Lucid Motors said Wednesday that its upcoming all-electric Air sedan will have fast-charging capability that will let owners add 300 miles of range to the battery in 20 minutes and a home-charging unit that will allow owners to send energy from their car to their home.
Lucid said it is able to hit this benchmark because the vehicle has a 900-volt electrical architecture when combined with its lithium-ion cells, battery and thermal management system and powertrain efficiency. Most electric vehicles — with the exception of the Porsche Taycan and future Kia EVs — have a 400-volt architecture.
There are limitations to this speedy charging; a driver would need to access the correct DC fast charger, which are not exactly abundant at the moment. However, this capability does check an important box for EV owners. While the Lucid Air will have an eye-popping range of more than 500 miles — if its estimates are verified by the EPA — the fast charging capability helps remove any lingering range anxiety and make long-distance travel more desirable.
The company revealed a number of other details surrounding charging, including that the Air will use the universal CCS (combined charging system) connector standard, which makes it compatible to public chargers. The vehicle will have a peak charging rate of over 300kW and a 19.2kW AC onboard charger that can support AC charging speeds up to 80 miles per hour.
Lucid also announced a partnership with Electrify America, VW Group’s U.S.-based charging network. Owners of the Air will be given three years of free charging at Electrify America chargers, which includes DC fast charging.
Lucid also has built out a number of home-based charging features, including a partnership with Qmerit on installation of its connected home charging station. But perhaps the most interesting feature is that Lucid has built “vehicle-to-everything” charging capabilities into the Air and home charging unit. This means that the vehicle will be able to execute bi-directional charging between vehicles and even from the Air back to the owner’s home. Lucid specifically mentioned that it would allow owners to provide a temporary energy reserve for their homes, including “off grid vacation properties,” a weirdly specific detail that must be popular with the luxury EV owner demographic. Lucid told TechCrunch that this capability will become available in mid 2021.
Lucid said it also plans to repurpose older batteries for energy storage. The first prototype is already installed at Lucid’s Silicon Valley headquarters, where a team is working on producing a range of energy storage products.
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