Lucid announced Thursday that it’s offering a $7,500 “EV credit” on select configurations of the Air Touring and Air Grand Touring—if they’re ordered by March 31, 2023.
The Lucid Air Grand Touring starts at $139,500 and offers an EPA-rated range of up to 516 miles or, in its Grand Touring Performance guise, 1,050 hp and a 0-60 mph time of 2.6 seconds. The Air Touring starts at $108,900, and it delivers an EPA range of up to 425 miles and an astounding 140-MPGe EPA rating—better than any current Tesla.
So for the time being, this drops the entry prices for Grand Touring and Touring to $132,000 and $101,400, respectively. Lucid notes that this doesn’t apply with some build combinations, like adding the Stealth look to this aviation-influenced design.
Neither the $94,400 dual-motor Air Pure nor the $250,500 tri-motor Air Sapphire are mentioned in the promotion. That’s likely because there’s an eager backlog of reservations for each—as there also likely are for the single-motor (rear-drive) Air Pure versions, at $88,900, that come later in the year.
2023 Lucid Air Touring
Although calling it an “EV credit” seems like a coy admission that none of the company’s Arizona-made electric vehicles currently qualify for the EV tax credit applying to purchases, it could just as well be a response to Tesla’s recent price cuts, which lowered the cost of the Tesla Model S and Model X by about 15%.
Lucid has managed to roll in some federal incentives, though. It was one of the first companies to offer a lease that appeared to figure in IRS 45W, the Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit, that’s part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Put simply, that allows captive or affiliated finance companies, which can offer the vehicle under lease, to claim the amount and do so—and in recent weeks many more brands have appeared to figure that in.
This isn’t the first such $7,500 discount independent of an actual tax credit. Late last year, a $7,500 Tesla discount much like this and aimed at giving the Model 3 and Model Y a boost. Such events, so far, have been rare among companies like Tesla, Lucid, or Rivian that follow a direct sales model. Given the Tesla recalibration and a recent response from Ford, it appears that the EV price war some have predicted is here, on some level.
