Lucid has some of the most advanced electric vehicle technology on the market, surpassing established automakers and even EV leader Tesla.
Rawlinson has been outspoken in pointing out exactly what Lucid’s EV rivals are doing wrong, and he’s always expressed absolute confidence that Lucid will make it big. He recently talked to CarBuzz on the sidelines of the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed and reiterated his belief that Lucid will end up dominating the automotive market.
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Lucid leads for EV tech but not sales
Even though Lucid cars are some of the most advanced, quickest and most efficient EVs around, the Arizona-based and Saudi-backed manufacturer needs to sell a lot more cars to matter on the global stage. Last year it made a little over 8,400 cars, so it needs to start ramping up production.
He said, “Do not think of Lucid as a niche luxury car company. We're gonna be huge. I want us to sell a million units a year and have a much bigger impact than that.” Lucid currently only sells one car, the Air sedan, which is a luxury sedan whose cheapest version, the Air Pure, is $69,900. It’s not affordable enough to make Lucid a true volume player, but the company is working on a $48,000 midsize model that will help it reach the goal of selling that many cars.
The Lucid boss went on to highlight the fact that for an EV, “over 40% of the cost of building that car is the cost of the battery. The gasoline engine might cost $2,000 to make; the electric battery pack can cost $20,000. So, when others are looking at gigacastings, which might make $130 difference” he noted, referring to the gigacasting process that Tesla already uses and other manufacturers may also adopt he concluded by saying “I'm going for the jugular: the battery pack cost.”
The 900-volt architecture, the highest of any EV in production, distinguishes Lucid's EV technology from that of other manufacturers. This not only allows Lucid cars to have among the best charging power figures on the market, but it also helps the Air sip electrons more frugally than other EVs.
Rawlinson's confidence extends to the upcoming Lucid Gravity SUV, which he regards as the best SUV in the world. He expects it to eat into Rivian R1S sales and asks "'How is Rivian gonna respond?' Because Gravity is gonna be the best SUV out there, and no one will be able to compete with it. To me, product is king. Bring it on [...], but I've driven R1S, and I've driven the Gravity. I'm not worried." Rivian recently heavily revised the R1 line of models with new batteries, motors and software.
Lucid recently announced that the Air sedan revised for the 2025 model year achieved a class-leading efficiency figure of just 5 miles for each kilowatt-hour consumed. This allows the Air Pure to travel over 400 real-world miles on one charge of its 84 kWh battery. To put how impressive that is into perspective, the BMW i5 M60 can’t go more than about 265 miles with its 81.2 kWh battery before it needs to be plugged in.
We recently reviewed the BMW i5 M60, which had an average electricity consumption of 2.6 miles per kWh, and it never showed more than 210 miles of predicted range even with a full battery. When we put the 2022 Lucid Air Dream Edition through our 70 mph range test, Tom Moloughney drove it for 7 hours straight and covered just over 500 miles on one charge, with an average consumption figure of 4.3 miles per kWh. This was two years ago, and Lucids have become even more efficient since.
