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Lucid Motors takes a prototype Air EV on an 800-mile California road trip

The company set out to prove that its new luxury electric sedan could live up to its 400-mile range claim.

Silicon Valley EV startup Lucid Motors has been hard at work over the past year, gearing up for what was supposed to be the company's official unveiling of a production-spec version of its Lucid Air luxury EV sedan in New York in the coming weeks. We suspect that those plans are on hold, given the giant mess the world finds itself in, but the company is still making moves.

Specifically, it's making moves 400 miles at a time, if a video released by the company on Thursday is to be believed. Lucid has been claiming a range of 400 miles for the Air, and it would seem that it's managed to hit that target -- albeit with a super-development-spec car.

In the video, two engineers drive from Silicon Valley, down California's coast and into Los Angeles on a single charge. The team charges the prototype overnight and completes a different trip -- this time predominantly on the freeway -- on the way back up. The company's CEO even joins them in a second Lucid development mule for the final leg.

Now, leaving aside all the cheeky social media tie-ins and message sounds that Lucid tossed in the video, it's a pretty neat look into one of the new crop of high-end electric vehicles that we're most excited about. 

What we really want to see, though, is the unedited and timestamped footage of the drive to verify the company's numbers.

Lucid Motors shows off Air, an electric luxury sedan

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Kyle Hyatt Former news and features editor
Kyle Hyatt (he/him/his) hails originally from the Pacific Northwest, but has long called Los Angeles home. He's had a lifelong obsession with cars and motorcycles (both old and new).
Kyle Hyatt
Kyle Hyatt (he/him/his) hails originally from the Pacific Northwest, but has long called Los Angeles home. He's had a lifelong obsession with cars and motorcycles (both old and new).

Article updated on April 2, 2020 at 6:00 AM PDT

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Kyle Hyatt Former news and features editor
Kyle Hyatt (he/him/his) hails originally from the Pacific Northwest, but has long called Los Angeles home. He's had a lifelong obsession with cars and motorcycles (both old and new).
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