The Most Efficient Car in the World Is a Sleek, Swift EV

Now that the major players in the emerging electric vehicle industry seem to have mostly established themselves, it's time to iterate on EV design. We get it, they're electric—but simply not using gasoline or diesel fuel won't be enough. Going forward, EVs will start competing not only on range, but efficiency, just as modern internal combustion vehicles have evolved to develop more power using less fuel. Advances can be generated by aerodynamic tweaks, chemistry changes in the battery, new components, and more, and Lucid now claims it has the most efficient car—not just EV—in the world: the updated 2025 Lucid Air Pure electric sedan. Here's what's changed to make it meet the claim of "most efficient new car in the world."

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Lucid now claims the 2025 Lucid Air Pure EV is capable of an average of 5.0 miles of driving range per kilowatt hour used from the battery pack, recording a 146 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) EPA rating for the electric luxury sedan. That's calculated from a 84 kWh battery pack promising 420 miles of driving range on the Pure model. This all means that the new Pure sedan requires less energy to go further than any other vehicle, gas or electric, currently on the market.

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And it won't matter (as much) if you're driving in cold weather now, either, as Lucid has equipped every new 2025 Air sedan with the same ultra-compact, high-performance heat pump for maintaining optimal battery temperatures that was first introduced on the range-topping Sapphire model. Other changes for the entire 2025 Air sedan lineup includes new infotainment hardware that offers triple the processing power and twice the memory compared to the previous processor. All 2025 Air models will come equipped with Lucid’s DreamDrive Premium Advanced Driver Assistance System, which includes 3D Surround View Monitoring and live blind spot monitoring.

According to the U.S. EPA's website, the comparable 2023 Tesla Model S electric sedan is only good for 120 MPGe, and the smaller Tesla Model 3 manages 132 MPGe. Other competitors include the Hyundai Ioniq 5 at around 100 MPGe depending on trim, the Kia EV6 is good for 117 MPGe in its most-efficient trim, and something like the Ford Mustang Mach-E gets around 93 MPGe.