The premise of 400 miles of electrical vehicle range is a threshold that could indeed change the game, as it’s about double what I’ve experienced on most EVs in the last five years.

As a result, even the most basic rendition of the revolutionary 2025 Lucid Air — an all-new EV company which builds its sleek cars southeast of Phoenix — upends the rulebook with a battery that is EPA-rated at 394 miles, and promises 420 miles, plus the ability to fast-charge to 200 miles of range in 17 minutes.

With those magic-sounding numbers in mind, we hit the road in the $70,000 Lucid Air Pure model, a low, long, large and fast vehicle (55 inches tall, and 196 inches long) that’s as striking as it is simple, both inside and out. 

Here, it’s a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive setup that’s still 430 horsepower, with a cabin that seems as roomy (especially in the back) as a Chevy Suburban.

Lucid made headlines with its super-high-end, $249,000 Sapphire version of the car, which sports 1,234 horsepower and still has a 400-plus-mile range; I’d also hoped to try out the 819-horsepower Grand Touring model, priced at $111,000, but it was shipped away before I had a chance.

Suffice to say that the basic Air Pure is not so basic, with a look and style that makes even regular EVs look pretty regular by comparison. It’ll still go pretty damned fast, too, but got me from Metro Denver to Glenwood Springs with more than 150 miles of range left, suggesting the 400-mile-total thing might indeed be possible without 11,000-foot passes or a lead foot involved.

Unlike other luxury EVs, Air doesn’t supplement the ride with an artificial soundtrack, so your rolling is silent and comfortably alien, especially as you’re so low to the ground and rolling on Pilot Sport EV tires. The Air has an exceptionally long nose and front glass and the rear of the cabin is stretched so far back that the trunk is almost a pop-up afterthought, though gear can be slid in. The rear glass is also so curved that you’ll see a few visual distortions. I think the gigantic, full-cabin sunroof found in other models might also help decrease some claustrophobia I felt in the too-black cabin.

Mine also had an added blackout looks package which gave its rear metal trim an odd patina and added 20-inch plastic aerodynamic wheel covers my friend tried his hardest to break.

When its electronics all work – there were a few hiccups – Air also takes the keyless entry/keyless start/keyless everything idea to a new level. Walking up to the car with a nearly indistinct plastic keyfob lights up the vehicle and pops out its door handles; settle inside and everything’s on and ready to go, including a fully unlocked steering column. 

And is still on, as you get out, which led me to turn off the air conditioning fan just to feel like I’d sorta disabled the car, before getting out and walking away, to have it all automatically lock and shut off, or so I hoped. My guess is you’ll feel more comfortable than I did when you have the smartphone app to handle all of that, half a block away.

Inside, the Air sports one of the largest instrument and infotainment screens in the business, the 34-inch Glass Cockpit, which is so vast that some functions get lost on the edges. Four rainstorms later, I finally spotted the digital wiper controls, besides single wipes from the stalk control button. A large, multi-function screen juts out to the right, and can even spill over its Google Maps onto a lower, (sometimes) power-retractable Pilot Panel touchscreen above the center console. I couldn’t get it to power away after my first attempt, and probably would have liked it to do so, as the “keep your eyes on the wheel” warnings went off, over and over again. 

This is because lots of important controls are located on a big touchscreen you shouldn’t be looking at, including mirror settings and steering wheel adjustments, as well as three performance modes (Smooth, Swift and Sprint). And a much more usable map, with a visual display of Air’s range that looks like an airborne toxic event floating over Colorado.

Physical controls are limited to some Steampunk-inspired volume and audio controls on the open-spoke, flat-bottomed wheel, a few metal tabs for temperature and fan speeds and a curiously underwhelming shift stalk on the steering column.

Brake regeneration seems to happen automatically, with no external switches or settings, and my downhill drives indeed seemed to use almost no power at all. Parking was a little more precipitous, as the Air Pure lacked the ubiquitous 3D-rendering and front cameras I found in even a basic Hyundai Kona, and rear parking distances are spelled out in feet and inches in the screen. 

Andy Stonehouse’s column “Mountain Wheels” publishes Saturdays in the Summit Daily News. Stonehouse has worked as an editor and writer in Colorado since 1998, focusing on automotive coverage since 2004. He lives in Golden. Contact him at summitmountainwheels@gmail.com.