New electric car smashes world record: Little known EV brand has the longest driving range in the world by considerable margin, beating the Nio ET7

Lucid Air Grand Touring

There is a new electric car distance champion.

The Lucid Air Grand Touring now holds the Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an electric car on a single charge.

It covered 1205km to beat the previous record of 1045km set by the Nio ET7.

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Lucid isn’t well known on a global stage, but the American company has been slowly building an impressive line-up of luxury focused and long-legged electric cars.

The record-breaking journey started in St Moritz, Switzerland and ended in Munich, Germany.

Lucid said the journey took in alpine roads, highways and secondary roads. Starting in the Alps means the Lucid would have benefitted from plenty of downhill driving rather than the energy-sapping drive up the mountains.

Electric cars use regenerative braking to feed juice back into the battery. CarsGuide’s experience driving electric cars down mountain roads in Australia and in the Alps has shown it can add a substantial amount of energy to the battery.

Lucid Air Grand Touring sets Guinness World Record

Despite the added benefit of downhill driving the feat is still exceptional.

At its core the Air Grand Touring is a monster 112kWh that has a WLTP verified range of 960km. Excellent aerodynamics help the Air Grand Touring in achieving its long range, with a drag coefficient of sub-0.2, which trumps all other mass-produced electric cars. This means it uses just 13.5kWh per 100km, which is one of the lowest of any electric car.

Lucid Air Grand Touring

Its 900-Volt architecture allows for speedy DC charging at up to 300kW, which it said can add 400km of range in 16 minutes.

Despite its hyper-miling ability, it has some serious performance.

It has two electric motors delivering all-wheel-drive grip and outputs of 610kW and 1200Nm.

Lucid Air Grand Touring

This enables the Air Grand Touring to hit 100km/h from a standstill in 3.2 seconds on the way to a top speed of 270km.

Lucid’s Senior Vice President of Product and Chief Engineer, Eric Bach, said the vehicle’s record-setting run showed the brand’s technological edge.

“Our Lucid products combine world-class vehicle efficiency with the most advanced drive units, ultra-high voltage architecture, and battery management technology available today, which lets a Lucid travel further with less energy than any other vehicles,” said Bach.