical: I don’t see many SUVs of this size achieving 18 kWh per 100 kilometers. You rarely need the impressive fast charging speed of 400 kW due to the enormous range.
The Gravity is wide, three centimeters wider than the Audi Q7 in the critical range of two meters without exterior mirrors for car washes and parking garages – and two meters twenty with them. This is more for the wealthy soccer mums in spacious California than for the cramped Dutch business driver. Still, it’s good that it’s there, because Lucid shows how to build an intelligent Large Car.
The flattened steering wheel could have been round, but no complaints about the finish and the user-friendliness of the screens.
You no longer have to explain the name Gravity by looking at the RDW data; the thing weighs 2700 kilos.
At Lucid they finish very well and tastefully.
With the rear seats down, you no longer need a roof box on holiday.
Photo Merlijn Doomernik
He has two shortcomings. The first hopefully falls into the category of teething problems. The electronics could be more stable. The automatic door unlocking did not always work when approaching the car, the right windscreen had to be reset once when it did not close completely. A more structural problem is climate control. It does not seem to be able to cope with the rapidly rising indoor temperatures on sunny days. Due to the windscreen that extends far into the roof, it quickly becomes hot in the car and the air conditioning has to be on the maximum setting even when spring temperatures are around 20 degrees. This emergency measure causes a lot of noise that detracts from the acoustic enjoyment of the fantastic sound system, which left much to be desired in the Lucid Air. Fix it, Lucid, then this is a 10.