Maserati Grecale Trofeo: More Fun than Any SUV Should Ever Be

This is America on the Road, named Best Radio Show by the International Automotive Media

Conference, and now in its 33rd year on the air.

Thanks for being with us as we bring you the latest automotive information from around

the world.

I'm Jack D. Rad, with me is co-host Chris Teague.

Glad to have Chris with us, of course, and Chris, are you going to be traveling soon

on a car event, anything like that in the offing?

My car events are coming up in late March and April.

I do have a winter testing event for the New England Motor Press Association in Boston

in a couple of weeks. It's always exciting to drive all the new cars. How are you doing?

Yeah, that too. I'm traveling next week, so we'll talk about that probably next week.

Plenty of automotive news to talk about this week. California says it's just a study.

My critics warn that a proposed per mile driving tax investigation could be the next step toward

charging drivers hundreds or thousands of dollars just to use the roads. I'm eager for

your thoughts on this, Chris. A self-driving Waymo vehicle struck a child near a California

elementary school, fairly close to where I live, actually, forcing federal regulators to ask

whether autonomous cars are truly ready for school zone reality or prime time, for that

matter. We'll have more on that. Here's something I'd love to do for drivers with champagne

tastes and deep pockets. I might have champagne tastes, not the deep pockets. The peninsula,

that hotel chain, the luxury hotel chain, is offering a $37,000 Scottish Highlands road trip,

the trade's modern supercars for classic machines and castle line back roads.

And there are other trips for Central California and Japan. That's pretty cool.

Truecars founder is back after a big buyout that will take the company private and he promises

that the site will change. So did you ever ride for Truecar, Chris? I did not. I did,

actually. I wrote for a while and I suppose if you go on the Truecar site, you're still

going to see the Jack Arnie red buy line. America on the Road is brought to you by

drivingtoday.com, emlancy.com, the publisher of my latest book, Only One Thing Stays the Same

and Mercury Insurance. If you're looking to save some money, you should switch to Mercury for your

auto and home insurance. California save an average of $670 with Mercury, so imagine how

much you could save. Get a quote today at drivingtoday.com slash auto insurance. That's drivingtoday.com

slash auto hyphen insurance. What is your test car for this week, Chris? I spent the week driving

the 2026 Toyota Crown Signia. It's one of their newer SUV models. It's all hybrid and I can't

wait to tell you all about it. I look forward to your look at this thing. That should be,

I'm not quite sure whether it's an SUV, a sedan. It's kind of all of these and above. My test

vehicle this week is the 2025 Maserati Graccale Trofeo. My wife and I drove it out to the desert

and back and we'll tell you all about that. Our special guest this week is Zach Walker,

who is the chief engineer on the Lucid Gravity SUV, so stay with us for that and we'll be right

back right here on America on the Road. Welcome back everybody to America on the Road with Chris

T. Jeff. You head back with me for News Time and this is a frightening piece of news for me, Chris.

There are assurances from a lot of lawmakers out here in California that it isn't going to happen

yet, but California drivers and other drivers around the country might want to pay close attention

to the state's latest move toward a mileage-based driving tax while no new mile fee has been

enacted. It hasn't been enacted by the California State Assembly. They have approved legislation

to study this and when they are studying something like this in this one-party state,

I think maybe it's going to be instituted fairly soon. We'll have to see, of course,

California is searching for new revenue sources because, like many states, it has run out of

money. It seems to spend money as if it were water and California is hardly alone. Oregon has

tested a voluntary, wow who would do it, per mile program. What's your overall take on this? I'm kind

of just amazed in some ways. I have an viscerally negative reaction to this. They've announced

this in Massachusetts a few months ago. They're going to also study this. I'm sure that Maine won't

be far behind them where I live. Look, if you're looking for revenue, gouging your drivers, trying

to get to work, trying to go to the hospital and all these other things, that's not the right way

to do it. If this is an environmental thing, I can name 10 other things that are more pressing

for tax, cruise ships, airlines, all those sorts of things. This just rubs me the wrong way from

a bunch of different angles. I think in favor of this, I suppose, is the fact that gas tax

revenues are going down. Of course, California has one of the largest, if not the largest gas

tax in the country, but as cars get higher fuel economy, you use less gas. The tax revenues

go down from that point of view or at least don't go up as quickly as they think. On the other hand,

I got to believe that if they were to institute this, they would not take away the gas tax. They

would just put this on top of the gas tax. You have to really wonder about things like fairness

and privacy. If you have to drive a long distance, you're going to be paying one heck of a lot more,

not only in the gas tax, but in this per mile thing. People in rural areas are going to be

disproportionately struck by this. I bet the California legislators don't

care too much about that given the makeup of them. Then there's just the privacy issue.

I'm like, how are they going to figure out who's driving how many miles? I'm really concerned

about that. Your thoughts on that? Yeah. I've been very opposed to these insurance trackers

that you plug into your car that monitor your driving and the apps on your phones and things

like that. I just feel like there's so many different ways, even if the government is completely

benevolent, which at this point, I think we all realize that it's not. There are so many ways

that that data could end up in the wrong hands and just end up being harmful to people. Additionally,

Jack, we're talking about a tax that could impact people who are already struggling to afford food,

already having trouble getting to work, all these things in areas where public transport is not that

solid. Even in your part of the country, I don't think it's that great. There are a lot of problems.

Big problems with this. I am fearful because it's being studied. When something is studied here in

the legislature, there's a tendency to be enacted fairly soon. We'll have to see. I think there

would be a real outcry by the populace, but we'll have to see about that. Let's see. Also,

about Waymo, the latest problems Waymo has had with its self-driving taxis. One of its vehicles

struck a child near a school in Santa Monica, California. Happily, the child wasn't badly

injured. This happened in a school drop-off area. You're probably quite used to that. I used to be

quite used to that too, what those drop-off areas are like. According to Waymo, the child ran into

the street from behind double-parked SUV and was struck at very low speed. Waymo says the vehicle

detected the child, slowed from 17 miles per hour, which just seems kind of fast in a drop-off sound,

to about 6 miles per hour before impact. I don't want to be hit by a car going 6 miles an hour.

I can tell you that. The car immediately called 911, so I guess that's okay. Minor injuries in

the child, but this is a problem, don't you think? It is. The first thing, and I hate this,

the first thing that popped into my mind is who's liable for this accident. The kids' parents are

going to have questions about this. Are they going to sue Waymo? Is there any liability here at all?

Yeah. I wonder, this could have happened with a human driver, with a car darting out in front

of a human driver, and a similar thing could happen. Then maybe the results would have been

worse. I guess you could say that, but I think there still has to be a probe of this,

and it makes sense that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would look into this.

I just don't know that we're ready for autonomous vehicles, and I just shake my head for it.

I'll say this. In Maine, in the past six months, we've had two unfortunately fatal accidents where

children were hit or otherwise injured by a school bus traveling five miles an hour or whatever,

and these are people who are trained and everything to do this. I don't know. I still have questions

about the safety of autonomous cars in general, given what we saw in San Francisco over the past

few years. Yeah. Well, here's something a little brighter news. This is a very cool thing that's

being put out there by the Peninsula Hotel Chain. Of course, there's a very high-lux

hotel chain. I've stayed in the Peninsula Hotel in Tokyo one time. It's one of the most memorable

hotel stays I've ever had. They have put together what they call the Peninsula Motoring Series,

and what they're touting here is a six-day driving adventure through the Scottish Highlands

that's going to happen this fall. Beginning September 21, participants will gather at the

Peninsula London. They'll travel north to Scotland where they will get into era-specific vehicles

that will be revealed at a historic estate, and then you will drive. These people will drive those

cars for the remainder of the journey. I've done a similar thing in Ireland, much lower buck, but

with many years and years ago. Sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? It does. Unfortunately for me, I have

a beer budget and champagne taste, so I'm not, probably not their target audience, but for me,

these sorts of cars are much more exciting than modern supercars. They have personality,

they're of the era, as you say. I just wish that I could access these things, or if there were

some things that are more more accessible like this here in the United States, I think people

would do it. Yeah, I mean, this is going to go through a national park. They're going to have a

three-night stay at a private historic estate. Dining experiences, whiskey tastings, certainly

after you're driving, one hopes, traditional pursuits such as falconry, archery, and axe

throwing. So, and all of this is going to cost just $37,000 per couple. So, for the right couple,

$18,500 per person, it does include all meals, activities, and vehicle use. It could be a fun

thing. I think we're going to start seeing more of this out of the hospitality industry as they

look to improve their profit margins. The people who can afford these trips are still going to be

traveling and doing things even when other people aren't. I've seen some similar things from Marriott,

not car-related, but like culinary tours and things like that. So, this isn't that surprising,

but again, I wish we could afford or make one more affordable for everybody else. Yeah, and I

think maybe that's something America on the road should think about hosting. As a matter of fact,

I've thought about this for years, doing something like this. They're doing something

more affordable around Monterey Car Week. This is a three-day drive that's priced at around $5,000

per person. Of course, you have to pay additionally for lodging. But these drives are fun. We've

done a lot of them ourselves in press drives, so we know how this thing works. It's kind of a cool

opportunity for folks. Yeah, the press drives are sometimes a good opportunity for me to experience

things I wouldn't otherwise. Yeah, I think in a lot of ways we can live like millionaires while

being far from millionaires. That's absolutely true. Well, I want to talk a little bit about

Truecar. It has been reacquired by its founder, Scott Painter, a guy I've known for years and years

$227 million deal to take the company private. This, of course, is a car research site.

It competes with a bunch of other car research sites out there. Hard for me to say, but there's

a bunch of them, including ones I have worked for and ones you are working for now. It'll be

interesting to see whether they can differentiate the Truecar site, because I think that's been

difficult up till now. It has. And as we talked about a little bit earlier before we started

recording, $227 million seems like a shocking number for this company in the state that it's in now.

But I'll say that the industry's challenging dealerships. The car retail in general is

challenging and then trying to insert yourself as a middleman or a marketer is even harder,

especially, as you say, against the established players. Yeah, and with AI out there and that's

changing the game very rapidly, too. So we'll have to see what happens with the traditional car

research sites, including Truecar and the others. Remind us of your test vehicle for this week.

I drove the 2026 Toyota Crown Signia and I'm driving the Maserati Graccale Trofeo.

Holy smokes was I lucky. So stay with us for that and we'll have those road tests when we come back.

I received a letter from a reader this week and I thought I'd share it with you. Here's what he wrote.

I just got around to reading Dance in the Dark and wanted to say how much I enjoyed it.

I'm a compulsive reader and this one was right up my alley. An unlikely hero. A lot of twists and

turns, some adult content and humor that rose naturally from the action. Keep on writing and

I'll keep on reading. Of course, that's just the kind of letter any author would love to get.

I hope that others get the same enjoyment from reading Dance in the Dark and my newest crime

novel, Only One Thing Stays the Same. Both are available exclusively at Amazon.com.

That's Dance in the Dark and Only One Thing Stays the Same, both written by me, Jack Arnie Redd.

Thanks for looking for them today.

Welcome back, everybody, to America on the Road with Chris T. Jack Neerad back with you. It is

road test time and we have two vastly different vehicles in some ways here. I guess they're both

can be called SUVs in the broadest sense, but very, very different. Tell us about the vehicle you

were driving this week, Chris. Yeah, Jack, I think you could call the Toyota Crown Signia an SUV,

but the regular Toyota Crown, which is classed as a sedan, feels more SUV-like to me than this vehicle

does. And unfortunately, both of these vehicles are kind of meant to be Toyota's upscale stand-in

for the Avalon, which went away a few years back. And I don't think either one of them achieves that

premium feel that the Avalon had. It doesn't feel almost Lexus-like as the Avalon did. But

taking a step back, this vehicle starts, it only comes in two trims. It starts at around $44,500,

excuse me. My limited trim starts at $48,890, and then with a few options in destination, we

come in at around $50,000. Have you driven the Crown Signia, Jack? And if so, what are your

light impressions about it? I have. It seems like an odd duck. I mean, that isn't necessarily a

knock either. It's an odd duck in kind of an interesting way and the way it sits and the way

it looks from behind the wheel and inside. I got a lot out of it. I liked it. Yeah, it is kind of

an odd duck. It almost reminds me more of like a station wagon than an SUV, but that's not a bad

thing. I like wagons. Both of the trims, they're hybrid only. It's a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine

with two electric motors that makes a combined 240 horsepower, 178 pound-feet of torque, which reaches

all four wheels via a continuously variable transmission. Now, I've talked at length about

Toyota's hybrid systems in the past, and I'll go into it a little bit here. I think that one of the

things that people notice with hybrids is that there's kind of a jumpy transition between the

electric takeoff system and then the gas engine when it kicks on and starts providing power.

And there's some of that here, but it's far more refined than the other vehicles. And what you don't

get is the sort of feeling that there's something mechanical happening under the car when that

transition happens, which some hybrids have. And Toyota does a good job with the continuously

variable transmission too. And the only time I really notice the engine wailing and whining is

when you're merging onto a highway and you stomp on the throttle and it just hits that high RPM

note and stays there. It does a zero to 16 around seven seconds, so this is not a super quick vehicle,

but I think if you're commuting around town, the electric motor has good torque off the line,

so you're never going to feel like you don't have enough grunt to pull out into traffic.

It also has a good response, so there's not like a press the throttle and wait for it to do something.

It actually feels like the car is listening to you and ready to go when you are. Having said

that, the handling is car-like. It's more nimble than an SUV, but the ride quality is more SUV-like

to me. I don't know if you've ever experienced this where the handling feels good, but the ride

doesn't really match up with that. Jack, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting take,

but I get what you're talking about and I kind of agree with what you're saying there. I mean,

it's an interesting combination, isn't it? One of the things I've noticed, I've been driving my

daughter to ski practices. Ski practice is about an hour north of here and half the road is just a

plowed snow road and once it freezes, it's very bumpy. I had a Land Rover Defender last week and

it was just floated over the thing with the air suspension. I realized this is a totally different

class of vehicle, but for an upscale SUV, this vehicle feels very jostling on potholes roads and

things like that. So, I would just take it for a test drive. It's not bad at all. Inside, you get

good space up front. I really enjoy the width and the depth of these seats. I could find a good

position to drive in. I like to have my seat low and feel like I'm kind of surrounded by the vehicle

and I was able to do that. It comes standard with leather upholstery, which feels very nice, although

the back seats, I'm not sure, are leather. They did feel kind of like synthetic leather. We can

check with Toyota on that one down the road. You get heated and ventilated front seats, heated rear

seats. The back seats have a good amount of space. I actually had my wife move my seat and drive once

and I sat behind her plenty of room for a six foot tall adult in the back. No real issues with

headroom either. That is one of the things I've noticed with some of the modern SUVs with the

sloped roof. I didn't really notice that here. Then we get to the technology, which is much

improved over Toyota's infotainment system and tech from a few years ago. You get a 12.3-inch

touchscreen, a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The

limited trim adds wireless phone charging and 11-speaker JBL sound system. Jack, there are

physical buttons for the climate system here, so big thumbs up for that. Yeah, hooray, hooray.

Yeah, you get physical buttons for the heated seats and the heated steering wheel and then a

lot of other things are in the infotainment system. But the things that you need to use are buttons

and you can figure them out and learn where they are. Toyota's new system is responsive.

The bright interface is easy to see. It's good from both angles. The passenger and driver seat

and then the wireless Apple CarPlay functions flawlessly. Additionally, you get a full suite

of safety equipment here. You get rear cross-traffic alerts, blind spot monitoring, forward

emergency braking, and all the rest. Jack, I think if this were me, I'd probably opt for the

lower end of the price spectrum here, then you miss out on things like the panoramic sunroof and

stuff. But almost 50 grand for this vehicle, I would be looking for a little bit more value out of

this, especially given that it's supposed to be the upscale sort of stand-in for the Avalon,

as I mentioned before. Yeah. Well, it's kind of a Venza substitute too, isn't it? And you know

how we love our Venza. I think I said this about the last Venza. I prefer the first-generation Venza.

The last Venza felt very similar inside to the Avalon, or I'm sorry, the Crown Signio. Yeah,

there you go. Well, a vehicle to look at certainly and a little different, so I like that. And talk

about different. Let's talk about the Maserati Graccale Trofeo that I was driving. I'm right off

the top. This is a vehicle I loved. Absolutely. There's something wonderful about a luxury vehicle

that has so much power that power just isn't an issue. You probably experienced that a few times,

and that's exactly what I found in this vehicle. And at the same time, this wasn't temperamental in

any way. It can be used as a compact SUV. That's what it is. It's a very expensive compact SUV,

but this is a vehicle I like, especially in this form. I would probably like it in lesser forms,

but with all this horsepower, boy, it was terrific. And then you have all that Maseratiness in the

Italian-esque interior and all that kind of stuff. It is meant to stand apart from

rivals from the Germans, for example. I think it's just more emotional, for some reason. It has

Italian styling inside and out. You have that distinctive exhaust note that I think you favor.

In this case, I like it too. This comes from a turbocharged V6 that I'm going to talk about here

pretty quickly. In fact, let's talk about it now. It's a 3-liter twin-turbocharged V6.

It produces 530 horsepower, 457 pound-feet of torque. I'm telling you, power is no issue at all.

This is a version of the Natuno V6 that he's used in the Maserati MC20. And the fact that it's a

highly tuned engine with a lot of horsepower. I mean, that's a lot of horsepower for its

displacement. But at the same time, it operated really well. Just a tiny hint of turbo lag.

They put a wet sump lubrication system in this. They also added cylinder deactivation, which was

absolutely seamless. I barely know. I didn't notice as I was driving. This is a vehicle that'll go

from 0 to 60 in 3.8 seconds with a top speed of 177 miles an hour. That is my kind of luxury

compact SUV. What are your thoughts, Chris? Yeah, I agree. It sets itself apart from the

German SUVs. You get an X3M or a GLC 63 or whatever it is from Mercedes. This is completely

different than those vehicles. It just feels more tightly wound and it's, as you say, more emotional.

Launch control is standard. Happily, I wasn't drag racing anybody, but I could have.

When you have something like this, you kind of look for other vehicles beside you at stop lights

going, hmm, what could happen here? I could take you. Yeah, exactly. It has an air suspension,

so that plays a big role in the Trofeo's dual personality. Because like I say, this is a super

car. This has amazing performance at the same time. It felt perfectly usable as a compact SUV.

It has six selectable ride height settings. Let me tell you, I didn't try all six. It seems excessive.

But the fact that this has a vehicle dynamic control that manages all of this stuff,

it just was smarter than I was, smarter than I am, and just felt great. What's your thoughts

about this kind of very advanced suspension and that kind of thing? I love air suspension.

I love it so much. We bought a Land Rover Defender a few months ago and it's got it,

and I love it. It doesn't have six settings on it though, but having the ability to do that in

the vehicle that you can also take your kids to school in is just a really cool thing. Yeah.

Let me talk about the interior because it's gorgeous. Perforated leather seats, exposed carbon

fiber trim. They're very tastefully done. They can be kind of cheesy looking carbon fiber,

I think, but this looked great. Contrast stitching that was exclusive to the Trofeo,

which is the top of the line of this thing. 14-way power adjustable sports seats. I drove

this out to the desert and back from my home near the coast in California.

Supremely comfortable going out there. It has memory functions, heating, ventilation.

The rear seat accommodations are good too. I didn't spend much time in the rear seat,

but I did try them out and they're good looking. There's plenty of cargo room. 20.1 cubic feet

of cargo space behind the second row. This is a five passenger vehicle. I just thought

this is a great combination. This is something really interesting you could have versus having

the BMW X7 or BMW X5, X3, those others that you might have that are in the same class.

I should talk about price before we run out of time here because price is a big deal

in more ways than one. This did have a very usable infotainment system that is

very much like those in much lesser Stellantis vehicles. We like that.

That was very good. Let me talk to you. A 21 speaker audio system as well,

but price of this thing as tested was $124,000, so gulp. That's a ton of money,

but I like this vehicle a lot. I would like it more if there were a Maserati dealer or service

center within the same time zone as me. No, I'm joking. It's in Boston, but that's the issue with

a lot of the performance cars for people who live in New England. We just don't have a place to

take them or even buy them. I get that. You're bringing reality into this,

but this is one of those vehicles where I think you have to suspend reality. Sometimes you do

that in the movie theater and I think you're doing that if you buy the Maserati Greccale

Trofeo, but certainly worth a look. Our special guest this week is Zach Walker.

He is the chief engineer on the Lucid Gravity SUV, so stay with us for that and we'll be

right back right here on America on the Road. I'd like to tell you about the most exciting

and authentic racing novel I've ever read. It's called Closing Speed written by award-winning

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as a look into the very heart of the sport, an incomparable racing read. It's available now

at Amazon. That's Closing Speed by Ted West. Look for it. Welcome back, everybody. To America on

the red deck, we're back with you. We're in the bowels of a hotel in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where

we're doing North American car utility and truck of the year testing. And with me is a terrific

guest. Zach Walker is an engineer with Lucid Motors and you've done a lot of things, including

being the chief engineer of the vehicle. We're testing here, which is the Lucid Gravity SUV.

Tell us a bit about that, you know, that whole, that whole thing. That whole thing,

the whole enchilada. Yeah, indeed. We'll take some slices. So yeah, I think, like you said,

I was a chief engineer for the Lucid Gravity. Obviously worked on other products since then,

but started off from a concept phase when we took it from trying to build it as much as we could

off the Lucid Air, keeping the Lucid Air's HV architecture, which is high voltage architecture.

But really, in order to achieve everything we wanted, had to completely rebuild a new structural

skateboard, underbody, chassis. So it's a brand new vehicle, same high voltage architecture, but

very different vehicle from the Lucid Air. Okay. Well, Lucid Air is one of my favorites. But I

have driven the gravity. I love that as well. Very, very interesting. Tell us what you are

trying to accomplish in this. I mean, certainly, for a luxury, kind of an ultra luxury manufacturer,

SUVs are really where that market is. It's not a sedan market. It really is an SUV market. Talk

a bit about that and what you were trying to accomplish in that vehicle. I think,

well, we were accomplishing for the gravity is everything what we believe in from a Lucid

perspective, right? So our new tagline of how we communicate what we're going for is compromise

nothing, right? So as an engineer, that hurts to say sometimes because I have to compromise

everything. Everything is like, no, that can be that. I can't get that cost and that. But

it's about the vision of you don't need to choose as a customer what you're getting. You don't need

to choose between your sports car, your space SUV, right? Your thing that you can go camping on

and the thing that you can have fun driving in the mountains. So what we are trying to achieve

is basically a threshold of attributes that achieves something that most people can't

comprehend can all be in one vehicle. Okay. And how does that manifest itself in what you did?

Tell us about that. Yeah. So the Lucid gravity, right? What we do is it's smaller than a lot of

full size SUVs. You can walk up to it and it looks a lot smaller than exterior. However,

you get inside and it's 120 cubic feet, right? Which if you compared anyone else,

yeah, that's big, very large, right? I'll look at a lot who people will say large inside could be

80 cubic feet. And right, you get into the Lucid gravity, look behind you,

and it is just cavernous. And what we did was was everything about miniaturizing the powertrain,

being really efficient so that we can make really small battery pack that still gets really far

range, but it doesn't take up your valuable customer package. So now you get a very small

exterior footprint, you get inside and it's best in class for interior footprint. And then you go

driving and you get your 450 miles of range. And if you really want to push it and have fun,

it's the ultimate riding handling. So it's about giving every bit of space, every last millimeter

back to the customer. It strikes me some of the secret sauce comes from the powertrain itself

or from the electric motors and just how that works. Talk about yeah. So everything we've done

is a miniaturization of the powertrain. So the powertrain and again, our powertrain team

is unbelievable. I talked to some of the guys and they are just brilliant. And what they've done is

packaged everything, the differential, everything from the differential, the gears, the actual inverter,

something that can fit into basically a carry-on luggage. And then you say, you give you point

that to someone and say, Oh, by the way, that's like easily you put those two together and we're

like in the 1000 horsepower range. And people are just mind blown. And so it's about making that

package and miniaturizing it so that we can still get all those amazing attributes of like

the torque and the power you expect from an electric vehicle. But then we give you the huge

frunk, we miniaturize the rear drive unit so we can bring the load floor really low. So you get

this really amazing loading experience. And then we build everything around that we make

brand new seats that can fold into the floor. So now you get this flat load floor all the way to

the front seats. And that's how you get this really large amount of space. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about

the high voltage thing because it's crucial. And I think a lot of people just don't grasp it. Yeah.

So obviously, when you're talking about what you work with every day, when you plug into your wall,

we're talking about like 120 volt system, right? Some electric vehicles kind of moved on and went

to about a 400 volt system, which is a higher voltage. We are in what would be 1000 volt region.

Really, it's in 900 to 800 volts depending on the state of charge. But we're in that voltage,

high voltage region. And what that allows us to do is it allows us to basically produce a lot of

power without producing a lot of heat, which lets us be super efficient. So high voltage system

lets you operate in that power region and make an amazing electric vehicle. So when we talk about

high voltage, we talk about the battery pack is the most common thing people think about. Yeah.

That battery pack is where we store all the energy. That energy is then moved up into our inverters,

right? We basically think built in the drive unit, which converts the energy into something that can

be then pushed into the drive unit and then that drive unit connects to the wheels and it

generates torque, right? And so obviously, it can also generate braking. And that's where we

talk about this term region braking, which gives you energy back. But it is overall your

high voltage system is everything that gives you that longitudinal four aft motion in whether

that's a braking or a torque generation. Yeah. In just kind of layman's term, tell people why

higher voltage is better than lower voltage. What are the advantages? The biggest advantage is that

you generate less heat per the wires you have. So the world is energy. Everything is energy.

So in the most layman terms I can is that you charge you can charge faster. You can charge faster.

You can you can basically charge faster. You can go farther, right? That's where you get more

higher. It's like you can jump higher. It's like five million dollars. So it's really from a customer

experience that higher voltage allows you to take a smaller pack, go farther with it,

waste less energy, and thus also with our drive units and the efficiency of those,

be able to put energy back into those drive units and recharge the pack so that you can

go farther in a shorter amount of time for charging. Yeah, got it. Talk about the goal of

making this a fun to drive vehicle. I just got out of among the vehicles I'm testing here is the

Cadillac Escalade IQ, which is a big school bus size vehicle. I'm not sure that it has much more

interior space than say the gravity does. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but probably pretty

comparable. Does a lot of things okay, but not necessarily super fun to drive, but gravity is.

Tell us why and what you were aiming for there. Yeah, so when we talk about the gravity and

everything about Lucid, we don't care about track times. Like we have the Sapphire, which

is an unbelievable track car. But when we talk with the vehicle dynamics, we really care about

is do you have a smile on your face? That's like our grade. Everything I talk about is like,

does someone get in the car and just it feels right. The average customer, I don't expect to

describe to me the lateral Gs and I can do this amount of turn, but are you smiling? Is it just

fun? Is it intuitive? Did you have a great experience? So when we talk about that, I would

say, does it is it predictable? Does it do what you want? Does it give you feedback? So do you

feel comfortable? Do you feel confident? And is it not wallowing? Is it not like kind of in this

mode like, you know, when you're in these cars that can be boaty and like you're kind of rotating

and I've never experienced that. But what we want is we want it to be planted, but not

then transferring loads and making you uncomfortable when you hit events or potholes or

things. So that balance is amazing rides. You're super comfortable, but you're super planted and

comfortable. How do you get there? Because, you know, one thing about electrics is they're heavy,

right? Battery packs are heavy. Yeah, there's no getting around that. And as efficient as you can

make the electric motors, you're still going to have a battery that's going to weigh quite a bit.

So you have to deal with that. How do you deal with that? So there's there's an interesting

point is one, you try to get them as low to the floor as possible. So I don't want stacks and stacks

of batteries on top of each other. I want them on the ground so that the center of gravity, all the

weight is towards the ground. And the other thing is I want to push as much of the batteries as I

can towards the middle, because it lets you kind of rotate and have that fun driving dynamics.

So if you can get your way, that's why you have a midship tension in a race car. Exactly. Correct.

It's very similar theory, right? So if I get the weight towards the middle, then it will turn in

more. And you'll kind of have this dynamic index that you can have a playful car, even if it's a

little heavier than like a combustion engine is. Yeah, yeah. Talk about the interior. I mean,

it's critical. This is a luxury vehicle. They're not inexpensive, certainly. I think people expect

a lot out of this this type of vehicle. Give us the the high hard ones on that. So I think

the overall feeling we want is we want you to get in and feel like it's super clean. It's not just

flashy and in your face, but it feels clean, but it feels premium. So all the materials we use

are just begging to be touched, right? That's our goal is like, it's, it's, you don't just get in

and just like, okay, I'm in something. It's how I need to touch that. I want to see what this feels

like. Okay, that's different than that. Oh, that thing on the instrument panel up there. Why does

it have all these rectangles? Can I? Oh, that's interesting. It pulls you in. And so it's this

amazing way of what we want is you to just feel at home, you to feel like you're basically in your

living room with premium materials and just draws you in. And then what we want is that you keep

getting surprised by the amount of space. So you get inside, you feel premium, you feel all these

amazing materials, and then you go, wait, the center console, I can put my entire person, the center

console, how wait, that person behind me, if I'm like a six foot six person still has space,

how is that possible? So it's kind of the two of this premium feel and this surprise and delight

of space. Yeah. And folding seats and a lot of interior, almost minivan like in a way in terms

of versatility. Tell us about that. And I think what we believe is minivan space is not a bad term,

right? Because that's what you want. You want the minivan space but the sports car driving.

So what we have is all the seats, we basically made our drive unit, which is really small,

and we made the entire load floor be on the top of the drive unit. And we said we will find a way

to get these seats to be at that same height as the drive unit. And so everything we did was

designed brand new seats like mechanisms that other people aren't using, so we could collapse

and fold the seats so that when you are a passenger, you're comfortable, you have all that space.

But then when you want to put that huge thing in the back, when you want to sleep in it from camping,

when you want to get that huge piece of plywood, then you have this flat load floor all the way

from the rear to the front that you can store all that items in. Yeah. This is precisely an

engineering question but I'm curious about it and probably an engineer has to know this then.

Who is this designed for? Who is the customer for the loose gravity? The customer experience,

right? So if we talk about the customer profile or the experience, I would say it is we're trying

to hit a really large bandwidth, a large amount of customers. And that's where if we can hit a family

of someone who is like if you're looking for an engaging driving experience but also the space,

the gravity is for you, right? If you need utility but you're not willing to give up on

your experience, you're not willing to like oh I'm just going to have to deal with this

wallowing vehicle, that's what it's made for us. The person who wants

this breadth of experiences and attributes on one car. I think a lot of people are probably

hearing this and going I'm really curious about that but I really don't know anything about

Lucid Motors and I don't know how to buy one, how to do all of that stuff. What would you tell them?

I would say we have an amazing network, right? So we do most of our sale direct to customers. We

have if you go to elucidmotors.com you can find what your nearest store is, go check out our vehicles.

You can obviously go and talk to the representatives there and they'd be more than happy to take you

through the car. Obviously you can probably find a lot online. I think with the elucid air,

tons of awards of a vehicle. One of my favorites in it has been for a long time.

And we're hoping to copy all of that with elucid gravity. So I think there's plenty of

ways to go learn more and see about Lucid. Dave and I led the introduction of that vehicle

inadvertently. Great. One of the things that I'm not necessarily proud of but in some ways I am.

So very very cool. Give us a little sense of price and that kind of thing before I let you go.

Yeah so we currently are selling the Grand Touring. So that Grand Touring is in the 90,000 region.

Same as air we plan on keeping moving down market, making cheaper trims available.

So obviously there's other trims that will be announced soon that keep going down market.

We announced at the LA Auto Show a couple years ago that our plan is to get

to right around the 80,000 mark. Very cool. Well Zach Walker, thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it very much and stay with us everybody. We'll

welcome back to America on the road with co-host Chris Teague, which is Gack Niran with you and

it is listener question time. We love to answer your questions based on our long experience

providing car advice. So send your questions to editoratdrivingtoday.com. That's editoratdrivingtoday.com.

Chris, I think this is an excellent question from Terence. He's in Orem, Utah. Let me see,

let me tell you what he said. I am looking at buying a new car and I think I want a hybrid.

What's the real difference between a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid in daily driving?

Oh, well, hybrids and plug-in hybrids. Hybrids do not have to be plugged in. Plug-in hybrids do need

to be plugged in to deliver their full fuel economy benefit. The trade off there is that plug-in hybrids

also have an extended electric range. So I think like the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid is like 40,

45 miles of range. And then it functions like a normal hybrid vehicle after that.

Regular hybrids only use the electric motor during takeoff and when you're coasting on the highway

or at lower speeds. So you don't get that electric range, but you still get a benefit.

What I will say is that neither of them are particularly great for people who spend long

time driving on the highway because hybrids are primarily aimed at saving fuel economy in

stop-and-go traffic like around town. I mean, my smart-ass response to this would be

$2,000 to $5,000 is the big difference. And you have to look at that to see whether you have any

kind of payback period if you want to kind of be rational about buying the vehicle. So there you

go. I think you've summed it up very well. That wraps up our show for this week. I'd like to remind

everyone that my crime novel, only one thing stays the same, is available in both e-book and paperback

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