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And another new record: electricity for 480 km recharged in just 22 minutes
According to the manufacturer, the Lucid Air should be the fastest rechargeable electric car on the market. The Lucid Air Dream Edition began shipping on October 30th. Three weeks later we carried out a quick charge test and can confirm the record.
We charged the Lucid Air from 0 to 100 percent and recorded the data. Our video (at the bottom of this article) shows the entire charging curve, as well as the energy delivered by the charging station in kilowatt hours.
Photo proof: The Lucid Air actually managed to charge 304 kW
The Air is probably also the first series electric car that can be charged with more than 300 kW, even if only for a few minutes at the beginning. The peak value was 304 kW, as can be seen in the photo above.
The Lucid Air Dream Edition has a 118 kWh battery. This means that the battery here is slightly larger than that of the Lucid Air Grand Touring (112 kWh battery). The Lucid engineers told us that 100 percent of the stated battery capacity can be used. That is why they recommend charging the battery to only 80 percent in everyday life. According to Lucid, the batteries do not have a safety buffer, the usable capacity is actually 118 kWh.
The charging curve rises quickly to 300 kW and then drops continuously to 0
At the end of the charging process, the charging station showed 134 kWh. The difference to the battery capacity of 118 kWh is explained by the charging losses: the higher the charging power, the more heat is generated and the greater the charging losses. In addition, the cooling system and the fans were running at full speed in order to control the temperature of the battery and other electrical components while charging. The energy that is required for this also comes from the charging station and you have to pay for it.
The charging losses were therefore 16 kWh or 13.5 percent. That is a lot, because typical charging losses are only around 10 percent. However, when fast charging the Porsche Taycan, we also came across charging losses of 12 percent, hardly less than with the Air. Both vehicles charge with high output and therefore have slightly more energy losses.
Here you can see our charging results at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 percent charge level:
| Elapsed time | Charging power | Charge level (SoC) | kWh |
Range recharged (in EPA miles / EPA km) |
| 5.5 min. | 282 kW | 20% | 26 kWh | 104 miles / 167 km |
| 12 min. | 210 kW | 40% | 53 kWh |
208 miles / 335 km
If you go long-haul with a Lucid Air, you want to know how long you have to wait at the charging station until electricity has been recharged for another 100 or 200 km. Of course, this value depends on the electricity consumption of the e-car. Since we have not yet determined the real power consumption, we will use the EPA range to calculate consumption.
For the video, we subtracted 20 miles from the EPA range of the Air Dream Edition Range and used 500 miles as the total range. In the table above, however, we have used the full EPA range of 520 miles.
The fact that the Air can be charged so quickly is due to several factors. First, the Air uses a 900 volt battery system, which enables the high charging power of over 300 kW. Second, the Air has extremely low power consumption. Only the Tesla Model 3 and Y and the Hyundai Ioniq Electric are (according to EPA efficiency rating) are even more economical than the Lucid Air Dream Edition.
Both factors together make the range reloading fast. The car can recharge over 300 miles (480 km) in just 22 minutes.
[Note d. Translator: The American original was shortened when transferred.]
More about Lucid Air: 
Lucid Air: luxury sedan with electric drive put to the test
Lucid Air: Real fast charging session with high charging capacities
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