If the Lucid Air truly gets an EPA range of over 500 miles, that would negate much of the supercharger network advantage that I thought Tesla would enjoy for many years. For most people, they rarely travel over 400 miles in a day, much less 500. I've always said that the best way to eliminate the ONLY deficiency that EVs have to ICEs (refuel time when traveling) was to increase range to a number that would mean no refueling was be necessary for almost any trip. 517 miles isn't quite it, but it's not very far off. It does drastically reduce the requirement to charge at all while travelling. I know most of the trips I'm willing to make by ground could easily be done one way on 500 miles.
And even when charging does become necessary, it potentially significantly reduces the time you spend charging since you may only need a little more juice to make it to your destination. For example, if you are traveling 550 miles, you would only need to stop some time during the 2nd half of your trip to add around 100 miles. If you're only getting 400 miles of range, that would need to increase to 200 miles (which would also take longer proportionately since charging slows as capacity is filled). This is what I have always tried to tell the "200 miles of range is all you need" people like Fred Lambert - it may be all you NEED, but it's mighty inconvenient when traveling.
With those things said, I will not hold my breath on that range being a reality. We've all heard the mighty range promises - none have ever been fulfilled (except Tesla). Also, I've always believed that Tesla has not shown their hand when it comes to range because, well, why would they if they are already well ahead of everyone else?
Last thing I will opine on this is just to say that I was telling a friend Sunday that Tesla needs to start racing their cars in some capacity. The one thing anyone that races will tell you is that racers are EXTREMELY competitive. They will use all the ingenuity they find to get an advantage. No one will find more advances in battery technology than engineers working on electric race cars. Ironically, today, Lucid announces 517 miles of range - giving credit to the battery technology they developed where?......at the race track providing batteries for Formula E.
