Lucid shows 217 mph electric car at New York Auto Show

Although still a couple of years away from production, electric vehicle maker Lucid brought two cars to the New York Auto Show, an example of its future Air sedan giving a good idea of its style and interior, and a version of the Air used to test its powertrain and suspension.

The latter, which Lucid calls the Air Alpha Speed car, had just completed testing at the Transportation Research Center in Ohio, sustaining a speed of 217 mph. And that figure is not necessarily its top speed, as it was running with a program limiting it to 217 mph.

At Lucid's stand at the New York Auto Show, Chief Technology Officer Peter Rawlinson said that during its laps in Ohio, which tested the car's high-speed stability, the driver was hitting 200 mph on the banked turns of the oval test track. Referring to a wing mounted on the back of the test car, Rawlinson said the company was considering whether to add an aerodynamic feature to the rear lip of the trunk on higher performance versions of the production car.

When Lucid announced the Air electric car last year, it said the sedan would come with two electric motors, one at each axle, making a combined 1,000 horsepower. With a 100-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery, that means estimated acceleration to 60 mph in about 2.5 seconds and a range of well over 300 miles.

In a blog post, Lucid noted that this sort of testing will ready the Air for global markets with high-speed thoroughfares, which implies Germany's Autobahn.

Late last year, the California-headquartered company announced it would build a manufacturing plant in Arizona, with production of the Air beginning in 2019. A spokesperson for Lucid said the company is raising series D funding in order to support production.