2026 Best Premium EV: Lucid Gravity

Staring at the list of all the vehicles that have won an AutoTrader Award since 2020, every single one was made by what industry folks like to call “legacy” automakers. Think brands that have been around forever: Toyotas, Fords, Volvos — no Teslas, no Rivians, no Lucids. That is, until now, because the 2026 Lucid Gravity is AutoTrader’s Best Premium EV of 2026.

Arizona’s three-row electric luxury SUV beat out heavy-hitter established-brand vehicles like the Cadillac Lyriq, BMW iX, and Porsche Macan Electric, not to mention the formidably techy Rivian R1S and R1T. AutoTrader Awards are voted on by a panel of 20-plus automotive experts from across Canada who evaluate cars on safety, efficiency, user-friendliness, quality, performance, driver satisfaction, tech and features, innovation, value, and overall excellence. As long as a car can be bought new, it’s eligible, and a core gut-check among jurors is that award winners are vehicles we’d personally recommend to friends and family.

And if, say, my uncle was looking to treat himself to a new, fancy EV, he could do a lot worse than the three-row, seven-seat Lucid Gravity. A new model for 2025 and only Lucid’s second ever product (and first SUV), the Gravity is available in two trims: the $113,300 Touring makes 560 horsepower, gets from zero to 100 km/h in 4.2 seconds, and officially goes 542 km on a full charge, while the $134,300 Grand Touring doles out 828 hp, hits 100 km/h in 3.6 seconds, and gets an impressive 724 km of range. Both models are dual-motor all-wheel-drive.

As remarkable as the numbers are, the Gravity’s real wow factor arguably lies in its interior. There’s a 34-inch curved cockpit display in addition to a 12.6-inch touchscreen, but the software it all runs and the cabin surrounding it almost feel like a quantum leap over pretty much any interior from a “traditional” car brand.

Clean, modern, logical, and incorporating just enough physical controls, the Lucid Gravity operates, looks, and drives like a Tesla Model X with better build quality and none of the cultural baggage. Simply put, it feels like a Tesla from a brighter timeline.

The nav system’s range overlays give you a neat radar-like visual map of exactly how far you can still go with the energy it has, the rear doors swing open a full 90 degrees, third row seats are big enough to comfortably accommodate tall adults, and the whole thing moves confidently, fluidly, and comfortably on the road.

When AutoTrader Road Test Editor Dan Ilika came back from the first drive, he wrote, “...this all-wheel-drive SUV prioritizes effortless luxury over pure performance, surging ahead smoothly instead of violently. Meanwhile, the powertrain is perfectly complemented by the suspension that uses standard single-chamber or optional three-chamber air springs to soak up bumps in the road with ease.

“Just like the Air before it, the 2026 Lucid Gravity is a segment leader by most measures that matter. More importantly, it’s an encouraging encore performance that proves just how serious this brand is about building some of the best EVs around. There’s a thoughtfulness to just about every aspect of this SUV that’s born of a desire to do things just a little differently than others in the segments in which the Gravity competes, including conventional models like the Porsche Cayenne.”

Drawing unironic, non-spec-sheet comparisons to Porsche on your second-ever go at a new car as a new company is no small feat, and that’s why the Gravity is AutoTrader’s Best Premium EV of 2026.