Lucid Beats Tesla and Porsche for Best Luxury EV Brand With Just Two Models

A four-year-old startup with only two vehicles just embarrassed the entire luxury EV establishment. U.S. News & World Report named Lucid Motors the Best Luxury Electric Vehicle Brand for 2025, ranking the American upstart above Tesla, Porsche, BMW, and Rivian.

The recognition validates what Lucid has been claiming since its founding: engineering excellence can trump production volume. But the timing creates a painful irony for a company simultaneously battling supply chain disasters and slashed production targets.

Perfect Score for the Gravity SUV

U.S. News awarded the Lucid Gravity SUV a perfect 10 out of 10, the highest score in the luxury electric SUV category. The Lucid Air sedan scored 9.3 out of 10, placing it at the top of luxury electric sedans.

“Both of Lucid’s EVs offer mind-blowing acceleration, very fast charging, and some of the highest ratings for efficiency on the market,” U.S. News stated in announcing the inaugural award category.

The publication praised Lucid for “its level of overall excellence” despite having a fraction of the model lineup offered by competitors.

This marks the first year U.S. News created dedicated EV brand categories, making Lucid the inaugural winner. Ford claimed the non-luxury Best Electric Vehicle Brand title.

The Lineup That Beat Legacy Luxury

The Lucid Air Touring starts at $78,900 and delivers 620 horsepower with more than 400 miles of range. It sprints from 0-60 mph in 3.4 seconds while outperforming Mercedes-Benz in refinement, according to Autoblog testing.

Above the Touring sits the 819-horsepower Grand Touring at $114,900. The flagship Air Sapphire produces a staggering 1,234 horsepower and costs $249,000.

The Gravity SUV lineup now starts at $79,900 with the recently launched Touring trim. It seats up to seven passengers and delivers an EPA-estimated 337 miles of range from its 89 kWh battery pack. The Grand Touring version stretches range to 450 miles.

Both vehicles feature native NACS compatibility, granting access to more than 25,000 Tesla Superchargers across North America.

Rankings Reveal Tesla’s Luxury Problem

The full U.S. News luxury EV brand rankings expose uncomfortable truths about market perception. Rivian placed second, followed by BMW, Genesis, and Tesla in fifth place.

Porsche, Cadillac, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo rounded out the top ten.

Tesla’s fifth-place finish represents a significant blow to a company that once defined the premium EV segment. The ranking suggests that despite Tesla’s volume dominance, buyers and reviewers increasingly view competitors as offering superior luxury experiences.

Ambitious Plans Meet Harsh Reality

Lucid’s Vice President of Communications Nick Twork told Autoblog the company expects to produce 20,000 vehicles in 2025. However, that figure conflicts with recent corporate guidance.

In early November, Lucid cut its 2025 production forecast to approximately 18,000 vehicles, down from the 20,000 target it held at the start of the year. Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff cited a cascade of supply chain disruptions including chip shortages and a September fire at aluminum supplier Novelis.

The company also secured a $300 million investment from Uber to deploy up to 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs as robotaxis in partnership with autonomous technology firm Nuro. Deployments are expected to begin in a major U.S. city by late 2026.

Looking further ahead, Lucid plans to launch three new mid-sized models by late 2026, targeting the Tesla Model Y and other mainstream compact EVs.

EVXL’s Take

This award represents the ultimate validation of Lucid’s “do more with less” engineering philosophy at precisely the moment the company needs it most.

We have been tracking Lucid’s journey through a brutal 2025. In July, we reported on the company’s Q2 delivery shortfall despite production gains. By November, the situation had deteriorated further when Lucid slashed its production forecast to 18,000 units amid what Winterhoff called a “Whac-A-Mole” of supply disruptions.

The timing of this recognition is bittersweet. The $7,500 federal EV tax credit expired on September 30, 2025, fundamentally reshaping the economics of luxury EV purchases. October EV sales collapsed 24% in a single month as the post-subsidy reality set in. Lucid’s Gravity Touring launch at $79,900 arrived just weeks after that credit disappeared, forcing the company to compete on merit alone.

That is exactly what this award proves Lucid can do.

The contrast with Tesla is striking. While Tesla’s U.S. sales dropped 9% even as the overall EV market grew, and the company scrambled to add CarPlay after years of dismissing customer requests, Lucid quietly built vehicles that reviewers now rank as the best in class. The Lucid Air’s engineering prowess was already evident when it set a Guinness World Record by traveling 749 miles on a single charge.

The Uber robotaxi partnership we covered in July now looks even more significant. If Lucid can survive the current supply chain chaos and post-subsidy demand slump, it has a guaranteed customer for 20,000 vehicles and third-party validation that its technology leads the industry.

The question is survival. With an accumulated deficit exceeding $13 billion and production targets repeatedly missed, Lucid needs this award to translate into showroom traffic. Critical acclaim does not pay the bills.

But in a market where legacy automakers are retreating from EV commitments and Chinese competitors are flooding in with superior technology at lower prices, Lucid has proven something important: an American startup can out-engineer everyone from Stuttgart to Fremont. Whether that engineering excellence can sustain an independent company through the post-subsidy valley of death remains the only question that matters.