Lucid Air, Soufyane’s favorite essay
After keeping you informed throughout the year, Automobile Propre stores 2022. In turn, members of the editorial staff share their favorites and rants… and begin to look at 2023. We conclude with Soufyane .
The car that marks 2022?
Like my colleagues, there is no doubt that the MG 4 is the bomb of the year. Much more affordable than the Renault Megane e-Tech, the Chinese compact offers better versatility with less autonomy and faster DC recharge. It’s the perfect electric shape that drivers really need. And there is no doubt that it should be one of the most Googled this year (yes, the verb exists in the dictionary) behind Teslas. But…
Exactly, this Mégane e-Tech will have the same 2022 mark with a hot iron. Approaching the ultimate title of European Car of the Year, it has been talked about for a long time, even before the MG 4. For good, with its pencil stroke and its atmosphere that brings the fresh air that its manufacturer needs. We can also add to the list its strict construction and production in France. But there is a downside, too, in his complex range and his very salty prices that do not allow the compact to express itself freely. To be completely transparent, I hesitate to present the Nissan Ariya here, another good surprise of the year but sadly passed in silence. Maybe he can make up for it by winning the European Car of the Year election when he’s in the final?
My favorite is 2022
The heart has reasons that reason ignores: the crush is inexplicable. felt By a feeling that makes you vibrate from within for something, that makes the hairs stand on end until the tears flow, and that makes you lose all clarity even as the brain tries in vain to find something. useless pragmatic reasons. And this feeling is what assaulted me in our exclusive test of Lucid Air. A model that has excited me since the project was announced, and I couldn’t help but drive before leaving California.
Why him and not the others? No idea, and that’s how we recognize a crush. But he has something about him that no one else has: he loves the unseen more than the seen. This is the result of obsessive technological research, which is enough to light the fuse of my effect. Of course, there is a more reasonable standard to consider: as many of my colleagues taught me, no doubt to bring me to reason, it is expensive, it is not available here, and the industrial and financial indicators of the brand will be in red. But what is important, on the one hand because I am authorized to renounce any form of impartiality and reason in this passage, and on the other hand because this thing is more than anything I know about success and genius. But will genius be enough, surely? The market also has reasons that reason ignores, and history will remember that automotive geniuses, like the Fiat Multipla to name but one, understood only too late.
My rant is 2022
From the still execrable mesh of the recharging network to the explosion of recharging prices in Allego by reversing the jackets in Ionity, among other examples: there are rants this year! But above all, it is the prices of electric cars, the incessant variations and the rules of the ecological bonus that cause a problem in my opinion.
Obviously, we will be reminded that post-Covid, the component crisis, the war in Ukraine and inflation have something to do with it. Which is true, in part. But, no doubt a misalignment of the planets, some models have seen their prices increase with the increase of the ecological bonus threshold and the maintenance of the €1,000 bonus for rechargeable hybrids. The proof of this is in the Kia Niro, whose EV version has increased its prices, while the PHEV version was presented overnight at… €1,000 more. We’re not saying Kia raised prices to take advantage of the bonus, but Kia raised prices at the same time. But not the only Korean brand.
By extension, and we will not dwell on the debate because it is dense, some rules of the ecological bonus should be examined. Because for the medical sector in France, because it is paid, some benefit more than necessary. This can prevent manufacturers from having fun with their price lists, but also some drivers who are happy to speculate thanks to state aid.
PS: I was told on the headset that the rules changed between writing this post and publishing it.
The novelty of 2023 that I look forward to the most
Lucid Air in Europe? Let’s not overdo it, I will be fired. More seriously, there is one that bores me. On the one hand in terms of style, because the brand will have a lot to do to maintain the features of the concept car in a production car if the will is in the middle of the specifications. But on the other hand in the technical chapter to know the choices made in this car, which will succeed in an electric car myth. Are you thinking of the Renault 5 e-Tech? Missed.
I’m thinking more of the production version of the Nissan Chill-Out Concept, which will replace the Leaf, which is no small feat. In any case on the commercial side, because of the technical chapter, it is quite difficult to do less suitable. The resulting urban SUV will use the same CMF-EV platform well-born from its Renault cousins and quite similar characteristics. I wish, however, that the range development was modeled more on the simplicity of the Ariya, rather than the complex catalog of the Mégane e-Tech.
