Road Test: Flying Low in 2023 Lucid Air Touring

Exclusive Interview: David Lickfold, Lucid’s Director of Chassis and Vehicle Dynamics; Average New-Car Price to Top $50K; 800 Miles in 2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport

America on the Road Radio LogoWith more than 600 horsepower on tap, piloting the 2023 Lucid Air Touring is more like flying an airplane than driving a sedan. But a highly competent performance sedan is exactly what the Lucid Air Touring is. Interestingly, it has other personalities as well. And we discovered many of them as we interviewed David Lickfold, Lucid’s Director of Chassis and Vehicle Dynamics.

Host Jack Nerad sat down with him at a recent driving event based in Santa Monica, California. In the extensive interview, he revealed what Lucid Motors set out to achieve in the Air Touring … and how they were able to do it. Their successes in realizing the vision are impressive, as we will detail in our discussion.

The all-new 2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport is the anchor of this week’s road test segment. The new version of the TrailSport is designed and equipped to deliver more off-road prowess than ever before. That said, it will still be an on-road transport vehicle for most of its buyers, so Nerad and his wife put it to the test on a road trip from Southern California to Phoenix. One object of the journey was to test the new Pilot. The other was to attend a couple of Spring Training games before the Major League season started. Mission accomplished on both fronts. And we’ll tell you more in this episode.

At the other end of the country — battling snow and ice — Co-Host Chris Teague was testing the 2023 Volvo XC90. One interesting thing about the test — he and his family own a three-year-old XC90 as their family car of choice. He’ll reveal how the SUV has changed and improved since he bought his.

In the news, new-car prices keep going up, and now a global carmaker says the U.S. average price will top $50,000. We’ll tell who that automaker is and have more details and our thoughts on this coming up.

And Tesla Motors is being investigated again. This time seat belts are the culprit. We’ll tell you which model is affected and what the problem is.

Also newsworthy, the European Union is breathing new life into vehicles with internal combustion engines. Ferrari is one brand that is expressing relief at the news, and we’ll have more details on that and our comments as well.