You can now drive 1205 km in an EV without charging

Today Lucid proudly shared that they managed to secure a new Guinness World record for the most kilometers driven by an electric car without charging. The Lucid Air Grand Touring, the one with the biggest battery and range, managed to do 1205 km on regular roads with a bit more declines than inclines on a single charge.

It show how stupidly impressive that car is. Not only in efficiency, but also in it’s capability to regenerate energy while coasting downhill. Just so you know: there is a height difference between the starting point (St. Moritz) and the end point (Munich) of around 1.000 meters.

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Even if you think Lucid is cheating a bit by going downhill, you’d still be glossing over the fact that the car still managed to do more kilometers than it should be able to do according to the already generous WLTP-rating of between 677 and 960 km (Lucid gives ranges). That means that the Air Grand Touring managed to do 240 km more while not driving in the best circumstances possible. That would be doing 80 km/h, downhill with a nice and stable tailwind.

Now, setting aside the impressiveness of the record, you’d be forgiven to not see that it’s also showing a very important aspect of driving an EV: knowing how to do exactly that.

Calm down. Yes, you’re right. And no, I’m not that stupid. Driving an EV is exactly the same as driving a gas powered car. In most modern cars you get two pedals and a steering wheel with which you operate the four wheeled death machine. But if the driver of the Lucid Air in the record would’ve driven the car exactly the same as he would’ve done a gas powered car, it probably would’ve stopped rolling after about 800 kilometers.

There are substantial differences. If you know at which speed your car operates most efficiently, you’re ahead of the curve. Most cars are developed to reach peak efficiency at around 80 to 110 km/h. This has to do with the aerodynamics of the car in question.

Driving an EV has another benefit: it can recharge the battery while slowing down. It can generate energy while braking. So if you brake a lot, you’re essentially filling the battery with your own generated electricity. But braking usually means you have to get up to speed again, which means more energy consumption. This equation is not equal. You regenerate a lot less energy while braking than you need to accelerate back up to speed.

But there is a catch: going downhill in an EV will also regenerate energy as long as the driver in question is trying to keep it on the road at a respectable speed. A gas powered car would just not consume as much gasoline while coasting down the hill, but it wouldn’t magically pump fresh petrol in the tank.

Knowing this, you could say the Lucid Air did charge in the record, just not at a charging station.

But still that is for a large part thanks to the driving skills of the one behind the wheel. The driver could’ve opted to let his inner rally-pilot take over and just gun it downhill. He’d probably would’ve had a lot more fun, because the Air is a great drivers car, as I can confirm having driving all versions, but that would’ve also meant that his name would not have been in the record books now.

Why does all this matter? Because Lucid has just shown us that if you keep your head in the game, you don’t have to charge as much. And that is important, because we all know charging an EV is a shitty experience. It still takes to long, chargers are over congested, slow and still broken a lot of the times. Avoiding them is the best thing you can do.

In other news:

The Porsche Macan is the best selling Porsche this year. You’d think that is not really surprising until I tell you almost two thirds of the sold Macans is fully electric. I’m still not surprised, because I drove the thing last year and was insanely impressed. I named it the best EV I’ve driven in 2024. But according to Porsche that was not the fact that pushed the Macan electric over the edge, it was more or less the fact Porsche buyers didn’t have the option to buy a gas powered Macan in the EU.

Bentley, you know, the British luxury brand, introduced the world to its future with the EXP 15 Concept. My first impressions? It’s a huge, very square, futuristic Volvo/Polestar. Do I hate it? No. Do I like it? Also no. Do I think it’s a bit like the failed Jaguar rebrand? Yes, a bit.

Max Verstappen still hasn’t signed to Mercedes or Aston Martin…

While Volvo is trying to brand the EX90 as the world’s safest car, it just turned the XC90 (and XC60) into the safest Volvo’s. Apparently the Swedes will sell you a version of the SUV which is ‘able to withstand up to 300 bullets’. Volvo says the armored versions of the cars drive the same as their less safe regular counterparts, but there is no word about the extra weight of the ‘armored’ versions being a problem for the other safety features.

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