Here's One Way Lucid Motors Made the Air Sedan More Spacious for Passengers

author: Manish Kharinta   

Luxury electric car maker Lucid Group aims to redefine standards for sustainable transportation with its Lucid Air sedan. The company also does not shy away from celebrating the fact that Air offers more cabin space than other gas powered models in the segment with a similar wheelbase, such as the Mercedes-Benz S Class.

Recently, the company's CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson offered a thorough breakdown of how the Lucid team achieved this impressive automotive engineering feat and created one of the most spacious vehicle interiors for a vehicle of this size. Needless to say, the attention to detail throughout Lucid Air is quite impressive. 

For instance, the company designed the battery pack of the Air so it's thinner in places where passengers sit. As a result, passengers can sit comfortably in Lucid Air without raising their legs too high off the floor. This is unlike some other electric vehicles, many of which are based on the same platform as their gas-powered counterparts. 

Rawlinson also asked Lucid's engineering teams to keep the exterior dimensions of the Air as compact as possible. The Lucid Air is only 195.9 inches long and 86.5 inches wide, which is much smaller than its competitors, including the Tesla Model S and Mercedes EQS sedan.

The overall dimensions of the Lucid Air sedan posed another daunting challenge for the engineers, as they had to devise a way to fit all the electrical components into a relatively short wheelbase, without compromising the cabin space or affecting the ride and handling characteristics of the vehicle. 

To solve this, Lucid added extra crossmembers and installed many of the vehicle systems into the chassis, which also helps to strengthen it. As a result, the Lucid Air delivers sports car-like driving dynamics as well as a remarkable ride quality.

Unfortunately, even with its high-tech construction Lucid Motors recently recalled all of the Air sedans its built so far, which totaled 1,117 units. The recall was to address the proximity of the steering intermediate shaft to the center and left display wiring harness. 

According to Lucid, inadequate clearance between the two may damage the wiring harness and cause the touchscreen displays in the cabin to fail.

In addition to an entire suite of cabin comforts, the Air sedan comes with Lucid's DreamDrive advanced driver assistance system, which uses 32 onboard sensors to operate a multifaceted driver monitoring system and Ethernet network.

The DreamDrive suite offers over 30 high-tech features courtesy of Lucid's low latency, high-performance vehicle network architecture. The high-speed data network enables Lucid Air's dual-rail power architecture, ensuring uninterrupted power to all of the vehicle's electrical systems.

With 520 miles of range, the 2022 Lucid Air Dream Edition also holds the title of the longest-range EV in the U.S. 

Manish Kharinta

Manish Kharinta is a automotive writer based in the Los Angeles area. He has worked for automotive industry websites TheSmokingClutch.com, CarDekho.com and CarBikeindia.com. His experience ranges from covering auto shows, to car reviews and breaking automotive news. Manish aims to bring forth his unique perspective on automotive design and technological innovations in the automotive industry.