Author: EVAI

The Lotus Evija is being delivered, five years after it was first shown The electric hypercar packs 2,011 hp and a 93-kwh battery Pricing starts at approximately $3 million It’s now been more than five years since the Lotus Evija electric hypercar was first revealed to the world. Originally scheduled for deliveries in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic…

• Lucid Gravity follows efficiency approach of Air sedan
• 450 miles of EPA range, 3.4-sec. 0-60 mph, available third row
• Grand Touring arriving soon, Touring coming later in 2025

Something felt amiss as I hustled this prototype 2025 Lucid Gravity around cloverleaf ramps near Lucid’s California Bay Area headquarters last week.

I’d flown around faster than I’d intended to. And yet on the imperfect pavement the Gravity felt like it had so much more to give, with good poise and balance, loads of stability, communication through the steering wheel, and maybe some fun ahead—if, well, this were a closed course. 

It’s just that the Gravity is an SUV. And I’ve never, in 25+ years of evaluating vehicles, been in an SUV that drives quite like this. Lucid has somehow managed to dial its dynamics in like a sport sedan—or, perhaps aptly, a sport wagon. My inner g-sensors were reeling and I kept glancing into the rearview mirror—at two more spacious, minivan-like rows behind, which is what got me all turned around. 

In a good way, you hear? Based on a speed date with one, it’s really, really good.

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

A breath of fresh Air—for SUVs

Taking a few steps back: If you’ve somehow dismissed Lucid’s very strong opening act, the Lucid Air sedan, the Gravity makes the automaker’s unrelenting focus on efficiency impossible to overlook or ignore. 

The Air already presented its case for the numbers it can achieve with its compact and powerful yet efficiency-focused fully electric propulsion suite. Now the Gravity carries all this innovation into a form far more Americans will be likely to consider as their own: a three-row SUV. In this case, it’s one that goes an EPA-rated 450 miles (according to Lucid) with a battery pack that’s relatively modest for the mission—about 118 kwh—and one that can add 200 miles of range in 15 minutes via a 350-kw fast-charge connector (CCS port on early cars, Tesla-style NACS port to come). 

The 2025 Lucid Gravity gives in to the reality of the market and its undeniable forces but it does so on Lucid’s own terms. So it should come as no surprise that the Gravity isn’t aiming to play in the world of boxy, nubby-tired bricks named after off-road trails. 

“We’re not going to Utah and climbing rocks,” said chief design officer Derek Jenkins. “But to get to the cabin, to do the dirt path, to do medium off-roading, the Gravity is going to be excellent for that type of activity, with the suspension capability.”

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Ahead of my drive, Lucid’s chief engineer and senior VP for product Eric Bach reminded me that it’s not developing vehicles for 0-60 mph times. Performance could be on a track, he underscored, or going up a windy mountain road. Or it could be crash-safety performance. Or NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) performance. 

The crew at Lucid by all accounts aren’t dyed-in-the-wool SUV guys. But they’re going to change a lot of minds with this vehicle. 

Gravity starts with an efficient shape

Lucid is relentless about efficiency because it puts the brakes on a series of cascading factors. If you use components or a design that together amount to a less-efficient vehicle, it’s then heavier because it needs more batteries to go the distance. It then can’t fit passengers and cargo as well. 

To that, the brand made clear to Green Car Reports that it’s proud of how the Gravity isn’t bigger than it needed to be; it stretches 198.2 inches long and it rides on a 119.5-inch wheelbase. Its height of around 65 inches overall (in its lowest setting, we have to assume) makes it lower overall than a Subaru Forester—so yup, no problem fitting into parking garages.

Gravity’s lean profile maps out in all directions except width, where its 78 inches not counting the mirrors is standard for the class. The Gravity has a frontal cross-sectional area, in CdA, that’s much lower than any of its rivals except for the Tesla Model X. It’s said the coefficient of drag will land around 0.24, but with final test numbers not yet out, it could land slightly better than that. 

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

It’s not an Air with a different top hat. Bach emphasized to Green Car Reports that Gravity was conceived as a completely new SUV platform, with a modular set of Air’s existing components arranged to the new architecture. Bach said that’s so that Lucid arrived at “a real off-road-capable as well as luggage- and occupant-optimized package that looks like an SUV.”

Design-wise, Gravity fits right in next to the Air. It has a completely different profile, of course, plus a little more depth to its taillights, while its headlights are a little more vertical—partly to leave room for a wider frunk opening (with optional net at the front).  

It’s an attractive profile with a graceful roofline and nice stance. But it doesn’t compare directly to any SUV on the market. As my colleague Joel Feder pointed out in a drive of an earlier Gravity alpha build prototype, this is a model that was shaping up as a bit chameleon-like—straddling the lines between wagon, minivan, and SUV at times. 

I don’t disagree. But the Gravity drives like no minivan I’ve ever been in. 

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Drives like a Lucid not an SUV: Check

One of the tuning goals was essentially that Gravity “should drive not like an SUV but like a Lucid,” said chassis and dynamics tech specialist John Culliton, who rode along for my drive. 

To assure that, the steering rack and the fundamental geometry are carried over from the Air, but the rear suspension, including the air suspension, is new, as is the rear-steer functionality. The front subframe is rigidly mounted and steering gear is rigidly mounted, to carry as much feedback as possible. But all the versus Air, the hard points have been moved around to better distribute the load. Every link is new, but massaged the layout to reduce loads into the steering and utilize the same gear. 

The Gravity’s body structure is a combination of materials but fundamentally “aluminum rich,” according to Bach, with just 2-4% steel at a few specific points. Lucid has used a megacasting process for body pieces at a few locations. 

To make the most of the aero form and the lean, strong propulsion system, all Lucid Gravity models will get a height-adjustable air suspension and continuously adjustable dampers. A series of drive modes dial in different levels of firmness from the dampers, and there are five different ride heights, all mostly selected independently by the driver. 

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

There’s no Auto mode for the multi-mode air suspension, which leaves it up to the user to feel the differences in ride versus responsiveness. Although, as Culliton points out, selecting the Sprint performance mode will drop the Gravity into its lowest ride height. It also makes the behavior of the rear-wheel steering a little more aggressive, the damping firmer, and the torque split more rear-biased. 

All these smart decisions allow enough torque for sub-3.5-second 0-60 mph times, and a turning circle of 38 feet—as well as a natural seat height that’s easy to get into and out of and body 

On a lonely stretch of road, Culliton aims to show off the dual-motor propulsion system, at 828 hp and 909 lb-ft combined, and he has me do a controlled launch, standing on the brake, flooring the accelerator, and releasing, and the Gravity leaps ahead with none of the feeling of lightness in the front end that characterizes fast dashes in other high-power SUVs. The Gravity felt like it lunged forward.

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Lucid Gravity is a quiet athlete

With its playful steering feel and muted-yet-communicative demeanor overall, it had some of the same qualities as the Porsche Macan Electric we drove for our Best Car To Buy roundup—about a foot shorter but also with rear-wheel steering. 

The Gravity I drove was also fitted with the largest and sportiest wheel and tire combination in the lineup—staggered width 22- and 23-inch Pirelli PZero tires that really seemed to be able to make the most of the Gravity’s available grip at the front wheels. This one feels like it’s going to be a hoot on a closed course, in terms of staying sports-car neutral on grippy surfaces. 

Furthermore, ride quality with this combination was great. The Gravity doesn’t float along like some other luxury SUVs; you do feel the road, but never excessively.

Lucid has also soft-mounted the motor to the body to yield more drive-system isolation from the body versus in the Air. Although the surfaces around Lucid’s California offices were hardly a challenge for the Gravity, heading up past normal freeway speeds for a bit didn’t expose anything—a testament to all the tuning of the body and chassis, and to that acoustic glass overhead, perhaps.

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Space efficiency for seven and stuff

The cabin feels bright and airy, allowed partly by the vast expanse of glass overhead. The glass is acoustic, and structural, and flows continuously in two runs—one from the base of the windshield through to just over and behind those in the front seat. Then a second run goes from there all the way over the third row. It’s the only three-row SUV I can recall with the blue sky overhead, so uninterrupted. 

What strikes me most as I first as I walk up to the vehicle is how low the passenger cabin floor is, while the bottom of the vehicle isn’t especially low. According to a source, the air suspension spans from about 135 to 235 mm (5.3 to 9.3 inches) of ride height—meaning in its lowest setting, it’s essentially the same ride height as Air.  

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Just like the Air Grand Touring, the Gravity Grand Touring has 22 battery modules, with four of them “upstairs” on a second layer. In the Air, that’s under the rear seat, but in the Gravity it’s been pushed to the area under the front seats, so as to allow a continuous cargo floor, with the seats folded, of more than eight feet. 

Including the frunk’s additional space, the Gravity has 120.6 cubic feet of cargo volume with the second and third rows folded—40% more than the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, Lucid boasts, and about 15% more than the Rivian R1S, which also has a frunk. 

As Bach put it, “you need such a ginormous truck to get to some of the attributes that we can pack into this small Gravity space concept,” pointing to the Chevy Suburban and its huge body-on-frame counterparts.

Lucid hasn’t said much about the Gravity’s off-road ability yet, other than that there will be some. Its Terrain mode will take advantage of the stability system in the high-performance Lucid Air Sapphire. That system, capable of reading inputs from all four wheels 1,000 times per second, can handle the braking portion of the traction control in Gravity at that rate, albeit not for each rear wheel separately. That helps assure peak regenerative braking, which still arrives in standard and high settings when you lift off the accelerator, saving the brake pedal specifically for the brake pads. 

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Gravity back seat: Tables not screens

I’m 6-foot-6 and can truly sit directly behind two of myself, reasonably comfortably, in the Gravity. 

The way the third-row floor stays flat, and the way the seats swing around into a well at the back of the vehicle. Bach says that the team made a lot of decisions throughout the engineering process not to compromise any of that space. For instance, it split its active rear steer actuators in half, while it could have gone with a combined unit that would have compromised third-row legroom. 

The third row is optional for $2,900, but it only adds about 130 pounds to the Gravity’s curb weight (yet undisclosed). The team behind the Gravity see this as a road trip vehicle, with the second row good for eating, playing games, and watching things on devices. So they opted for a pair of sturdy utility tables, in place of a native entertainment system for the rear.

What the Gravity ended up with is a solution that might be right out of a first-class air cabin. 

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

“We talked to customers, we talked to business people, we talked to families, and everyone said just give me a table for food, for laptops, for the kids’ iPad, charging, and make sure it’s easy to stow. “I’m super-proud of this, because it was a big push to make this happen and not sacrifice second-row space and do something robust and solid,” said Jenkins. 

A 90-degree-opening rear door also allows easier loading of kids into child seats, took some extra level of engineering to make sure the latches were strong, and the doors have a special low safety cinch helps bolster side protection when the impact is just above the lower sill. 

Counterintuitively, Lucid was able to put its H-point for the third row higher up than in the Suburban, allowing more relaxed leg angles. You won’t be looking only at your knees. 

Jenkins also noted that Lucid has also thought much more about the robustness and cleanability of all the materials It’s offering four different themes for the Gravity: Tahoe and Ojai are leather, while Yosemite and Mojave are non-leather.

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Gravity interface: Landscape, swipes, and vibes

Inside, the Gravity doesn’t entirely trade in what Lucid has established as an interface, but it reworks it. The instrument panel is even slimmer, with updated vents for better heating and cooling and a larger center console. Fundamentally, new hardware offers a full OLED display side to side with no interruptions and better contrast

Maybe most notable of all, the steering wheel has been replaced by a “squircle,” and based on the quick drive my hands felt natural at 9 and 3 in tight corners and in high-speed cruising.

There are new mood-and-ambience modes called Vibes. It’s taken a close look at what it’s including in the augmented-reality head-up display to make sure it’s not adding to clutter, and the touchscreen has moved to a landscape format, with new thumb controls that offer a swipe function good for dismissing alerts plus a tactile thumb switch for menu selection. In the new layout, menus always open to the right

As of my drive, some of the interface points still stood out as works in progress, as it aimed to quell some switchgear and menu-latency issues. 

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

Luxury in price, but more affordable later

So far Lucid has only said that the Gravity Grand Touring will start at $96,550 (including $1,650 destination) and include the larger battery pack and dual-motor all-wheel drive, with initial deliveries set to start late this year. The $81,550 Touring model, coming in late 2025, will have a smaller pack, and officials say it’s fair at this point to assume that offerings will parallel those of the Air Touring—which gets a smaller 84-kwh pack. Do the math and in the Gravity that would still mean well over 300 miles of range from the small battery. 

Loaded up with options, the Gravity is well into luxury territory. The Dynamic Handling Package adds the rear-wheel steer system, triple-rate air suspension, and painted brake calipers. And a $2,500 Comfort and Convenience package brings power rear sunshades, soft-close doors, a heated steering wheel, heated wipers, heated second-row seats. Two different levels of Lucid’s DreamDrive assisted-driving and active-safety features are also optional, for up to $6,750. And the $750 towing package brings a tow rating of up to 6,000. 

Add the works, including $2,900 Surreal Sound Pro audio and the biggest (22/23-inch wheels), and the grand total amounts to $117,400 for a fully loaded Grand Touring, not including other cosmetic upgrades.

2025 Lucid Gravity Grand Touring

My drive, while it left a very good first impression, was a very quick take in a well-fettled prototype with company handlers. I didn’t get to head off pavement, and I noticed a few different quirks in the switchgear and touchscreen interface that, in all hopes, Lucid will have fixed by the time the first vehicles are delivered. Arizona production of the Lucid Gravity started last week. 

There are so many reasons to love this vehicle, and it’s surely one of the year’s greats. But what it amounts to is this: If you need an SUV, but you’d rather be in a sport sedan, this is your leading edge. 

The list of contenders for Motor Authority Best Car To Buy 2025 started at nearly 30 vehicles, ranging from pickup trucks and SUVs to luxury cars and EVs. It was a vast field. Still, some had to go. After we talked it over, hashed it out, and said our piece, we whittled down the list of eligible vehicles to this list of finalists. We’ll…

Tim Kuniskis, the executive perhaps most influential in spreading horsepower across Stellantis’ U.S. brands, has returned to the automaker after retiring in May. Kuniskis spent more than three decades working with various brands within Stellantis’ North American portfolio prior to retiring, most recently serving as CEO of Dodge and Ram. He returns…

The Chevy Equinox EV, Chevy Blazer EV, and related Honda Prologue stand out as electric vehicle finalists The Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid vies for top spot with efficient and stylish three-row family duty The Subaru Forester gets better at what its known for, and is our least expensive finalist ‘Tis the season for The Car Connection Best Car To Buy…

As compact crossovers, the 2025 Ford Escape and 2025 Nissan Rogue are two popular entries at what’s considered one of the nerve centers of the U.S. vehicle market—largely replacing the midsize sedan in the American family landscape. Both offer a lot of interior space and comfort, plus well-rounded feature lists, with available…

Once a year, Green Car Reports takes a closer look at the market’s best and brightest green vehicles—models that help assure a cleaner future for us. 

One of these will be named Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2025 on Jan. 6. Read on for a quick snapshot of each and a quick summary of our priorities, and then check back for a closer look at each of their credentials over the next couple of weeks. 

2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV

Sometimes it’s simple: The 2025 Chevy Equinox EV costs $34,995 for 319 miles of EPA range, in a vehicle sized and shaped like today’s most popular kind of family vehicle—a wagon-like crossover SUV. Even before the $7,500 EV tax credit, the Equinox EV amounts to a bargain for freeing your family of gas pumps and tailpipes. Quite simply, it’s on this list because it makes electric vehicles affordable to mass-market car buyers not in a niche commuter-vehicle form, but in one they might pack the whole family into. 

2025 Hyundai Kona Electric

Where have all the small-but-practical, urban-savvy EVs gone? The closest new entry we have in the U.S. market, this year is the Hyundai Kona Electric. It’s not a dedicated electric vehicle, but it might as well be one as it outshines the gasoline Kona in performance and drivability. With the base Kona Electric SE, Hyundai’s offering a modest 48.6-kwh battery pack that will still be plenty big for commuters, at 200 EPA miles, while SEL and Limited versions get a 64.8-kwh pack and a 261-mile range. Much-upgraded cabin trims plus meaningful cabin-tech updates amount to a car that’s easy to park but not short on amenities. 

2024 Porsche Macan EV

The Taycan, which was known as Mission E until it was almost ready for deliveries, started as a special project, set to face off with Tesla and reckon with a mostly fully electric future for this storied sports car brand. But now Porsche is carrying those smarts from its electric experiment into its top-selling model, the Macan SUV. With a new platform that learns from the Taycan’s original range and efficiency shortcomings, downsizes key components to save weight, and maximizes acceleration performance, charge rates, and brake regeneration—plus rear-wheel steering and an air suspension for some of the lineup—the Macan EV looks like the heart of Porsche and of high-performance luxury SUVs.

2025 Rivian R1S

We usually reserve our Best Car To Buy finalists to models that are completely new or extensively redesigned or reengineered. So why did we put the R1S on the list a couple years after it was first delivered to customers? It takes some looking past the mostly-carryover appearance of Rivian’s R1 models to get to why it’s here. It’s here because it’s better in every way. 

With re-engineered battery packs, motors, and body structure, plus an simplified electrical architecture, updated sensing suite, and flattened interface, these revamped electric trucks have earned a place. In everything from performance and ride and handling, the R1S does it better and a little more efficiently. It may not yet deliver the 800-volt or bidirectional charging Rivian had said was on the way—or any significant charging boost—but it innovates in manufacturability and a suite of tech it can scale up and use for its mass-market R2 and R3 models. 

2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz

Unless you’ve been living in a commune, disconnected from pop culture for decades, you’ve no doubt heard the news: VW brought back the Bus as an EV. It’s a smart move, as it lures you with hazy nostalgia from the 1960s counterculture icon, draws you into a thoroughly modern interior, and leaves you altogether in a different kind of family vehicle—the first U.S.-market electric minivan and, perhaps, the start of a new EV segment. 

All that said, there are many pros and cons to juggle. The ID.Buzz took a long time to get to the U.S., but it’s only arriving here in a long, three-row version with a much higher price tag. Despite a bigger battery that fumbles the flat floor, its EPA range numbers only span up to 234 miles. But with available all-wheel drive, relatively perky performance, and a decent interface, it covers all the functional bases without muting all the buzz.

2024 Kia EV9

How we decide Green Car Reports’ Best Car To Buy 

Amassed peer-reviewed papers and respected scientific sources agree that in the vast majority of typical use cases, electric vehicles are better for the environment. 

We know that assembling an electric vehicle, making the battery, and sourcing the materials for it adds to the vehicle’s carbon footprint. These impacts are offset versus gasoline models within a few years of the EV’s service life, but in looking at any EV we consider the size of the battery and whether it’s truly necessary for the purpose of the vehicle.

In averting tailpipe emissions, the effects on health for your community and household are immediate and positive.

Efficiency is the priority

Sure, range matters in an EV, but shorter-range models with smaller battery packs can be among the greenest picks in some households. With families making second (and third) vehicles fully electric too, who needs all that range in every vehicle?

Yes, we chose the reigning range champion, the Lucid Air, two years ago, but it wouldn’t have made it to the top had it not also been one of the most efficient EVs.  

2024 Tesla Model 3

Big market impact—now or long-lens

The Best Car To Buy needs to make a big impact (short- or long-term) on the market. That could be interpreted as going for volume and affordability, making a new segment of the market electric, or setting a new standard for efficiency or technology. It needs to be the best, but as we’ve seen in past Best Car To Buy winners, that can take many different forms. 

PHEVs on ice

Green Car Reports continues to cover the range of hybrid and plug-in hybrid technology in vehicles, and we respect that an all-or-nothing approach isn’t always the best way to electrify the fleet or to convince a mass market to choose more environmentally sound vehicles. For the greater good the next-best option is often better than not opting for a greener pick at all. 

Cutting out performance models working regulators’ loopholes with a charge port, plug-in hybrids remain an intriguing pick, especially when the charging infrastructure just won’t meet needs for weekend trips but drivers are dedicated to keeping zero-tailpipe-emissions for the commute. Efficiency-focused PHEVs are coming with 40, 60, or more miles of all-electric range. Will they convince a new type of shopper to plug in?

All that said, placing another internal combustion vehicle into service, as a potential emissions source for decades, carries with it a high bar for making our Best Car To Buy shortlist. And there simply aren’t any new ones this year making that cut.

Canadian electric school bus firm Lion Electric faces financial difficulties and is looking to be rescued, reports Bloomberg.

Lion on Sunday announced the layoff of 400 people, representing more than half of its workforce, and said it was suspending manufacturing at its U.S. factory in Joliet, Illinois. When the factory was announced in 2021, Lion said it would be the largest for medium-duty and heavy-duty electric vehicles in the U.S.

Lion is one of three companies—including Blue Bird and Thomas Built Buses—that have delivered the majority of U.S. electric school buses to date, amid a push to replace dirty diesel fleets spurred by state and federal incentives. 

Lion A Electric School Bus

Mach Capital, the investment arm of Canadian real estate developer Groupe Mach Inc., is in talks to provide additional funding to Lion, according to the report, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter. In 2023, Groupe Mach and the Mirella & Lina Saputo Foundation were among a group of investors that bought more than $90 million (CAD).

The Canadian province of Quebec has also given Lion 192 million Canadian dollars. Economy minister Christine Frechette told Bloomberg and other media Monday that the provincial government was prepared to provide additional funding “if the business plan holds up, and if there are other players besides the public.”

Lion C Electric School Bus

Lion is one of a small group of manufacturers touting electric school buses as a replacement for diesel. In the U.S., that transition has accelerated recently with increased state and federal incentives. The EPA has begun distributing $5 billion in funding for electric school buses mandated under the Biden administration’s infrastructure law, awarding $965 million in 2022 and $1 billion earlier this year. But the future outlook isn’t so good.

While it has been assembling vehicles in the U.S., as a Canadian company Lion might be targeted by the incoming Trump administration, which is expected to place a 25% tariff on auto parts shipped across the border. It’s also unclear if Biden’s EV-friendly policies will survive under Trump. Both factors could make Lion’s electric school buses a lot more expensive for cash-strapped school districts.

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