Lucid Motors is one step closer to delivering its next vehicle to customers. On Tuesday, the California-based electric vehicle startup's first preproduction Gravity SUV rolled off the production line.
Peter Rawlinson, Lucid's CEO and CTO, announced the milestone in a LinkedIn post and shared a video of himself driving the SUV off the production line. Preproduction models are used for testing and to iron things out before production starts for customer vehicles.
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The Lucid Gravity
Lucid launched its debut vehicle, the Air sedan, in 2021. The three-row, seven-seat Gravity is its next act. Boasting 440-plus miles of range and a starting price under $80,000, it's set to go on sale by the end of 2024.
The Gravity, a three-row SUV, is Lucid's follow-up to the Air sedan, which launched as its first model in 2021. Lucid says the seven-seater will reach customers by late 2024, start at under $80,000 and offer a range in excess of 440 miles.
It's tough to overstate how important the Gravity is to Lucid's future and financial stability. The Air is by all accounts a very advanced EV. But the market for large luxury sedans is rather limited. A big SUV should open Lucid up to a wide new customer base and give it the kind of scale it needs to start clawing its way toward profitability.
Gallery: 2025 Lucid Gravity
Lucid still has a mountain to climb here, though. In the coming months, all eyes will be on whether the company can successfully and smoothly scale up production output to meaningful levels. Tesla had a notoriously painful time ramping up manufacturing of its first mass-market vehicle, the Model 3. Making a few early vehicles is one thing. Churning out hundreds or thousands of complex machines every week is a whole different ballgame.
Or as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, clearly scarred from the "production hell" period of 2018, puts it basically every chance he gets: "Prototypes are easy. Production is hard."
Contact the author: tim.levin@insideevs.com
